Grizzly country gear logistics

Some of your questions might be answered by the Alaska Fish and Game suggestions as they’ve extensive brown bear experience.

www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=livingwithbears.bearcountry



Yellowstone:
www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/campinginbearcountry.htm

The IGBC has container recommendations.
igbconline.org/

The con for myself of Ursack is while the bear doesn’t get a reward when correctly closed the food is reportedly often mushed behind any hope of usability. At one point they sought to mitigate that with a stiff aluminum alloy liner. Which negated the flexible volume feature. (Though I countered that by putting the liner around the outside of my Garcia except when needed at night. I found the pairing functional as I collapsed everything down towards just being stored in the hard sided Garcia while the Ursack became smaller and smaller on two week trips. Then Yosemite removed approval and I shelved it).

Thanks!

It's not that I'm scared, but as I'm hiking with others, I think I have an obligation to be appropriately prepared. One sloppy hiker can compromise the whole group, I think.

I have backpacked in griz country and in my local area. I have been following "bear country rules' in my home ground too. The black bear are not reading the memos about human contact, and they are getting less skarit. Especially from entitled slob hunters and locals that refuse to break generational patterns on handling food and waste.

Yellowstone NP (YNP) that some forum members, friends, and I are headed to in August have hanging poles at the designated camp sites. Often right next to the cooking and socializing area of the camp. My experience has been, take 50" of good/better para-cord with carabiner or two and you can rig a hang. In roadless, wilderness or other undeveloped area, I prefer a canister or ursack because a natural hang is often unobtainable and risky. For this year's YNP trip, same as Sumi, I am taking both a tall canister and an old Ursack. The Ursack will get hung with the pack on the pole to catch the overflow from garbage, hygiene kit, and other smellies. There are a lot smaller critters that pose a risk to your pack. Even if there a pole hang failure, the Ursack knotted off, will not give a critter a food reward. The canister stashed in a legal spot.

I found early on to not take a shelter that has been cooked in. I found the best way to keep a cleaner sleeping area is set up the shelter and lay out just what is needed there for sleeping before any other camp chores or cooking. Stage out the sleeping clothes and hygiene bag for a bit of cleanup-toilet before crashing out. Rubbing out food splash with a cloth an spot of hand sanitizer is pretty amazing.

I also believe because of the education from YNP over the years, and even with 20-25k back-country hikers a year, the conflict numbers are incredibly low.