New bear resistant “Grubcan”

[Rebecca 510]

Aww man! Finally a new bear can, and instead of that neat almost-spherical prototype that came apart into two halves so you had easy access to everything, it’s… pretty much the opposite of that.

 

(I can’t remember the name of that prototype, but I’m still sad that it never came to market.)

[David Gardner]

Hey Rebecca, curious about that spheroid bear can. Do you remember if it was hinged, or if the hemispheres screwed together? I like the accessibility idea – but I’d sure hate to drop it on a steep sloop!

[BlackHatGuy]

Here’s an old thread about the bear can I think Rebecca 510 is talking about. Also has a link to a story on the can, and some posts by the creator answering some questions. It’s from 2011.

[jscott]

Oh geeze isn’t a bear just going to roll that sphere can off and play with it like a cat with catnip?

 

[Rebecca 510]

Yeah, that’s the one. Besides the handy middle opening, it was going to be lighter than a Bearvault at a similar price point. Then it just never appeared.

On reflection I think the long skinny can would actually go into a Zpacks pack a lot more easily than a BV500 or a big Bearikade. My Arc Blast is easily long enough to hold it, and packing things around the width of my Bearikade is a hassle.

Still not convinced it’s worth the nuisance of packing my food in a long tube. I’m thinking on the last couple days I’d just be up-ending everything onto the ground rather than fumbling around at the bottom for what I need… But that also depends on your food style. If you do a lot of neatly organized prepacked meals and have a consistent routine of how much you eat each day, it might be easy to layer your food in there day by day.

[Holly J]

Hi All! I’m co-creator of Grubcan. I was just made aware of this thread and wanted to chime in.  First of all, I’m so grateful that you’re even talking about Grubcan. It may not work for you, but we do appreciate that there’s interest. There is a lot of concern in this thread about a bear being able to chomp down on this canister. They can’t. If they could it wouldn’t have passed the IGBC test. Black bears are incredibly smart. Many of you are probably aware of the bear in the Adirondack that carried off BV’s and broke into them (and sadly had to be killed last year).  This is not to diss BV’s, it’s to show that bears can figure out many ways to carry off a canister no matter it’s diameter. We tried many different widths and latches before coming the Grubcan GL. Grubcan is made from the same thing bullet-proof windows are made from, polycarbonate (also what Bearvault’s are made from).  We’ve gotten to learn more about the intelligence of bears in creating Grubcan, than we ever thought possible. People are carrying the Grubcan inside 36L packs but everyone packs differently and there are different pack shapes. We didn’t make Grubcan for everyone. It initially was just for us, but people started asking for one and then REI caught wind of it, and ordered a bunch. We’ve been blown away by the response to Grubcan, and the amount of fan mail we get. We wish we could’ve made it cheaper but with the amount of labor that went into the Gravity latch, it wasn’t possible and pay our team a good wage. For now, we’ve discontinued the gravity latch, as we created a new combo latch that doesn’t require as much time to put together. (We are only making carbon fiber/kevlar versions of this canister right now due to wanting to keep things locally made). Again thank you all for your thoughts about the Grubcan. We appreciate all feedback as we keep improving our products.

[Author]

Posts