Homemade Bear Bins?

[jordop]

So say someone is planning a traverse and wants to pre-place some food and be sure that it's gonna still be there in a month . . . anybody tried to make bear/rodent-proof containers themselves? What works, if anything?

[Blakej]

If your going to be above the tree line I dont think you would need to worry about anything but rodents and in that case you could put in under some heavy rocks and some dirt to cover the majority of the scent I think. Other than that the only thing I can think of is some type of large pvc you might pick up at lowe's or the like. You can get caps for the 5-6 inch wide tubes and if you use staples such as rice and oat meal they should conform well to the tube. The only disadvantage I can see is packing out the weight.

[Dru]

If your going to be above the tree line I dont think you would need to worry about anything but rodents

 

...wrong

 

hey jordop call up john baldwin

[Blakej]

Dru I'm not the most experienced in bear country so please contradit. In general don't bears stay where there is easy traveling and plentiful food not craggy peaks?

[Mal_Con]

Not so sure I saw tracks on Luna Pass here is a string from NW Wankers http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4646

[Dru]

Dru I'm not the most experienced in bear country so please contradit. In general don't bears stay where there is easy traveling and plentiful food not craggy peaks?

 

Hell no. In fact griz will cross even large icefields to go from one valley to another in search of food and sex . Other bears in the Cdn. Rockies have been known to prefer alpine talus fields at 9000' where they will spend days on end eating bugs and marmots.

[JoshK]

Somebody on here last year was talking about seeing a black bear walking across the blue glacier.

[thelawgoddess]

i've never seen a bear outside of the zoo.

[griz]

If your going to be above the tree line I dont think you would need to worry about anything but rodents and in that case you could put in under some heavy rocks and some dirt to cover the majority of the scent I think. Other than that the only thing I can think of is some type of large pvc you might pick up at lowe's or the like. You can get caps for the 5-6 inch wide tubes and if you use staples such as rice and oat meal they should conform well to the tube. The only disadvantage I can see is packing out the weight.

 

Not much in the way of good advice there...sorry dude. You should go hiking on AK's tundra(you know... basically treeless/above treeline) and let me know how many grizzly bears you run into...most likely plenty. The PVC idea may work for rodents but bears will be able to chew apart the cap from the tube along the ridge that the cap makes. And most rodents live underground so the dirt won't help and I've watched grizzlies dig deep to eat a burrowed rodent,too.

 

Just buy a new BRFC. They last forever and work GREAT. They are pretty light compared to the older ones now. Plus, you don't have to worry about your food which is worth allot,too. Another thing I've done in bear country when there are not any trees to hang your food from is to hang it off a cliff...not sure of your terrain so that may be useless but a thought none the less.

 

I just saw a garcia machine on ebay for $49...

[lummox]

stringing your stash on a rope between two trees will work. but it has to be pretty high and far from the trees (like 15 feet).

[Duchess]

Not just griz -- Rumor has it that a black bear was seen on/near the summit of Mt. Rainier in the middle of the last century. Bears go where-ever there is food, which in the summer means between 4000-8000' in elevation. Berries... yum yum...

[AaronB]

stringing your stash on a rope between two trees will work. but it has to be pretty high and far from the trees (like 15 feet).

 

I'll have to try this shit on my girlfriend.. She chews right through that PVC shit.

[Fejas]

i've never seen a bear outside of the zoo.

 

Thats to bad...

 

 

 

Alumminum is light, and rodent prooff... can be bearyed under the ground... good in tulass feilds, or string it up high in the trees.

 

Male bears will sniff out goods before dogs,cats,people...

 

Take along a bar of zest fully clean and a carrot peeler and you wont have to worry much... cause bears don't like us as much as we don't like them...

 

Soap = 1-2 weeks, good hiding place = 1-2 weeks, 1+1 = 2-4 weeks of non disturbance....

[Dru]

i saw a slideshow once where a bear broke into some guys' food cache near racoon pass and chewed a can of tuna until it was flat...and empty.

 

john clarke made up this paste once of 33% flour, 33% laundry soap and 33% cayenne and painted his food cache buckets with it. when they got to the airdrop there were wolverine tracks going straight for the food cache right up to it and then going straight away again spaced twice as far apart.

[Fejas]

Soap works great, the Cyanne probably too.... We stashed goods up in them thar hills for three months, and never had black bears touch um... grizzlys, maybe different, but I dout it..... We replaced soap shards once every month... HaHa, it how I keep deer and elk away from the science projects aswell....

[lummox]

stringing your stash on a rope between two trees will work. but it has to be pretty high and far from the trees (like 15 feet).

 

I'll have to try this shit on my girlfriend.. She chews right through that PVC shit.

 

crack whore?

[Dru]

homemade bears, please bin

[stinkyclimber]

I'd go with Dru's advice and call John, or just check his ski guide. It gives the # for the industrial containers place in Burnaby that sells 20-40L? metal paint cans (with the hammer on lids) that almost everyone I know uses for caches on spring ski traverses. They were $5/can last time I bought them. Wouldn't save your food from a grizzly, but they are good for everything else. And if you pack it carefully, and with the airtight lid, I don't think it would give off enough odour to attract a bear to make a concerted effort to open it. I haven't heard off too many problems with this system, at least during spring traverses on the big Coast range icefields...might be different later in the summer and in lower or unglaciated alpine areas.