Bears Bags? - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

Is hanging your food a priority on the At? If so where? What foods will bears go after, will they go after rice and oats and plain food? I mean I dont plan on taking any honey. thank yous

Doug M

#2

i think there’s a lot of controversy surrounding this issue. personally, i hung my food where bear cables were provided in the smokies and times when i wasn’t near shelters. in new jersey, bear boxes were sometimes provided. sometimes i slept with my food. most of the time, i hung it in the shelters where it was more susceptible to the “little bears”, also known as mice. bears have a pretty good sense of smell and will probably go for whatever you have in your food bag. if you are nervous about bears, you should hang your food every night. i know of two incidents that bears bothered people. in 2001, a hiker named yellow was preparing her breakfast at william penn shelter and a bear came up and made off with her food bag. after a lot of shouting and rock throwing, the bear took off with just the triscuits. another hiker had late night snickers cravings and kept one in the tent. a bear came into the vestibule of the tent but was chased off by lots of noise. personally, i’ve only seen bears on the trail and was never bothered or followed by any. well, enough rambling for me. only a short time now for all you '04 hikers!

zero

#3

The rule is that there are no rules regarding this. All bears do not behave the same and do not have the same teachings/learnings regarding human food and human interaction.

Bears rely partly on their nose to locate their food. If they can’t smell it, then maybe they will not go after it. So double plastic bag it and tie them tight to keep the smells in. Some bears have learned that hanging bear bags mean food in them there bags (visual) or maybe food in them, so they will go after hanging bear bags and try to knock them down, etc. So if you hang your food bags bear bag style, do it right. Use counter weight system so there is no rope down low that bear can pull on and knock around to see if he can get a bear bag to come down. And hang them as high as possible.

Will bears go after your food? Yes, ask Bluebearee. She will tell you. And others have also had some bad experiences. Some places along the AT, bears are not a problem, some places they are. Just keep your ears open and learn as you go.

See you out there. :cheers

Maintain

#4

Hanging your bag kind of goes with my thoughts on purifying water… You have to do what makes you comfortable. THat is a personal decision that you have to make. I only hung my bag the first year in the smokies. Since then I hav never hung a bag, well except in Yellowstone… My food bag is my pillow. I never worries about it. I did hear of a hiker in 2000 who had problems in the Doahs. Was that a trail rumor or an actual event… I dunno. It was funny the second year to see a bunch of newbie hikers hanging food bags on Standing Indian Mountain (the trees are four feet tall) After they hung their bags I was laughing so hard I told them that the only bears that couldn’t get those bags would have been midget circus bears…

stay free,

aswah 2004

Aswah

#5

if it has a smell it can attract bears,including food,or things like toothpaste,flavored chapstick etc.Even if they later decide they don’t want to eat it.If a bear gets something from even one hiker,he will be looking at all hikers as a source of food.Lots of people keep food on them,or in their tent and never have a problem.You may think the risk of YOU having trouble is very small,and it is,but again if one person loses his food it creates a problem that will get worse each time the bears are rewarded for coming around humans.It’s a little like LNT,If I take a dump on the side of the trail it’s not a big deal,but after the 3,000 hikers behind me do it, someone will suffer.Thanks for listening,see you on the trail.Oo

Onlyone

#6

Aren’t bears attracted to shelters? I was thinking that most hikers will be cooking their meals there right?
Seems to me that if your tenting it near a shelter you’d be a prime target for a optimistic bear. Foof or no food in your tent.

Scandiman

#7

Bear encounters are fun. Ha! Ha! Flame and I were doing some loop hikes in the Smokies out of Elkmont in 2000. We had a bear in camp from 5:00pm until the next morning. It never got more than a couple of hundred feet from our campsite. We ate no dinner nor breakfast. He or she was spending time in a Serviceberry Tree dinning on the ripe berries. The campsite was the same site that in 2001 the lady was killed. We only saw three bears on our 2002 thru-hike. One in the SNF in VA and the other two in Bear Mountain Zoo in NY. With a March 3 start we were out of the Smokies before any bears got out of their winter beds. We saw the bear-killed-deer in NJ. Pig Chicken captured the bear catching the deer on video.

