I've been trying to come up with a way to have chilled food in the BWCA without the need for hanging the pack. I typically use a blue barrel containing only dry food.

Has anyone had experience with using a bear can (like a BearVault) placed inside of a traditional insulated food pack surrounded by ice? That would essentially secure the food from the bear scoring it, but my concern would be that a bear could drag off the pack with the can inside, and although it wouldn't get into the food due to the bearproof canister, it obviously would cause trip problems.

I should add that I'm not really interested in going through the work of creating an insulated blue barrel as some have done before.

On short trips where little food is carried a bear vault could be a answer.

On long trips my insulated pack start out full and putting a bear vault in it would
take up so much more room it wouldn't work.