Thoughts on the Bearikade Weekender Vs Scout for JMT Hike?

[Adam Klags]

I spent some time looking at the JMT map and campsites, but I’m having trouble lining up all the resupply points and was hoping to get some advice on my bear barrel.

I am thinking that maybe the Bearikade weekender is a little overkill for what a person needs on the JMT, and that I might be able to get away with the Bearikade Scout. The 2.5 inch difference is enough to mean the difference between using any pack I want, and having to buy a pack just for the bearikade weekender.

That would add weight because its a lot heavier to use a ULA catalyst or circuit than a zpacks arc blast… so I am really wanting to try to get into the scout.

Do you think its a mistake to think I can fit the amount of food I’d need into the scout? Keep in mind I’ll be moving slower than most people do on this trail because I’ll be fishing my way across it, and won’t be trying to make it a fast hike.

[Matthew / BPL]

Short answer: no

Long Answer: it depends on how much food you want eat each day and how long you plan to be on the trail. Through rigorous research, spreadsheets and bulk packaging I was able to get 10 days of about 3,300 calories/day in a 700cu/in BV500. The Weekender is 500cu/in so if you brought the foods I brought you’d have ~23,500 calories. Is that enough for your trip?

[Ben C]

A weekender fits fine in a Zpacks Blast or Arc Blast.  I have carried one in a Blast and my friend carries one in his Arc Blast.

I was able to do a 10 day hike with a Weekender through the southern Sierra.  It was tight and I kept the first day’s food out of the cannister.

[Brad Rogers]

I would think the Scout would be a really tight squeeze for the JMT unless you were really booking it.

 

[Tony Wong]

I did the JMT in 2011 in 15 days with a zero day at Vermillion Valley Resort and found my 700 cu in Bear Vault too small for the 2nd half of the trip.

Assuming that you are traveling North to South, getting the VVR or Muir Trial Ranch should be no problem, as there are a number of places for you to resupply.

The “2nd” half/110 miles of the JMT after MTR is the challenge as your options for resupply are limited to leaving the trail to detour to Onion Valley or to pay for a pack mule driver to meet you on the trial for resupply.

The faster that you can go per day, then the less food you will need to carry.

For myself, I ended up having a Bearikade custom cut to 750 cu in so I could comfortably carry 7 days of food in after my experience on the JMT.

The 700 cu in bear vault was too small for my needs.

Like others have suggested, you have to figure out how many calories you need per day and what type of dense/compact food you can eat/tolerate to give you the calories you need.

Then you can decide how much storage capacity you might need for the 2nd half of the trip.

Here is a helpful link that I just found: http://bearfoottheory.com/john-muir-trail-resupply/

Tony

[Dave B]

In order to determine the size Bearkikade bear canister you will need, you need to start with the greatest number of days you will go without a resupply.  Gather all the food and other smelly items you will be placing in the canister for that period of time.  Remember to include non-food scented items you would normally put in a bear canister.

All Bearikade canisters have a 9 inch diameter.  Get some poster board, and make it into a cylinder with a 9 inch diameter.  Place all the items you will be placing in the bear canister during this stretch of the trip into the cylinder.  Measure how high the items come up in the cylinder.  That measurement will tell you which size Bearikade you will need.

[Kenneth Keating]

+1 on what others said, but if you’re fishing along the way most likely the Weekender(it’s 650 Cu In, not 500) won’t be large enough to go the last 115 miles past MTR.

[Matthew / BPL]

Unsolicited advice: join the Yahoo JMT group and read everything in the food section, particularly the stuff written/posted by John Ladd. There are plenty of people there that have hiked the JMT yearly for a decade or more. They’ve worked all of this out to an amazing level of precision.

[Charles Grier]

I used a Bearikade Weekender for the MTR to MT. Whitney stretch of my solo JMT hike in 2014.  I was able to get nine+ days worth of food in the Weekender; I carried another day-and-a-half’s worth of food in an Ursack that I included in my resupply package.  Bear canisters were not then required for the stretch of trail between MTR and Woods Creek Crossing; hanging was considered adequate bear protection at that time.  I”m not sure of the situation now.  For a 2008 JMT through-hike I was able to get all of my food for ten days in a BV-500.

Doing a dense pack of a bear canister is a bit of an art.  For the 2014 hike I packed the Weekender at home and mailed it to MTR in a five-gallon bucket.  For the first half of the trip I carried my food in a BV-450 and swapped it for the Weekender at MTR.  I seem to be able to pack things more compactly at home than on the trail.  I made use of calorie-dense food with little in the way of air space,  I packed all of the meals individually in heat sealed plastic bags.  I also put several pin holes in every plastic bag so that air could escape as the canister was packed. I also planned on loosing a few pounds from my “reserve tank” between MTR and Whitney.  At any rate, I was able to use the Weekender easily for the 11 days.

As it turned out, I had to leave the BV at MTR.  In correspondence with MTR I had been given the impression that they would be able to mail the BV home for me.  When I got there it turned out I had been given the wrong information.  I decided to leave it there and figured that it was worth roughly $5.00 per day to not have to carry two bear cans.  Note to self–get it in writing next time.

I seriously doubt that you could get enough food into a Scout to last you ten to eleven days.

