we have 2- 30 liter blue barrels. i have one kondos pack that holds them both. it does get heavy during the early days, and we are out for a min of 7 nights.
i really have liked not having to hang packs, even though the blue barrels are not bear proof.
what do you do?

What do I do?

I too gave up on hanging. We move camps almost every day on 8-10 day trips. Even under the best of circumstances you would be lucky to find proper hanging conditions 80% of the time. The opportunity cost of hanging is just not worth it for the way we travel.

I too use the barrels. As you said they are not bear proof, but they keep odors to a minimum (tested by my very sound nosed GSP :) ) I think that is the most important thing. The only blue barrels I have heard of bears getting into were either hung in the old reliable bear hanging tree or had food spilled all over them--which eliminates the whole keeping smells down thing. Now you have a smelly bear attractor :) Keep a clean camp, keep the odors down and the chances of a bear problem will be kept to a minimum. I use my barrels as a stool but not a table or a mixing bowl surface. Never had a spill.

I have never had a bear problem, but I have had raccoons, squirrels, Pine Martens, and mice in camp try to get into food. The barrels really keep the rodents at bay. On Alice lake I had a marten just run right up to me and take my dish sponge out of my hand--those rodents can get aggressive.

If a bear is determined enough---hang, hide or blue barrel---they can get to it. Anybody that thinks they have the one method to COMPLETELY stop a bear is kidding themselves. We are all just trying to reduce risk as much as possible. The bear proof canisters seem to be the most safe but if they are in a pack a bear could just carry off the whole pack---may not get into he barrels but if your pack is gone you get the same result. I would move to the Bear proof barrels but the current ones just don't meet my needs.

Some people hide the barrels or packs in an effort to throw the bear off. All animals develop patterns if they got food in a specific location they will just head for that location (i.e.campfire area or hanging tree). Yes if they hunt around they may find the barrel/pack or they may not depending on wind currents. Some bungee them to trees--so if a bear does get to them they are buying some time to try to scare the bear off.

I use 2 barrels so we spread them out--reducing the risk of losing all of our food. Then I put rocks or pots on them so I will be awoken if something messes with them.

T

I've typically taken trips with groups of eight people. Those first 3 nights or so really make for a super heavy food bag. What's turned out to work the best is to lighten it up by transferring some of the food into sealed plastic bags and then into very tightly sealed Kitty Litter buckets ("Fresh Step" brand containers from Sam's Club work best), and then stashing these in isolated areas behind camp.

It works slick. Over 35 years I haven't lost any food yet using this combined both/and system. There's also some built in security that if a bear were to make a score, we would only suffer a partial loss of our food supply, and most likely would still be able to go on with the rest of our trip.

Probably doesn't help you with your blue barrels but I use BearVaults. I place them outside camp at night and when we are away. The only time they are in a pack is when we are traveling. I started out with these so I have never hung a pack.

merganser, do you use 1 or 2 bear vaults, i notice they are somewhat smaller than a 30 liter blue barrel, is that correct?

Just because I know someone will post the picture of a blue barrel damaged by a bear without any actual first hand knowledge of the circumstances :)





Just kidding around....

We use 2 30L blue barrels with pretty much the same reasoning/hiding method/cleanliness as timatkn. Thanks for typing it all for me :)

The different methods have their merit and effectiveness if you do it correctly. Getting food on the barrel isn't going to help just like hanging a pack poorly won't help. On our trip last year I almost tipped us over because I was laughing so hard. The first campsite we went by had their food pack hung nice and high right in the middle of camp and it was leaning against the trunk of the tree :)

uigreyjay, do you have the Red Rock Super Pack? That's what we have and love it. Yes, it is heavy, but IMO it's very comfortable. Even though it's heavier than our other pack I find it more comfortable so I carry it with the canoe. I'm considering upgrading the barrels to bearvault/keg type containers at some point.

They're quite a bit smaller than the 30L blue barrel and so if you have 4 or more guys on a 5-6 day trip, you'd need quite a few of those bear vaults to store all of your food. That said, I have been considering the larger of the vaults bear vault for backpack camping and small group canoe camping.

We used to hang a food bag and a few years ago had a bear take one down on Insula. Never did like the whole process of hanging a food bag - finding just the right tree is often hard as T mentioned. Since then, we have been using the blue barrel system. Between the guys I trip with, we've got 2 30L and 1 60L barrels. Depending on the size of our group, we determine how many to bring. This year we had 8 guys and used 2 30L barrels. One for dry food only, and in the other we placed wine sacks and a soft sided cooler with steaks, frozen hash browns, onion, herbs and butter. It worked very well.

We bring cable locks with and cable the barrels to a tree. T is right about keeping food and odors off the outside of the barrels, so we never use them for preparing food or place food on them. And keeping a clean camp is key to cutting down on attracting bears in the first place.

