Bear safety and overlanding

Hi

i'm planning my first car camping trip to british columbia and alberta and i'm trying to prepare to camp in bear country. I was wondering what some of you guys do with your food storage.

Generally when camping its advised to hang your bear bag 100ft away from where you sleep. However, i was planning on using a dometic fridge and keeping it in the truck while sleeping in the RTT above. Do you guys recommend a different strategy? I've heard that bears can still smell things in coolers inside of cars but not sure how true that is. I know that anything that has a smell to it food or otherwise should be sealed but is food inside of a fridge in my truck asking for trouble in bear country??

thanks

 

I've got a 35qt Yeti and use their Bear Locks and just tie the cooler to a tree away from the camp when I go to sleep. I've never actually seen a bear (live in WA state) so I have no idea if it actually works. I'd be very interested to hear other's experience. I've also kept it in my car a bunch of times, however I only do that when my tent is set up as least 30-40' away, makes me nervous the thought of them snooping around my tent while I'm snoring

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I have a ground tent, no RTT.

 

thanks for the reply. Yea i was thinking in my head do i need to like take my fridge and a power supply and like just leave it outside 100 feet away lol like iunno. There must be a solution to this issue right. I was considering an electric bear tent also.

 

That sounds like proof that it does work.

 

Drink a beer or three and piss a perimeter around your campsite.

 

I hear bears can't get you if you are in a roof top tent

 

Even better if you get a tree top tent.

 

It was my understanding that you hang food in a tree when you are backpacking but if your car camping i dont think you need to go through all that trouble

 

In your truck cab should, for the most part, be fine. Just keep your site clean otherwise.

I've spend hundreds of nights in a tent in the backcountry in Alberta and BC with no issues. Even with hanging food or even leaving it out of camp on the ground. Seen a number of bears while travelling but never had one (yet?) come around my site. Only one actually scary encounter where I, quite literally, nearly ran into a grizzly while hiking just before sunrise. Spooked us both.

 

Bring a can of bear spray and a slow moving friend.

 

We do a lot of backpacking and some over landing.

With a vehicle I would leave food in the cab overnight. That said we don’t cook or prepare food in the vicinity of where we sleep.

We’ve also seen bears in WA but they are way more prevalent in BC.

 

We only have black bears around here but there are a ton of them, even see them in our neighborhood sometimes. But unlike Grizzly bears, black bears are mostly harmless, using bear cans for food when camping is more to protect them than to protect us.

If I was camping in Grizzly country I would take every precaution, bear cans for food and store them at a safe distance from your tent at night. Don't keep anything in your car or tent that can attract bears, including toothpaste or anything with flavoring in it. I don't know how well bear spray works against grizzlies or if it would just piss it off more

Don't watch The Revenant before you go

 

I've heard its a 50/50 shot. Sometimes it stops the bear, sometimes it enrages it. Bear spray is supposed to be a last resort - if you read the can it says to not fire until the bear is less than 30 feet away. I cant imagine the discipline that must take facing down a charging grizzly and waiting for him to close within 30 feet. Probably more of a revenge thing than anything - I hope you like your ass-flesh extra spicy, mr. bear.

 

Bears will tear into cars to get to food, happens a lot around here. Best thing to do is pack the food in bear safe canisters (as well as anything with flavoring/scent to it..toothpaste, gum, soap and the like), and keep it at a distance from your tent

 

Protecting bears (and everything for that matter) through good camping habits is our responsibility as far as I’m concerned.

Most black bears, even habituated ones, are typically scared off easy enough. They have terrible eyesight so it’s not hard to surprise them if you aren’t making noise or are upwind. Surprising a bear is bad and it’s 100% avoidable. If I’m backpacking I hang food. Car camping it goes in the vehicle.

Bear spray is for curious or mildly aggressive black bears. Bangers work too. I don’t personally carry a gun for black bear or cougars but if I did I’d probably go with rubber slugs as the next level of force (note: if you carry a shotgun for predator protection you do not EVER carry less lethal loaded in the magazine. Those are loaded singly so that you always have lethal as first option)

Grizzlies are a different matter. In areas where I maybe could theoretically run into them then I still don’t carry a gun but I now ramp the protocols up. Food gets hung with toiletries. Cooking and eating is done 30 or more meters from camp and also 30 or more from where the food is hung.

If the grizzly probability is higher I will sometimes have a shotgun. If so it’s always a pump and it always has brenneke slugs.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the backcountry and I’ve seen hundreds of apex predators including grizzlies. I have never once had a negative encounter.

