[pct-l] OP Bags

[Jim Marco]

Pretty good summary. The basic conclusion was
"The bags tested in this study are not 100% odor-proof as advertised and should not be relied upon as a stand-alone food protective strategy when travelling in bear country."

I would NOT sleep with my food. Even with an OP sack, this can be personally dangerous. I would not recommend this in any case. With "jaded" bears, even hanging can be unwise. 
	My thoughts only . . .
		jdm

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of John Coyle
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:24 AM
To: 'pct-l at backcountry.net'
Subject: [pct-l] OP Bags

I have a subscription to Backpacking Light and here are some details from their test of OP Bags.  The test was done by an emergency and critical care veterinarian at a university hospital.  The test was conducted in a large woman's locker room at the university, with the targets being put in certain lockers. Four trained police dogs were used. The dogs were trained to find illicit substances, so that was used for the test instead of food. The OP bags were tested against ordinary supermarket Ziplock bags, not freezer or heat seal bags I think. Of the 32 searches conducted the dogs failed to find the target only 4 times.  I got the impression that this is normal because sometimes the dogs get distracted for various reasons.  Average search times to find the target were 86 seconds in the OP group and 84 seconds in the control (Ziplock) group, which is not that much of a difference. There are a lot of pictures of the dogs in the locker room in the article. I am leaving out a lot  of details, so if you want more information, you will just have to buy a subscription to Backpacking Light.  To me it the $25 yearly subscription is well worth it for a backpacker.
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