The system has worked well for the past few years now, so until it stops working for us, it's what we'll do.

BTW - you know this thread has the fishguts blue barrel photo written all over it :)

They claim a full size vault will hold a person-weeks worth of food. That depends a lot on the person and what/how you pack. I can squeeze 6 days worth in max. I don't like to be hungry.

It follows then that if you have a larger group you would need a few BearVualts depending on the duration. I actually have four full size BearVaults and one shorty. Four full size BearVaults fit nicely in two columns in a #3 size pack. You can get the shorty in under the flap, not as nice a fit.

Kind of an expense to get into (assuming you buy a bunch like I did) but I really like not hanging my food and not worrying about it either.

We use a green barrel. Completely throws bears off :) We simply chain it to a tree.

I'd agree with timatkn's post. Given the time, a determined bear will get your food. Blue barrels, hanging and hiding are delay mechanisms IMHO. But, if done properly, are probably sufficient for canoe country. True bear proof containers are the most affective, but seem impractical with a larger group due to their smallish size. Without seriously changing our food menu, I'd estimate our usual group of four would need at least eight BV500s for a week-long trip. At $70+ a pop, not a very attractive option.

SC has a point about what you pack so I will elaborate on that. I make my own dehydrated meals. They are quite tasty and the portions are generous. I bring lots of flour tortillas, PB and honey for lunches, trail mix, granola and cliff bars for snacks. I typically bring some packets (home sealed) of gatorade as well, coffee and maybe cocoa.

All of these things contain fairly little moisture and pack tightly together.

Whole foods or items that don't pack well would increase the weight and decrease the packing efficiency.

i talked to a gal at our co-op and she will have an olive barrel empty soon. these have a screw on top, eliminating the locking snap lever.
they are just a tad smaller than a 30 liter blue, only thing that concerns me is the odor from the olive juice they may retain.
it's worth a look.
yes i have the redrock super pack.
i agree, it is a nice pack to carry, but my it is heavy.
i have 2-granite gear quetico packs. right now i have a barrel in each and have packed gear on the sides of the barrel to see if i can eliminate the big kondos pack.
you'd think my trip was next week or something.

I'm pretty green at this whole pack-or-hang thing (only 3 trips so far), and I appreciate reading the different approaches others take. The only things in my food pack that are likely to give off aromas are the jerky and dried fruits. But I hang it anyway - probably because I like to throw rocks and mess with ropes and don't get enough of that just setting up a tarp.

mc2mens: How do you cable lock it to a tree? Do you run the cable through the handle?
Thanks.
Pete

Not to hang. Bear Vault for me.

CP - yes, thru the handle.

counter assault bear keg for me. of course, im solo and i dont eat alot. infact...i think ill be able to fit my food, stove, fuel, cook kit, and utensils inside the keg for the next trip. (8 days)

jan - that keg sounds pretty big. which is it? size?

its just a tiny bit bigger than the bv500.

CA Keg

5 gallon pail comparison....

btw? this is my "cook kit" :)

GSI

Also use the blue barrels hidden away from camp. don't use em for tables or anything else. have hung bear bags as a scout in the past, that was a pain cause we only used whatever rock we could find to tie the rope around. I know that there are other better methods for throwing rope, but it brings back too many frustrating memories for me! Agree that any determined bear will get your stuff. I suspect that most people use the same trees all the time and the bears will be looking there. At least when you hide you have a better chance of picking an unusual spot.

BTW, I have the large GSI cookset, which does not fit in the 30l ble barrel. :(

I'm with Merganser, Own two lg and two small bear vaults. Have had six of us go for five days and can get a lot in these.

We prepare dehydrated hamburger and vacum seal it. Then we prepare other meals that work with dehydrated hamburger like goolosh, hamb helper, mac and cheese, chili, etc. So we end up with a lot of pre-packed, home made, vacum sealed meals. all stuffed nicely in a bear vault. Also pre-measure my blueberry muffin mix for the reflector oven, and pancake mix and vacum seal all this stuff and stuff it in a bear vault. Then we pack other stuff in them as the trip progresses and they become empty. make a great little place to put empty cup, pot, salt and pepper shakers, etc when in camp (small round table if you will) Down side is WEIGHT. They anint lite... but I feel trade off is worth it. We leave em out scattered around, away from the tents. then gather em up in the am to do breakfast.
SunCatcher

my choice

'Ursack' is also my food container of choice. Keeps the smaller chewers out of my food, gets more pack-able as I go.
I also agree with 'timatkn', and consider any food storage system as just a method of slowing down hungry animals I do not want to fight with. I'd rather go hungry than need to use my first aid kit [in a bear encounter]!

butthead