Beef jerky, tuna in foil packets, salami – in bear country, sleeping with Opsak?

[Anna T]

 

I’m working on planning food for a solo thruhike of the Long Trail in Vermont, late August until the end of September. Leaving in a few days.

As part of my food strategy, which in general is keeping food low-odor and sleeping with my food inside a Loksak Opsak, is it acceptable to have items like beef jerky, tuna in foil packets, salami, cheese, etc? In other words, are they low-odor enough?

So far I’ve been avoiding those items (except the cheese, which I will have a lot of). If I don’t take them, my protein will come from protein powder, cheese, nuts, whole grains, and freeze-dried beef/chicken in Mountain House meals.

Have you done this exact thing, on the East Coast? Under what circumstances would you consider it to be safe?

Some context/background info:

Vermont has one of the densest black bear populations in the country, approximately 1 bear every 3 square miles (about 6000 bears in the state). There are no brown bears or grizzlies. Human traffic is relatively high on the southern portion of the Long Trail, which coincides with the AT, and quite low on the northern portion. Hunting is legal. Bear attacks remain rare. Only one person, a hunter whose bullet essentially missed, has ever been killed by a bear in Vermont. However, bears have recently (within the last year) become a problem in the high traffic area near Camel’s Hump, which now has bear boxes and is on my route. As far as seasonal bear activity, according to VT Fish & Wildlife, “By late August, bears seek foods with the highest nutritional value. In an effort to store as much energy as possible, they will eat up to 24 hours a day.”

I will be following Andrew Skurka’s advice for food protection in bear country. Specifically, I’m planning to:

– eat dinner on the trail, then hike another 30-60 minutes and set up camp, eat a small snack and go to bed
– camp away from established tent sites and shelters
– carry low-odor items and foods
– carry my food in Loksak Opsak odorproof bags, which sit inside a thinner BaseCamp odor barrier bag in my backpack

(For those who know the full list, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to consistently burn my trash, start early or finish late, or plan my route to avoid bear food sources.)

I’m planning to sleep with my food. No bear hang (except if I choose to stay in a shelter), no bear canister. The food will be inside a Loksak Opsak bag, which is inside the thinner BaseCamp odor barrier bag.

[Rick Reno]

There are a lot of bears here, and they tend not to be shy around humans (this is one about 50′ from my house, a couple weeks ago).

Jerky, salami, cheese etc. sound pretty smelly (and good!) to me, and probably to bears as well.

I’d be careful about sleeping with my food and wonder, why don’t you just hang the Loksak a little ways away from where you’re sleeping?

it’s kind of funny: when I was a kid we used to sleep with our food and hang our dirty clothes around our tent to keep bears way; now they seem attracted by the scent. Hmmm…

Just my $.02; have a great trip!

[Matthew / BPL]

Are there regulations about hanging food in those forests?

What do the local rangers recommend?

[Anna T]

OK, I’m going to try to clarify:

A determined bear can get the food in any bear hang. In a PCT hang, they can send a bear cub out on the branch to break it (if it’s small enough) or go out on the branch themselves and chew through the rope (if the branch is big enough). In a two-tree hang, they can chew through the rope where it’s attached to the tree trunk. In both cases, they can climb a tree and then launch themselves at the bear bag from above, which will break the rope anyhow.

Given the many failure modes of a bear hang, it seems a key point is making the bear less interested in your food to begin with. You can’t eliminate smells (especially since your hands will contaminate the outside of an Opsak) but you can reduce them. That’s my goal here. The smell of a human is also a deterrent up to a point – the bear knows you’re in your tent guarding your food, and hopefully it will decide it’s not interested enough in your food to fight you for it. Camping away from the trail and away from water and bear food sources helps too, because a bear is less likely to have a habit of checking your specific campsite for food.

There have been numerous reports of bears being extremely interested in meat products, for example carrying away packs from shelters and eating just the can of tuna or pack of jerky, leaving the rest untouched. Having these foods in a tent a night has similarly provoked bear attacks. But as far as I can tell, none of those incidents involved the use of an odorproof bag of any kind. Eliminating meat products entirely would be the safest route, but I’d like to have more data on meat products in odorproof bags in bear country.

Finally, I have heard from many sources that lots of AT thruhikers start out doing bear hangs every night, then decide it’s not necessary (or too much hassle) and just sleep with their food, with or without odorproof bags, instead. How well does that strategy work in Vermont, which has lots of bears? Any incidents to report?

[Greg Deitrick]

I love that picture. It needs a caption. “Make my day” maybe?

Recently I saw on the Internet a test of Opsack and drug dogs which found the dogs had no trouble at all finding the Opsack-contained scent item.

There was also (recently?) the guy that was in his tent on the AT when attacked by a bear. AFAIK, no food in the tent either. So the risk is greater than zero even if no food is involved.

An Ursack is what, about 8 or 9 ounces, is quick and simple to use, and won’t motivate any bear to come into your tent. You will spend several (?) nights in an area known for having lots of bears. Yes, the chances of having a bear encounter are probably pretty small, but the potential consequences are huge.

Compare this with your shelter. You could probably get by with just a cuben or polycryo poncho of 3 ounces or so for shelter AND rain gear. The chances of you getting wet at night are much higher than the chances of a bear encounter, but the consequences are probably not much more than temporary discomfort. Most likely your shelter option is more substantial than this because avoiding that potential discomfort is more important to you than the additional shelter weight.

