Originally Posted by
staehpj1
Judging by the exchange on another thread, I think she is probably gone now, so we most likely will never know.
I have been tempted several times over the years to buy an Ursak thinking I'd use it sometimes for backpacking, canoe camping, and maybe even possibly on a tour sometime....
I could imagine wanting the capacity of the XXL, but only for a canoe trip where I could take both of my canisters and a 10 liter Ursak if I wanted to. ....
My previous posts above, numbers 11 and 19 show my range of experiences for volumes, in the photo in post 19, that was a large drybag built as a backpack, two of us had about 10 days of food, or 20 person days on a canoe trip. Our canoe trips were usually a week and a half. You do not notice the extra weight of the food in a Wenona canoe, thus food weight did not matter much. We made no effort to reduce food weight.
But the photo in number 11 was solo backpacking and I want to limit my food volume and weight much more for obvious reasons, I am carrying it the whole distance on my feet , thus trying to carry less than a week of food.
Both of those categories of trips, I have sometimes not been able to string up a good food rope due to the available trees. Thus the Ursack sounded like a brilliant idea when I saw another backpacker tie it to a tree about chest height. When I saw that, I said to him, is that high enough? He said you just need a good knot and a tree stout enough. At that campsite there was no good place to hang food, so his food was protected and mine was not. And that is why I am the proud new owner of an Ursack.
I have a dry sack that is almost exactly the same dimensions, so I would put the dry bag inside to reduce odor and keep things inside it dry. I do not have a cannister, and I would likely hang the Ursack up high out of reach where it is easy to do so. But since I have never yet had a bear get to my food, I would skip the aluminum sheet.
Thus, I can see the advantages of the larger XXL Ursack, and at that price I would only want one Ursack. Unfortunately I already have the XL, so the XXL would be more cost than I want to pay, as the marginal advantage of a second larger one is not worth it. But if I only owned one and had not yet bought it, I would buy the XXL.
Since I have a lot of experience camping without an Ursack or cannister, I would have no concerns about having a bit of extra food that did not fit in the bear container for the first few days, as then at least most of my food would be protected.
My backpacking was not in places where bear canisters were required, so the Ursack makes more sense to me.