Bear/Critter Bags

[Phorestfreak]

Besides the obvious Be safe and always hang your food, are there areas of the AT where it is not neccesary to hang your food? and are there shelters where bear poles or other hanging systems located?

[Footslogger]

Besides the obvious Be safe and always hang your food, are there areas of the AT where it is not neccesary to hang your food? and are there shelters where bear poles or other hanging systems located?==================================
Lots of the high bear traffic areas have cables for hanging your "smellables". As far as the rest goes it's more or less a common sense thing. You'll get a wide variety of opinions on this one so in the end you just need to do what feels best to you.

I started off at Springer hanging my food every night. Over time I guess I slacked off a bit now and then but for the most part I did take some form of protection when it came to my food bag. Sometimes it was just hanging it from a varmint line in a shelter. After a while you sort of get a gut feel as to whether and how much security you need in terms of you food bag.

One thing I do know is that all it takes is one bear assault on your foodbag and you'll get religion. Truthfully though, in all my hiking experience I would have to say that the minibears (chipmonks) and mice are a much bigger hazzard than the bears as far as your food goes.

'Slogger
AT 2003

[minnesotasmith]

I have repeatedly read on www/trailjournals.com about bears managing to knock down properly hung food bags. Is it often because their bear bags are made of weak material? I've thought of using nylon laundry bags for bear bags while hiking, due to their low price, decent strength, negligible weight and space when empty, ability to air out some while full (reducing rot rate of contained foo), immunity to rot, etc. Is there something stronger commonly used for BBs that would be worth using instead?

[Moose2001]

#4 standard OR stuff bag. Works fine and easily holds up to 5 days of food. If you're hanging it on one of the bear lines down South, hook it to the clip with a carabiner. Keeps the bag from being knocked off if the bear shakes the line.

[BookBurner]

Georgia and North Carolina have a lot of cable systems now set up at shelters to hang food and other smellables from. The Shenandoah N.P. has food poles. And if memory serves me correctly, several shelters in Pennsylvania and N.J. have metal food boxes.

In my experience, I have always felt more comfortable sleeping with my food in my tent rather than hanging it out for very smart and industrious bears to play with all night. And although I frequently hear bears out in the night rolling logs and stumbling around, not one has ever bothered me. Smart or just lucky? If someone knows of a bear attacking an occupied tent on the AT I would like to know about it. Until then, I'll continue to sleep with my food stash and let other hikers keep hanging their food (aka bait) from the cables to keep the bears occupied.

-- BookBurner

www.enlightenedthruhiker.com (http://www.enlightenedthruhiker.com)

[SalParadise]

I only saw bear poles in the Smokies, but then again I only got to mid-Virginia. It seemed like before the Virginia border everyone always hung their food properly because there were always one or two people in the shelter at night that wouldn't allow anyone to leave their food in the shelter. Then I got to the VA border and nobody really cared about it anymore, even if there was a bear spotted in the area.

It's hard to imagine the strength of the bear bag would matter at all. I gotta think if a bear can get that close to your bag, its claws could get through just about anything. What worked great for me was a waterproof compression sack. I didn't have to tie knots in any drawstrings to hang it and didn't have to cover it with anything if it was going to rain.

[Peaks]

Besides the obvious Be safe and always hang your food, are there areas of the AT where it is not neccesary to hang your food? and are there shelters where bear poles or other hanging systems located?

There are two threats to your food. First, bears. When in bear country, use the bear line or bear box. Read the registers in the shelters. If there is an active bear in the area, it will be noted in the register.

Second, is mice. Mice are in most shelters. If staying in a shelter, then hang your food bag. In fact, the only time mice got into my bag was one night in a hostel when I'd didn't take it out of my pack. The cat didn't do it's job.

If you sleep away from shelters then you are less apt to have a bear encounter. However, it doesn't take much effort to toss up a bear rope, so why not do it and sleep well.