More bear resistant food storage = less UL?

I really, really like my BV425. It’s so easy to pack in a low volume pack flat against your back. I’m willing to play Tetris dealing with the small 5 liter volume. I find it much more comfortable to carry and easy to use than my previous favorite, my 4.5 Bareboxer Contender.

i hope to see innovation in the ursack-type category of food protection if thats the case. new fabrics to reduce punctures, and/or the normalization and modification of liners to better protect food from crushing and saliva both offer opportunities to build something better around the flexible and bear safe food containers out there.

I think that UL backpacks will evolve to better carry Bear Canisters (like The Bear Ears pack).  That was one of the reasons that I sold my Kakwa 40 and not interested in the 50: doesn’t meet my needs.  Many areas in the Sierras require the use of Bear canisters and that requirement is only going to grow.  Packs need to evolve, there is a big market out there ready to be taken. My 2 cents.

Jon, agreed. And what’s interesting is my old SMD Starlite easily and comfortably carried a BV500 horizontally and the pack weighed about 24 oz.

To carry a BV500/Bearikade Blazer inside horizontally takes 42″ pack circumference. 44″ is better for long term durability, as it allows more padding.

A pack of that girth with a back height of say 24″ would be in the neighborhood of 60 liters. This is big for UL’ers with an otherwise compact kit, and the pack would be heavier than most can accept. Not to mention the important ‘tiny pack look’ of the times would be ruined.

One could devise an effective compression system like the Flex Capacitor to make it useful without a canister, but this adds more weight. I suspect most would have a second true UL pack for those times.

Or the pack could taper from the needed 44″ at the top to a more manageable size below, but the shape would be awkward and that leaves the full canister sitting high dooming the design with the top heavy feel most active hikers are best without.

Carrying the canister externally in a secure fashion is the natural progression to keep weight low, size small and have ergonomics trending towards comfort.

Makeshift strapping of a full or empty can on top of a UL pack not really designed for it, is the accepted thru hiker sort-of solution. Doing 30 mile days and comparatively not that much mandatory canister terrain on the PCT/CDT/AT this is totally workable.

But backpackers using a canister all the time needs something better.

Fong mentioned the Bears Ears pack which is based around, in the smallest frameless version, a 25 liter sack on top of a super secure harness able to carry any size bear canister. It is 21 ounces including a full wrap ‘floating’ hipbelt, and super easy water access. Sorry for promoting my own stuff, but this is the best concept currently if one wants to keep internal volume down and have a reasonably light pack. Replacing the canister with a food sack, whether Ursack or plain cloth, is an option to keep using the pack in less restrictive regions.

I have carried my Bearikade Blazer in my MLD Prophet on the SHR and the JMT very comfortably – has to be the DX210d version. It is a tighter fit with the DCF/Ultra. But in the nylon which stretches, it fits great vertically and very comfortably.

Of course, when I don’t need to use the bear can, the MLD Prophet is too big for me. I have been using some compression straps to compress the MLD Prophet to mimic a MLD Burn and it works…