Using a bear canister efficiently
Bear proof food storage is required in the best parts of the Sierra; and recommended in many other attractive wilderness areas in North America. Carrying this minor inconvenience helps saving bears from extermination.
Types of canisters
Wilderness regulations may outline the approved canister types for specific regions, although the text is often outdated. A call to the ranger office may clear things up, or add to the confusion.
In this melee are a number companies offering their take on bear proof designs. Not all models are approved, but as a whole most of the hard sided choices will do the job, and satisfy an inspection from a roaming wilderness ranger.
The real grey area both from a bear safety and regulatory standpoint are the Dyneema bags marketed as bear proof and colloquially known as Ursacks.
A ranger may let an Ursack pass or send you back to the trailhead depending on location; but the bear herself will almost certainly get a solid dose of human food conditioning when digging into one of those, leading to trouble and death.
I use only hard sided canisters, all from the company Bearikade: The Scout, the Blazer, and a custom 17″ Expedition. With careful food choices I can get 6, 10 and 16 days out of these.
If filled to capacity the daily gram penalty is thus:
Scout, 810g > 135g per day
Blazer, 975g > 97.5g per day
Custom 17″ Expedition, 1130g > 71g per day
I purchased the Expedition because I like long continuous trips, and loathe the re-supply hassles of leaving the wilderness half way through. This size is my most used.
The Bearikade canisters are really expensive if purchased new. It’s a durable design posing little risk to hunt down used; and the company offers rentals at the best rates I’ve found.
In comparison the much cheaper and very popular Bear Vault 500 can hold 8 days of food and comes in at 1195g > 150g per day. This is heavier than the Bearikades, but makes sense for occasional users, or those on a budget. A smaller top opening with a tricky to operate lid is also part of the cost cutting design.
General planning
When planning I allow half rations for the first and last days; and day one never has to be stored inside the canister. So for six days the canister will hold only 4.5 days of food. With the methods outlined below I know I can fit everything without too much effort for any given length trip.
In addition to food we all carry ‘smellables’, also needing room at night. Keeping these small and simple is key to efficient canister use. For me it’s the ubiquitous cut-in-half toothbrush, travel paste, vial of soap, and in season vial of 100% DEET. Cold soak jar and spoon completes the smellables, at 105g total. Keep the jar clean and it can store small items inside when packing the canister.
Remember to go thru pockets for trash!
Type of foods and their packaging makes a big difference when fitting everything in a canister. Premade stiff bags of dehydrated meals are nearly impossible to squeeze in efficiently. They can be re-packaged in ziplocks, but if going to this trouble I find it far better, and less wasteful, to design my own meals from bulk items. More about this later.
But the menu also has to be balanced with near guaranteed eatability even when tired and maybe suffering from altitude or GI issues. If unable to stomach the full ration allotted for the day things overall could spiral badly, besides the pack is not getting lighter as rapidly.
Menu strategies
Food is definitely a difficult aspect of multi day trips for beginners to get right. Keeping spreadsheets of every bite brought along and jotting down post trip observations will help get one up to speed. Things to keep track of are daily calories packed vs consumed; and how attractive the food ultimately was, and if it provided enough energy long term. And what, if any, were left after a full trip.
Personally I find 2750 to 3000 calories per day sufficient to sustain energy and avoid hiker-hunger during the latter half of a long trip. With a no-cook approach the daily weight is typically between 500-550 grams all in.
In my sixties I hike at a modest, smooth pace with many short breaks, averaging 12-14 miles per day on a blend of difficult cross country and trail miles. On Roper’s Sierra High Route, a long mixed terrain outing these numbers proved correct.
I start my food preps by looking for ingredients with over 5 calories per gram, and then try to combine them into a well rounded, tasty diet. In the end a number of less calorie dense foods invariably sneak in and the average becomes 5g/cal.
The simplicity of eating the exact same menu every day helps with efficient packing, and overall doesn’t bother me. I keep many items bulked together in big bags, and bring a small scoop cut from the bottom of a light water bottle to separate out the daily portion into a reusable bag. Or use spoon measurements for the drinks.
I design my own cold soak dinners with bulk bean flakes, egg and cheese powders, dehydrated veggies, nutritional yeast and spices. Sometimes I bring olive oil in a small crinkly single use water bottle. The key to looking forward to dinner for me is to make them big on hot spices and bold unami flavors
The breakfast is cold instant coffee with large amounts of heavy cream powder – the dairy kind. Coconut oil powder was a fail! The heavy cream I also blend with sweetened beet powder in the morning; and with whey protein and an additional cup of cold coffee in the evening, for total of 450 calories in pure cream per day.
I carry a small amount of drink mix, like 20g per day, to speed up hydration during the afternoon.
The rest of the diet are snacks, split evenly between prepackaged bars/nut butters, and homemade nut/seed mixes. Again bold sweet and salty flavors rule for me. Due to the simple breakfast I start snacking consistently pretty early, and don’t really have a dedicated sit-down lunch meal.