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  1. #41
    Registered User handlebar's Avatar
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    On my AT thru, nearly all the hikers cooked at the shelter they later slept in. Most of the time, the hikers hung their food bags from the rafters of the shelter to avoid the "mini-bears"---mice, opossum, raccoons, skunks. In Shenandoah NP and Great Smokey Mtn NP, definitely take advantage of the bear cables. In areas where there is a hunting season for bears, bears seem to avoid humans. Most of the problems seem to be in national parks.
    Handlebar
    GA-ME 06; PCT 08; CDT 10,11,12; ALT 11; MSPA 12; CT 13; Sheltowee 14; AZT 14, 15; LT 15;FT 16;NCT-NY&PA 16; GET 17-18

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by twinsinpa View Post
    Well all of you guys certainly confused me!! i am about to go on my first section hike with my sister and now i don't know where to eat! Can someone plz help. we will be hiking in PA. i really dont think we will be able to stop at a shelter cook and eat and then hike some more. at least that wasn't my plan.
    WB is populated with hikers and cyber-hikers of all persuasions. Some practice and preach LNT in all its purity. Some preach one thing and practice another. Some are well-informed, others less so. It's okay to be confused, but let it be your own confusion - don't absorb the confusion of WB!

    As I see it, "most" people cook and eat where they camp, whether that's at an established campsite, a stealth site, or a shelter. Most of the time, they don't get eaten by bears. Occasionally an area will be patrolled by a bear that has lost its fear of humans. In those circumstances, it is prudent to be more cautious, though I think "most" people will still cook and eat where they camp. After all, if I eat at point A, and move on to my campsite at point B, what if someone ahead of me ate at point B and camped at point C? Point B has been eaten in before I set up camp whether it was me or not.

  3. #43

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    Thousands of people are killed by bears each year because they cook dinner in camp. Your best bet after a long day of hiking is to just go to bed and wait for breakfast, that way any odors will be left behind when you leave camp.

  4. #44
    Registered User Venchka's Avatar
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    Yo Jeff!
    See what you started?
    The East Coasters are in a tizzy. They don't know what to do.
    Have fun Y'all!
    Wayne


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  5. #45
    Registered User theinfamousj's Avatar
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    I do the triangle method, personally. I also don't hang my dinner clothes. Bears can tell the difference between food and sweaty clothes that have been in the vicinity of food. They aren't stupid.

    Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

  6. #46
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    Default cooking where you camp

    Alright guys. I'm back on the trail for 2 or 3 days. Based on most of what I'm reading, I'll be eating my mountain house where I camp....
    Hopefully, you will hear from me in a few days. If not - you'll read,about me in the papers... ?

  7. #47

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    Quote Originally Posted by twinsinpa View Post
    Well all of you guys certainly confused me!! i am about to go on my first section hike with my sister and now i don't know where to eat! Can someone plz help. we will be hiking in PA. i really dont think we will be able to stop at a shelter cook and eat and then hike some more. at least that wasn't my plan.
    Theres good reasons for doing that, its not about bear avoidance....necessarilly.

    In summer...it may not be dark until 8-9 pm. When do you want to eat? Do you enjoy sitting around doing nothing for 3-4 hrs?

    In colder weather, as soon as sun starts to go down, its too cold for bare hands to prepare dinner and be exposed to wind. Fingers lose dexterity in short time. Best to cook before that happens...while its warmer.

    As well, places that are good for cooking, big rocks to sit on or shelter from wind, arent necessarilly the flat spot you need to pitch a shelter.

    I can find flat spot off trail and pitch shelter in last bits of daylight. No desire to try to cook/eat that way.

  8. #48
    Registered User Fireplug's Avatar
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    I've seen people cook in shelters. Not the best but when it 12 degrees out or raining that's where you cook. It attracts mice. Big deal. Never had a bear come into camp durning or after cooking. Don't worry about it. Just hang ur food. That's the important thing

  9. #49

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    Quote Originally Posted by jefals View Post
    Alright guys. I'm back on the trail for 2 or 3 days. Based on most of what I'm reading, I'll be eating my mountain house where I camp....
    Hopefully, you will hear from me in a few days. If not - you'll read,about me in the papers... ?
    My first year out on the AT a few years ago, I had an incident that convinced me I was fine when I cooked and camped in the same spot.

    I had dehydrated all my dinners, and one of them was BBQ'd spaghetti with garlic, spices, with quite a strong aroma. I packaged my dinners in ziploc bags and ate directly out of them as well.

    I had already changed into my camp clothes, heated water and poured into the dinner. When it came time to eat, the bag slipped out of my hand and spilled all over my shirt and shorts. I smelled like an Italian kitchen.