You are going to an area that is known for lots of bears. Maybe for THIS trip you get super-macho-ultralight for ALL of the OTHER parts of your camping kit and splurge a little extra weight on the bear-management kit. Call it your luxury item if you like.

[W I S N E R !]

I wouldn’t trust an OP sack enough to sleep with used tuna pouches.  And I’m not too clear on what I’d gain by trying in the first place.

[ben .]

i’ve only backpacked 20 or so miles of the LT, but have spent a ton of time in the woods in vermont.

i’d just offer that – regardless of how you protect your food – trying to “camp away from established tent sites and shelters” can be pretty tricky in such a densely forested state.

it’s not impossible, but finding a flat spot without understory or inconvenient rocks and roots where you were hoping to lay your head can be next to impossible sometimes, at least for me.

however you go about it, have fun!

[Ben H.]

As far as I know there is no scientific evidence on the efficacy of what you are proposing.  The only thing you will get here is anecdotal evidence.  Sure sleeping with your food is at least somewhat effective (without an Opsak).  When its not, the bear most likely will have to be put down.  What we do know is that bears can smell food through Opsaks.  We do know that bear hangings and bear canister are more effective.  The bear is not deciding whether to fight you or not for your food.  The bear has no interest in fighting a human.  It is hoping the human will run away and leave the food.

[Link .]

Greg is this the article you saw  HOW SAFE IS YOUR FOOD? INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ODOR-PROOF BAGS ? It was done by BPL member Ari Jutkowitz for a BPL article.

[Greg Deitrick]

Greg is this the article you saw HOW SAFE IS YOUR FOOD? INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ODOR-PROOF BAGS ? It was done by BPL member Ari Jutkowitz for a BPL article.

Yes, that is it.

[David Thomas]

Anna,

Your approach is what I would do in that area.  I appreciate how you’ve weighed many factors like the lack of local fatalities and of any grizzlies (not true for me).  Decades ago, when I was in groups that lost food, at least temporarily, to black bears, every time, they went for the pack / bag with the salami in it.  Now this was un-sealed salami, not in factory-sealed plastic.  I suspect factory-sealed or home-vac-packed with the outside carefully cleaned would be very low-odor.

Just like I have a particular sequence through the grocery store, bears develop habits around where the most careless people have the tastiest food.  Stealth camping after from established campsites and off of (especially down-wind of) established trails would probably help.

Also, like TR said, “carry a big stick” by which I mean, have a stout stick and a pile of fist-sized rocks at your side at your camp*.  Not only can you, if so inclined, go get your food back (I have from black bears), but the added confidence you’ll feel with a baseball bat-sized stick in one hand while heaving rocks with the other has spooked all the black bears I’ve encountered.  Even in Yosemite NP, IME, so more easily in an area where hunting is allowed.

*I edited “as you sleep” to “at your camp”.  I’ve had them come into camp during the day, while we were all puttering around setting up camp or cooking.  So gather the rocks and stout stick early on.  They look very surprised as I run at them, brandishing the stick, yelling, and throwing rocks, but within 2 seconds are running away.

[David Thomas]

Separate, very science-geeky theories about food wrappers:

Now, burning or otherwise disposing of salami / cheese / tuna wrappers are all good practices and do it if you can.  But realize that animals can detect HOW MUCH food is present.  It has to do with the balance of low- versus fast-diffusing molecules they detect.  If it was only about the “signal strength ” of the smell, my dog with be as enticed by a small crumb at 6 inches as by a slice of bread at 6 feet, but she can clearly distinguish between small food close by and big food further away.  So can I, if I get into a certain semi-conscious assessment of it.  I can wander around a house, yard, or shed sniffing a dead-animal smell and tell you how big the animal is.  I might say “cat-sized” and if it’s not a cat, it is that size, like an adult opossum.  Bears must be far better as this than I am, so I am most concerned about protecting or keeping sealed the smells from large chunks of food.

Again, best to minimize all smells, and habituated black bears will bite every item in your camp to see if it has food in it, but I would, for instance, repackage all salami into single-serving, odor-blocking packages or accept the slightly greater weight and cost of single-serving factory-sealed packaging so as minimize transmitting the smell of a larger quantity of a tasty food item.

[Matthew / BPL]

Salami is pretty tasty.

[JCH]

Bears in the area? I’m using a hang or a canister situated a LONG way away from my tent…no question about it. A bear mauling is not how I intend to die.

And oh yeah, salami is real tasty :)

[Yak Attack]

 

I lack the experience of a lot of members here, so take this with a grain of salt.

i wouldn’t do what you’re describing with smelly items like meat.  I’d hang that.  However, I am type 1 diabetic.  It’s not uncommon for my blood sugar to crash during the night after a long day.  When this happens, it’s a frightening experience to stumble around in a stupor trying to find your food bag up in a tree.  I came perilously close to walking off a 200′ cliff in the red river gorge one night.

As as a result of one too many of these experiences, I sleep with some sort of high sugar food 100% of the time now.  Usually this is some form of candy or glucose tabs or gel packs.  I keep this stuff under my pillow in an opsak.

After that last experience, I figured the probability of me dieing from low blood sugar or a related accident was higher than a bear attack.

I’ve never had to make this decision in grizzly territory or bear-dense areas like Vermont, only because I’ve never been to either (yet)…

edits: spelling

[Author]

Posts