BTW, the Bearikade is larger in diameter than is the BV and carried upright in a couple of my  packs there is no room to stuff much gear down beside the canister in the main compartment.  I used an Elemental Horizons Aquilo pack on my 2014 trip and it worked well with the Weekender.  Another pack I have used with the Weekender is the Granite Gear Crown AC 60.  Both of these packs weigh about 34 oz.  I used a Golite Quest (3 lb.) in 2008 with the BV-500 carried horizontally on the bottom.

[Matthew / BPL]

My understanding is that the only legal hang on the stretch south of MTR is a counterbalance hang. Using an Ursack in its intended manner is not legal in that stretch.

Disclaimer: I only know what I’ve read time and time again when this topic comes up on the Yahoo JMT group and Facebook group. Call the authorities and ask them to get a definitive answer.

[Cameron M]

I can only stuff 10 days into an expedition (900 cu in) and 7 days into a Weekender (656 cu in). That is considering about 1.6 lbs of food a day. I use dense stuff and crush everything, and have no idea how others put in more. So for most people I don’t think even a Weekender can satisfy what you need. You would have to hang the rest and make sure you only had the canister by the time you hit Pinchot Pass.

[jscott]

Yep, like Cameron I get 7 days in a weekender–maybe 7 1/2 (breakfast for day 8). 6 days for the scout, carrying my first day’s  dinner and lunch outside of the canister and only breakfast or a power bar for the 6th day hike out.

[Mike Whitesell]

I just did the JMT in 12 days with no resupply and got 3,300 calories a day into a bearikade expedition in my zpacks arc blast. I overpacked and ended up only eating 1,200-1,500 calories a day.

[Matthew / BPL]

^That’s a good point.

Everyone is different, of course, but I could only get about 2000 cal/day in me for the first half and then maybe 2500 cal/day for the southern half. I hear about some people eating 4000 cal/day and I just don’t think I could get that much down. I did lose some weight during the trip and that was fine with me.

[Adam Klags]

Thanks for the advice, its all very helpful.

I doubt I could fit the entire 10 days of the “second half” into my weekender, but I will probably figure something else out in terms of having something packed in, or hiking out to take a break and resupply.

I have no interest in going any larger, I already feel the weekender is disgustingly large :)

I would rather eat more fish and split up the trip to keep in the smaller barrel, and in fact would like to even figure out a way to do this with the scout instead.

It appears that each resupply is only 2-3 days apart in the 1st half of the JMT, which should leave me a ton more room. I plan to carry a bear barrel the whole time because I find it way easier than trying to deal with a hang even where legal. I can imagine I can easily cram 4 days of food into a scout, since I have a barrel half that size that I usually use in the Adirondacks and holds a solid 3-4 days worth of food.

I wonder if maybe my calories consumed on the trail are lower than average because I just practice-packed my weekender and I was easily able to get 7-8 days of food in there without any repackaging of items at all… I think that’s a good sign.

 

[Ben C]

My experience is that, at altitude and high mileage days, I don’t have my usual appetite for the first 5-6 days.  After that, it picks up considerably.  If you are the same, it would be advantageous to do a northbound trip so that you could carry less food in the long section in the south without resupply.

[Adam Klags]

Now that’s an interesting idea. I was more worried about the altitude honestly, and was planning to work my way up to the height of Whitney. But you make an interesting case because I find that to be correct about appetites as well :)

[Anonymous]

“I am thinking that maybe the Bearikade weekender is a little overkill for what a person needs on the JMT, and that I might be able to get away with the Bearikade Scout. The 2.5 inch difference is enough to mean the difference between using any pack I want, and having to buy a pack just for the bearikade weekender.

That would add weight because its a lot heavier to use a ULA catalyst or circuit than a zpacks arc blast… so I am really wanting to try to get into the scout.

Do you think its a mistake to think I can fit the amount of food I’d need into the scout? Keep in mind I’ll be moving slower than most people do on this trail because I’ll be fishing my way across it, and won’t be trying to make it a fast hike.”

So much depends on how many calories/day you want to carry, and how effectively you can compress food items down. I am not a thru hiker, nor do I typically do high mileage days, so I use a Scout for my trips, with 2000 calories/day allowed. My food packs down very well, by design. The trick for me is to get the additional calories I need from body fat, and my choice of foods is designed to facilitate that. I have been out as long as 11 days unresupplied on that kind of diet so far, and can easily get 8 days worth of food in my Scout, with the first day carried outside my canister making it 9 days with a Scout. What I am leading up to is this: If you are fishing to supplement your food, are not doing high mileage days, and can cover enough miles to reach your resupply point in 9 days, you might consider this approach. BTW, I use a ULA OHM 2.0, and the Scout slips into it like a dream with the flat top of the canister snuggled up agains my back. No curved surface digging into my back. That is a pretty light setup, I’d say.

[David Hicks]

I did a SoBo JMT last month and I carried a Weekender. My longest stretch between resupplies was 5 days, VVR to Onion Valley; actually Independence, CA. The side trail up over Kearsarge Pass to Onion Vally was beautiful, and while Independence is a podunk town, there are a couple decent motels and a taco truck for dinner. Between that side trip and the easy resupply up north, I easily could have gotten away with a Scout rather than a Weekender.

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