    I wiped it off the best I could but was two weeks before I could wash clothes.

    I've been using those same clothes on the trail now for five years and never had a creature of any kind bother me.

  10. #50
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    thanks all! sounds like i should just do whatever i feel like and hang my food or use the bear boxes. we go in a week and half and getting extremely excited!

  11. #51
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    My hiking partner was pouring his boiling water into his mountain house meal and low and behold, it fell over. Food smells soaked into the ground. Right between our two tents. In a bear populated area. When it's cold, he often cooks oatmeal and coffee in his vestibule. I do NOT cook in my vestibule, but I do cook where I camp - but no longer right next to my tent; I try to cook far enough away that any critter coming to investigate any spilled food in the middle of the night won't disturb the human nearby (me). I hang my pot and stove with my food at night.



    Quote Originally Posted by Bansko View Post
    I cook where I camp. If you don't, then you're admitting that the bears and/or your fears have won. Of course, you hang your trash and food farther out. It serves as a decoy if nothing else.

    I also wear a seat belt when I drive and lock the doors to my house. Admitting fears have won and being prudent may be different interpretations of the same thing, but that's okay. People take their fears with them when they go hiking. Shrug. There is no magic fear-be-gone pill or procedure. Some say the opposite of fear is faith, but that's a discussion for another forum.

  12. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    No specifics, I haven't hiked but a few miles of the PCT, and in that section bear canisters were required. Maybe I should have said, "where brown bears or grizzlies might be encountered."
    Thanks. I've just done the first section, starting at Campo. No bears there!

  13. #53
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    Alright. I was out in the Sierras. Opened a pack of jerky at my camp. Thought, "hmm, this stuff does have a smell to it", but I ate most if it and sealed the package back up tight.
    In the middle of the night, I got hungry. Opened a candy bar inside my tent and ate the whole thing. Then, noticed little specks on my tent-floor..."is that sugar from the candy bar, or is it dirt"? Just to be safe, I ate em.
    Well, it was a good trip and no bears!

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by jefals View Post
    Alright. I was out in the Sierras. Opened a pack of jerky at my camp. Thought, "hmm, this stuff does have a smell to it", but I ate most if it and sealed the package back up tight.
    In the middle of the night, I got hungry. Opened a candy bar inside my tent and ate the whole thing. Then, noticed little specks on my tent-floor..."is that sugar from the candy bar, or is it dirt"? Just to be safe, I ate em.
    Well, it was a good trip and no bears!
    Nahhh.... that was just the ants that were coming after the jerky remnants you left behind earlier..... no problem!

  15. #55

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    Doesn't really matter if you are carrying food. If I cook 100 yds down the trail but store my food under a pillow, the bear is going to smell it either way. Change your cook clothes and make sure your mouth and fingers don't smell like mac n cheese. Some food hangers are too close to campsites in GSMNP. I tended to avoid these sites. Grizzlies are another story. My BC ranger-friend stores food a long way from camp when he goes on personal trips.

  16. #56

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    Quote Originally Posted by martinb View Post
    Doesn't really matter if you are carrying food. If I cook 100 yds down the trail but store my food under a pillow, the bear is going to smell it either way.
    Maybe, but hot food smells carry way farther. I can smell food being cooked several houses away if grilled or window open.

    In gsmp a woman at campground was frying bacon one morning, when she felt a nudge on her butt. She told her husband to stop it. A minute later her butt was nudged harder, she swatted hehind her thinking her husband was getting frisky. It wasnt her husband. A large black bear was patiently waiting. He got the bacon too, all of it.

  17. #57

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    I believe it MW. One time I passed a..cache is the best way I can describe it, hanging from the wires of one BC site featuring cooking grease, cast iron pan, used rags, and miscellaneous cookware in a white hefty bag.

  18. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by blw2 View Post
    Nahhh.... that was just the ants that were coming after the jerky remnants you left behind earlier..... no problem!
    I don't think so. They got ants up there the size of a chihuahua!

  19. #59

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    Quote Originally Posted by Deacon View Post
    My first year out on the AT a few years ago, I had an incident that convinced me I was fine when I cooked and camped in the same spot.

    I had dehydrated all my dinners, and one of them was BBQ'd spaghetti with garlic, spices, with quite a strong aroma. I packaged my dinners in ziploc bags and ate directly out of them as well.

    I had already changed into my camp clothes, heated water and poured into the dinner. When it came time to eat, the bag slipped out of my hand and spilled all over my shirt and shorts. I smelled like an Italian kitchen.

    I wiped it off the best I could but was two weeks before I could wash clothes.

    I've been using those same clothes on the trail now for five years and never had a creature of any kind bother me.
    Everybody knows Bears don't like Italian food!They like American cuisine!

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