Originally Posted by
HooKooDooKu
If you're pushing the limits of what your bear canister can hold, I found the opposite approach to be much easier.
After picking up 10 days worth of supplies at MTR during a JMT thru hike, I spent well over an hour trying to figure out how to get all my supplies in the canister.
Finally, the process that worked was to pull 1 day's worth of supplies to the side, and then pack everything else without any regard to any organization other than placing items together that packed as tightly as possible without wasting any space. Then place the one day supply on top.
Of course at the end of that one day, I had to do it all over... dump the entire contents, pull aside one days worth of supplies, and repack everything else in an unorganized fashion. But the process really didn't take that long and became even easier and quicker with each passing day.