[pct-l] sleeping with your food

[Stephen Adams]

Go ahead and try that up in the Mammoth or Tuolumne area and let me know how it works or how 100% odor proof your Opsac is.  
On Dec 7, 2009, at 4:21 PM, Jim & Jane Moody wrote:

> 
> 
> I haven't tried it, but I've thought about something similar.  Rubbing a Purell wipe around the food bag, trash ziplock, etc. might eliminate, reduce, or override any attractive food smells.  Has anybody tried this in the field? 
> 
> Mango 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Rick Donahue" <anutherrick at gmail.com> 
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
> Sent: Monday, December 7, 2009 6:19:05 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] sleeping with your food 
> 
> The smell approach matches my own experience at home. We live in the Sierra 
> Foothills and have a real problem with 
> bears that like trash. Trash pickup is at 6 am. Many put their trash out the 
> night before. You can usually tell who has 
> not been careful in disposing of food waste in the trash can because it's 
> spread all over the street in the morning. The 
> only solution I've found is to put 2-3 tablespoons of bleach or ammonia 
> inside the top of our 96 gallon trash can. I've 
> been putting the trash out the night before now for 5-6 months and have not 
> had a single problem... yet. 
> 
> --Rick 
> 
>  >Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 11:59:09 -0800 (PST) 
>  >From: Jereen Anderson <jereenanderson at yahoo.com> 
>  >Subject: [pct-l] Sleeping with your food 
>  >To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
>  >Cc: reddirt2 at gmail.com 
>  >Message-ID: <363559.93010.qm at web58604.mail.re3.yahoo.com> 
>  >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 
>  > 
>  >As stated, I never sleep with my food. Years ago I used to hang it high in 
> trees. This did not always work. Clever bears still  >sometimes managed to 
> get it. Besides, in the high country of the Sierra the trees simply were not 
> tall enough. Sometime in the  >seventies the bears would start coming up to 
> the higher elevations - because they knew that we backpackers had food. I 
> had  >some success puting it in waterproof bags, weighing it down with 
> rocks, and, using a light rope, tossing it into a lake under a few  >feet of 
> water. 
>  >Then, about 20 years ago, I discovered "bear charms" - cotton tobacco 
> sacks with 2 or 3 mothballs in each. On my PCT thru-ride  >I carried about 
> 20 of these in an OPSAK. In the evening I surrounded my saddle and pack bags 
> with them and also my tent. I  >stored my food in a large OPSAK and put it 
> next to the saddle bags. I would like to point out that the OPSAK is 100% 
> odor proof  >and that the URSACK is not. Bears and rodents cannot smell your 
> food if it is stored in an OPSAK !? The mothballs function as  >an effective 
> bear repellant - they really dislike the smell. If there are any lingering 
> food smells around your canp - or on you - the  >mothballs are a second line 
> of defence. I also want to point out that, while I have found that bears 
> dislike the mothball smell,  >rodents are not discouraged by it. 
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