Touring - Food protection when you stop for a hike

Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.



PDA
Shemp
12-13-06, 01:48 PM
Okay, I looked back and found lots of bear/critter advice for the campground, but what's the procedure for taking a 30 minute to 2 hour hike away from the bike when you're not yet at the day's final destination? Specifically, I'm imagining stopping along the Icefield Parkway next summer to do a few of the hikes and wondering what I'm supposed to do. Do you hang food for that short time? not worry about it too much in a crowded parking area for that amount of time? light a ring of flares? land mines? bring a sherpa? Thanks, I'm not from, nor have I lived in, bear country... obviously. :)

centexwoody
12-13-06, 02:55 PM
AS an experienced backpacker I can tell you that for the past 30 years we've opted to hang our food from a tree anytime we're not going to be at our campsite for longer than a half hour. It's just not worth coming back to the mess.

So on your tour, if you know you're going to be hanging your food during the day, you'll pack it in your panniers that morning so that it is in one or two stuffsacks and can be hung with relative ease...no big deal, just plan & pack accordingly. Our experience with trailheads is that they can be worse than the wilderness due to folks trashing them and dropping food, wrappers etc. that bring the critters (maybe bears but usually annoyingly sharp-teethed rodents).
!!Comatoa$ted
12-13-06, 03:17 PM
I would hang the food if I could. I don't like leaving anything around. The little forest critters will try to go through anything to get at your food, if they know where it is. I've had bear problems in the past, but the animals that usually got to my food when I wasn't watching were the squirrels and racoons, and after they spread it around everywhere the birds come in and make even more of a mess of your camp.

mtnbiktn
12-13-06, 06:03 PM
If you hang your food in a dry sack, one trick to keep the squirrels etc. out is to hang the bag with a aluminum pie pan or a Frisbee about a foot above the bag. Tie a knot a foot above the bag, put a hole in the middle of the pie pan or Frisbee and let the pan etc rest on top of that knot. They will slide off the pan. If you don't.........well let's just say food hung 10 ft above the ground and 10 ft below a limb is not going to stop those cute little critters. The newer and more expensive the sack the more they love them. DISCLAMER: THIS WILL NOT DETER BEARS, JUST LITTLE ,SHARP TOOTH CRITTERS.