If you car camp in high traffic areas then you can get problems, like a bear trying to get into a car for food....entirely caused by the fucking morons before you that left food and garbage everywhere.

 

I have nothing valuable to add. I just cant read about bears and shotguns without mentioning this.

 

Portable Electric Bear Fence if you are that concerned. Packers use these all the time. Not complicated. FWIW if a bear wants your stuff, having it in the car is the last place you want it. They are crazy strong and will destroy you vehicle. Since you'll be in BC, a 10mm is out of the question... Couple cans of good bear spray are in order. Keep a clean camp and the bears should not be a problem.

Jump over to rockslide.com and search "Bear Fence"

 

+1 on the electric portable fence. Generally, I would hang food stores if a bear box is not available. It sounds like others have had good luck keeping it in the cab, but there are lots of incidences of bears tearing apart cars to get to even minor stores of food. I always search the car before parking it when in bear country.
Get some bear spray and know how to use it. I would get two cans. Make sure you don’t light it off in your tent if you have to use it. Forget the gun. If you are a US Citizen, I don’t think you can bring it into Canada. I’ve driven into Canada a couple of times in the last few years. Going into Canada wasn’t a big deal, but they really questioned me and looked through my stuff coming back. One thing I was asked about was firearms.
Someone else mentioned it, but it bears repeating; don’t cook where you sleep. Your cook site should be well away from the camp. Wash your hands and face, and brush before bed. You don’t want to smell like food. A loud air horn and a bright light or flashing light can help scare off a bear.
If you do have a bear encounter, evaluate the circumstances. A sow with cubs is about the most dangerous encounter you can have. If you are going as bears are coming out of hibernation, they are hungry and can be assertive. Your food is not worth making contact. If you are in a remote area, listen to what’s going on around you, don’t become distracted by conversations or music. Hard eye contact can be seen as a challenge, but other than that, use the standard look big, make noise, don’t corner a bear, response.
I’ve ran into a few bears in the wild and have never had a problem. I’ve come across a few blacks in Yosemite back country. I just about ran into a juvenile black at Mt. Rainier. I took a picture of him. I was watching a big black bear in the glacial moraine below a trail I was on for around an hour. I lost him, but later was pretty sure I could hear him up the trail. I turned around. I’ve also come across Grizzlies in the Yellowstone, Glacier, and Alaska back country. Be aware of your surroundings, listen, look for signs of recent bear activity, and you’re good.
Canada has lots of bears, including Grizzlies, which means you may see one (which is awesome if he isn’t trying to get into your tent). I saw a big one off of 1, the Trans Canada Highway, near Banff. There were a bunch of cars stopped and I thought there had been an accident. It was a big Grizzly, upslope about 100 yards, foraging in the late afternoon. 1 is lined with fencing to keep wildlife off the highway, so it was relatively safe. Fun to watch this guy.
Use good judgement and some precautionary measures and you will be fine.

 

Yeah whenever we go hiking/camping in the Sierra, there are signs and warnings all over about leaving food in your car...bears out there are notorious for smashing windows or pulling apart door panels to get inside the cab when they smell food or even scented products in there.

 

I kinda depends on where you are, and the types of bears, and how aggressive they are.

In Yosemite, the bears are known for tearing your car apart for an old candy wrapper that was under the seat. I was guiding a climbing trip up in Tuolumne Meadows (many years ago), and we had this bear that went around to each of the group sites and tried to unlock the bear boxes. My co-guide and I stayed up for a while with a flashlight and a camera hoping to get a picture of him, but never came close enough (while we were awake of course). He eventually got in to one of the bear boxes that someone in my group hadn't fully latched (the one near my tent, of course!). I looked out my tent and he was a big boy. Like BIG. I definitely puckered quite a bit that night. Didn't poop for a week, lol.

If you're out in the wilderness, you're much less likely to encounter a bear with such tenacity as those in Yos or Yellowstone. They're more than likely more afraid of you, and unless you leave food garbage around, you're not likely to have much of an encounter.

Another thing to do is minimize how much smelly food you're cooking. Maybe skip the bacon wrapped salmon fillets. The less of that wafting thru the air, the less a bear might be interested in checking you out.

Don't keep things like food (obviously) or really, anything that smells (deodorant etc...) with you in your nylon burrito, I mean tent, either. Roof top or otherwise.