Is it fine to keep your pack in the vestibule in black bear country?

jscott: Im grizzly country, like elsewhere, keep my pack with me – in the tent or vestibule.  Food, food garbage, and any dirty pots go together away from where we’re camped.   And, in many settings, it’s in a bear canister.

Yes, everything has a very faint food smell on it, but I assume bears can tell the difference between a large stash of food and de minimus amounts by the smell because I can and my dog can.  The total “signal strength” smell of a small, close amount and a large, distant amount of food can be the same, but they smell different because the ratio of fast and slow diffusing molecules differs.

The total “signal strength” smell of a small, close amount and a large, distant amount of food can be the same, but they smell different because the ratio of fast and slow diffusing molecules differs.

Interesting.  Is that a hypothesis or has it been proven?

I once stupidly left a bottle of (unsweetened) vitamin c in my tent when I was bedding down. As I was dozing off I felt a big poke in my side. It was a bear reaching for the bottle from outside my tent. He or she had it perfectly zoned in, through scent alone. It reached for where the bottle was exactly. I'[d told myself the bottle wouldn’t produce enough scent to interest a bear. Stupid on my part.

David’s right I’m sure about bears being able to discriminate between faint smells that aren’t really viable food sources, and smells that are. If I’d recently spilled soup on my pack, I wouldn’t keep it near my tent though.

I’ve also had a bear rip through my medicine bag that had nothing even vaguely edible in it. Another mistake. It did contain anti bacterial ointment and iodine tablets, I think.

ToodT: I’ve seen peer-reviewed articles on how even humans can discern faster-diffusing, small molecules versus slow-diffusing, large molecules differently in each nostil. They used some C-8 compound versus a larger (C-12?) species.   (Every 45 minutes-ish, which of your nostrils is taking in more or less air switches – check right now by blocking each and one is breathing more than the other.  45 minutes later, it will have switched).

I can tell how large a dead animal is by its smell.  There’ll be something in backyard and I’ll sniff from a few spots, ponder it, and conclude it is cat-sized.  And it’ll turn out to be something like that size like a opossum.  Or something died in the car and I estimate it is as rat-sized or small squirrel and it turns out to a be a family of dead mice.  Being human, it has to be a pretty powerful smell like a dead animal for me to do that.

I notice our dog not caring about a small crumb very close but being interested in a large piece of food further away, even when they’re both out of sight and only perceptible by smell and seemingly would smell the same amount.

There’s an obvious survival advantage to percieving the size of a food resource and not chasing down every little scent.  And there’s a pausible mechanism for how that happens.  Whenever I see a survival advantage and a feasible mechanism (like highly-efficient heat-exchangers in Arctic whales’ tongues), eventually, it’s proven some years later.  Evolution is powerful.

jscott: habituated bears develop different, successful strategies, like “Bite every zip-lock bag” because 1/3 of the time, they win.

In Alaska. Pack stays in vestibule or in tent, depending on situation.

Yep, both incidences were on my last night in at very well trafficked areas; it may well have been the same bear in different years!

I hike often in and around Yosemite. Maybe those bears’ behavior of ‘let’s just see what might be in this here pack’ is what makes me nervous about having a pack in my tent vestibule. Instead, I leave it out with everything open so that a bear can see/smell there’s nothing there.

Pack NEVER in the tent. Empty, hanging on a tree or wherever. Period.

bradmacmt,

why “never”?

Thanks

I’ve never had an issue keeping my pack in the vestibule or tent. In my younger years, my food also was in the tent with me. These days I do use a bear canister and that gets stored about 100 yards away. I’ve never had a bear mess with my tent. I did have a bear come into the area we ate in one night- I had dropped a tiny bit of food on the ground while eating. Woke up the next morning to a massive hole where I had been sitting. We had our tents set up about 50 yards away. All of us slept through it. But that seems to support what David was saying. I assume my clothes, gear, etc. smelled a bit of food. But that bear was able to narrow down the actual tiny bit of food that was around and that’s what he went for. He left the bear canisters alone.

“He left the bear canisters alone.’

In the Sierra bears know they can’t get into canisters and ignore them, even though they can smell food inside of them. They’ve learned. I had one bear simply tip my canister over once. I imagine that she wanted to see if the lid would pop off. Or she wanted me to know she’d been by.

Leaving my pack outside of the tent with everything open and accessible has worked for me. Clearly I’m in the minority.

I’ve always kept my pack in my tent or vestibule. Nothing in it except for my dry bag and any unused clothing layers (usually none). food is PCT hanging or in a can a ways away.

bradmacmt, why “never”?

Hi Herman, I consider a pack likely the “stinkiest” pieces of gear a backpacker has in their possession. It has all the salt and sweat smells, camp smells, food smells, etc, condensed into one uniquely stinky piece of kit. So not only is it overly large for most vestibules, crowding out less stinky gear, I like to keep it away from where I sleep because of its profound stinkiness.

Most of my trips are in the Colorado rockies, and my biggest concern are mice and other rodents. They love to chew on backpack shoulder straps, belts, etc. because of the salt from perspiration. So I have learned the hard way to keep the pack in the tent. I put it under my sleeping pad under my knees to make it more comfortable for sleeping on my back.

Lots of good responses here.  I have done everything from sleeping with my food (makes a nice pillow)  to hiding it far from the tent in Griz country (Alaska interior where there no tall trees).   Lately hiking in the Olympic Mountains we have been hanging it in a tree if a bear-canister isn’t required (as it is in the Olympic national park part of the mountains).  But we only have black bears and they rarely have shown any aggression and have not been abused or fed by humans.  By mutual agreement, we try to avoid each other.

I keep everything in my tent unless I’m in bear canister country and then I put the bear canister outside. I want my pack in my tent, or at least in the vestibule, because if it’s outside and I forgot something in there that I want I don’t want to have to get out of my sleeping bag or put my shoes on.

If I am in an area where a bear canister is required, I usually put the canister about 100 to 200 feet away from my tent or sleeping area (if I’m cowboy camping).  Toothpaste, soap, cup/pot I cook in, go in the canister as well. If I don’t have a canister, I do use a separate odor proof bag but I do keep it in my pack which is in my tent, or close to me if cowboy camping.  I just finished 5 days in the Gila National Forest and I kept the back in the tent. Two months ago I was in the John Muir Wilderness for a week and kept the bear canister 100 yards away. All that said, humans have odors too and the odors from the food we cook probably is on our clothes, not to mention our body odors.