Flame had a raccoon eat a hole through her pack to get to a multi-vitamin. I’ll never forget the morning we found two hikers on Trey Mountain in GA with two skunks in their packs, in their food bags. There was food all over the campsite and they were sitting on a rock watching. They said the skunks had been there since midnight. I always put my food bag up in the shelter or a tree to keep the varmints out (coon, mice, skunks, porkies, etc.). Throwing the bag string up in the trees is part of the fun. I also found it a challenge to get bag ropes out of trees at campsites. Some areas near roads looked like tensile-town with all of the ropes hanging from trees. Waffle King always slept with his food bag. I fought over my GORP on one occasion with a chipmunk. I put my hand in and get some and then he would crawl in an grab a peanut. I ziplocked the bag and he got real mad at me. Flame was taking a nap in Maryland and I put some peanuts in her hair and the chipmunks would get them out. Got pictures! I’ve had raccoons chew through a tent before to get to a piece of chewing gum. Have fun with your food bag and the animals!

Papa Smurf

#8

These probably work against bears, as advertised. Does anyone know if they’ll foil smaller guys, like mice, chipmunks, skunks, etc?

pigpen

#9

Bears are smart. They know where and how to find food. Depending on where you are, bears are worse than other places. Places notorous for bears include Georgia, the National Parks, and New Jersey. If there is a bear cable or bear box, then use it. Also, until you are out of bear country for the last time, don’t put food in your tent. That attracts bears and other critters.

Just because one individual did not have a problem doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist.

How do you know if there is a bear problem? First, look for the bear box or bear cable. Second, read the shelter register. If there is a problem, you can be sure someone wrote about it.

By the way, bears will potentially go after anything with a scent. A bear ate our daughter’s bug spray!

All that being said, there are many places along the AT where bears are not a problem. And even in bear country, if you camp away from shelters, you probably will not have a problem. That’s because bears know that the food is usually near a shelter or established camp site.

Peaks

#10

Pigpen wrote: “Ursack
These probably work against bears, as advertised. Does anyone know if they’ll foil smaller guys, like mice, chipmunks, skunks, etc?”

Yes, Ursak bear bags will work for all critters. These bags are made out of kevlar, the same stuff they make chain saw chaps and bullet proof vests out of. Even a grissley bear cannot get through them. However they can pound them to a pulp and any food inside would be mush. Same for a black bear, if they chew on it and chew on it. The food will be safe, but it will be a real mess inside the bag.

You can buy kevlar and make your own bag as the material is sold by outdoor fabric folks, sewing it and getting a needle thru is is alas another problem.

So if you buy and use a Ursak bear bag, hang it high so the bears can’t reach it. But it will keep the mice, raccoons and other critters out of your food supply. They are a mite heavy, but worth the cost in dollars and weight if you want to keep your food supply safe.

Best to hang your food where you can see it and keep an eye on it now and them. Hang it high enough so the bears won’t get it and the other little critters too. Plastic bag it (double plastic bagging is better)----it will keep critter from smelling it and it also makes it waterproof in case it rains. And if the critters can’t smell it, they will probably not go after it, unless they observe it visually and are curious as to what is in there----also some bears know exactly what bear bagging is all about, and if they see the bag, they will go after it, because they know from previous experience what is in the bag.

See you out there. :cheers

Maintain

#11

I believe it was at Deep Gap Shelter (the one just before Dicks Gap in GA) I was awaken in the night by a terrible noise. We were tenting near the bear cables and when I looked out there were three raccoons swinging on the cables trying to get to the bags. I sneaked out and shook the cables and down came three coons with a thud. About 20 minutes later they were back up on the cables, repeat… thud. This happened three more times before they stopped climbing up the cables. I had a ball… I’m glad it was a short walk to the road and a hitch to the Blueberry patch the next day because I didn’t get much sleep, for playing with the raccoons. The trail offers a cornucopia of entertainment. Enjoy!

Papa Smurf

#12

A friend of mine who was the district ranger at King’s Canyon told me last year that they found Ursacks uneffective against black bears (they HAVE gotten in them) and that’s why they require the use of cannisters or campsite bear boxes only.

Tha Wookie