Food Protecton Grand Canyon

The chain link bags won’t work against ravens (don’t make me post my destroyed mesh bag photo again!), but it would probably work against mice/rats.  I’ve been ok just hanging a stuff sack from a branch or from a stake jammed into a rock crack — as long as the ravens don’t spot it.  If you want 100% protection, you’ll need a cookie tin (or popcorn tin), which the ravens haven’t figured out yet…

GC ravens are SMART:  my friend stepped away from his backpack for a nature call, and as he walked back to it, he could see a raven unzip his pack and look inside it for food!  Wow!

Oh, and don’t miss the cave on Horseshoe Mesa (you’ll need a decent headlamp).

I’ve camped on Horseshoe Mesa for two nights. Great place. Cache some water on the saddle for your return trip back up the Grand View Trail. The trail down to Miner’s Spring aka Paige Spring is wicked and it is not a 10 minute trip as the ranger told us, more like 30 minutes down and an hour up and lots of exposure ( or it was in 2009). Haul all you carry down the Grand View with you and take food that does not require a lot of water.

The mesh sacks will work for ravens if you put your sack under rocks. Or go to Goodwill or the like and buy some of those cookie or fruit cake tins to put your food in.

If you’re caching food, the cheap and varmint-proof option is an over-sized cookie- or popcorn-tin found around oversized cookie and flavored popcorn assortments at warehouse stores and given by cheap sales reps to offices around the holidays.  They also can be found, often Christmas-themed, at thrift stores for about $1.

Tins are only necessary if you are caching food.  For what you are doing, the chain link bag will work fine.  Stash it under some rocks while you are sleeping.

The Raven’s are pretty amazing in their ability to open zippers, pockets, etc.  The best defense for non-cached food is to simply never leave your food/gear exposed or unattended.

Well, I plan to leave my pack and food to take at least one day hike down to the river without all that weight. So will not be able to attend my food for at least one full day. So may look for some of those ‘tins’… Not sure what you guys are meaning by that, but I’m guess about the same as those Christmas fruit cake tins… right?

billy

question is… can those pesky ravens get the to off of one of those tins?

billy

All the corvids (ravens, crows, rooks, jays, etc) are among the smartest of birds and have been documented in laboratory research inventing new tools, complex problem solving, and having culture (collective memories persisted beyond the lifespan of any bird who witnessed the original event).

But they don’t have opposable thumbs nor a large, two-armed grip.  Those tins work.

Here are some examples of the tins I’m referring to:

Again, they can be had for little or nothing, if you know where to look (offices during the holidays, thrift shops, garage sales during the last hour, etc.

It’s allowed to grab a can of tan- or brick-colored spray paint and make them a little less garnish.

Not only are the tins cheap, they are multi-use. They come with a couple days of energy food ;-)

Lots of ravens where I live, pretty smart. There are a couple that like to tease my dog, they don’t try to harm him, just try to make him as crazy as me.

So Nick… the ravens got to you first and now they’re working on your dog? :)

Thanks for the ‘tins’ tip guys… I get the idea… will add that to my list… (believe it or not I haven’t seen or noticed those things since I was a kid in the previous century :)

billy

I completely believe that ravens can go for food, but I must have 200 nights in the canyon now, and I’ve never had a raven touch anything, or any marks from any attempt to do so.   So perhaps this is a small number of experienced birds in well camped areas?  I hang in Cuben bags usually, even if I’m off dayhiking. At established sites, if I’m off for the day, I do carry my food bag some distance from camp to hang, mainly to evade human thieves.   My food has never been touched.   I do use mesh for caches longer than a day, surrounded by rocks as mentioned above.

I’ve had ravens get into rat sacks and ursacks and destroy anything softer in Havasupai, but never had problems with them in Grand Canyon NP.  My GCNP challenge has always been mice and ratsacks and ursacks are more than sufficient.

That said, I never want to worry about food storage and since I have one I’ve taken to carrying my bearikade canister on every backpacking trip.  Maybe 2x heavier (~8oz) than ratsack or ursack but for GCNP absolutely bombproof.  And, no matter where you are camping you have a seat.

Spent 2 nights fighting racoons off in the Grand Canyon. We were the only campers in an established site in January so I guess we were the only game in town. Woke up in the middle of the first night to find a racoon pulling my bag up from the top limb like a bucket from a well. Scared him off with a trekking pole but not before it sliced through the bag and food.

Next day I left the bag out for a bit while I walked away from camp thinking racoons are generally nocturnal. Bag was gone when I returned 30 min later.

My partner slept with her food the second night, which we shared, while we clenched our poles and shouted at the racoons and who rubbed up against the tent all night.

Not sure what we could have done differently. It was on the res so camping elsewhere wasn’t an option. A cannister would have been great but I’d never considered one outside of bear country before.

Scott, what kind of “bag” did you use that they got into? Regular nylon stuff sack? Ursack? Other? Racoons are very clever. I bet they would get a ‘cookie tin’ open. But then, you weren’t talking about the GC so may not be relevant to the OP at all?

billy

Anyone have experience in the Grand Canyon with the Ursack Minor (varmit bag; not bear bag):
http://www.ursack.com/product/ursack-minor/

Wondering how it would do against the GC rats, mice, racoons, ravens, etc.

The Ursack Minor is less than half the weight of a ‘tin’ of sufficient size and would be a better barrier against critter saliva than chain mesh, me thinks.

Thinking if I put the Minor inside a black stuff sack and hang it then ravens might not spot it as it would look like just a shadow to them?

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Billy

Don’t have experience with ursacks but you’d have to make sure it’s attached to something that can’t be chewed through. A raccoon is smart enough to chew through a rope and take off with it. If you can keep away from established campsites you might not need much more than an opsack.