cooking where you camp

[jefals]

By "cooking", I'm talking about heating up some water and pouring it in a package of mountain house. I'm not talking about grilling a salmon, slow cooking a pot roast or broiling a steak....
Still -- if some big, bold creature smells that mountain house while you're making it or eating it, he's not gonna care if you're in camp or not, is he? If he wants it, he's going to come get it.

Then once you've finished, won't any lingering odors be blown away by the wind?
Soooo, am I wrong? If this is the only kind of "cooking" I'm doing - isn't it safe enough to do in camp?

[heatherfeather]

The idea is that if you cook and eat in camp, the smells are likely to linger long past when you have eaten, so if you are sleeping there, you might get a late night visitor investigating the smell. Even if you don't think it smells like food once you're done eating, a bear's nose might disagree. Where if you cook/eat at a different location, that smell will not be lingering where you are sleeping. Having said that, heating water and rehydrating your meal in a bag is probably less likely to produce strong food odors. If in black bear territory, I think you'd generally be safe. I'd play it more strict in grizzly country, personally.


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[soilman]

My experience is that the majority of hikers cook where they camp on the AT. I often cook at shelters and then hike on mainly because there usually is a water source and often times a picnic table or other suitable place to sit at the shelter.

[MuddyWaters]

I usually try to cook where someone else camps...

Hike a few more miles after dinner .

[saltysack]

I usually try to cook where someone else camps...

Hike a few more miles after dinner .

Yep get the mice warmed up at the shelter and then hike on......


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[PatmanTN]

"cooking where you camp"

If you're in the Smokies, please don't. A significant percentage of the campsites get shutdown each year because of aggressive bear behavior. I believe a great deal of that (not all) is a direct result of bad people habits. Any consider that cooking where you camp in a designated camping situation is at the least poor etiquette, but definitely thoughtless, as you are causing potential trouble for the next person.

[PatmanTN]

Also meant to say that you are likely in no imminent danger if you do in Appalachian black bear country, but again there are other reasons to abstain when in certain areas. Didn't mean to sound preachy either, I cook at camp in many situations just not in the high-use designated sites.

[devoidapop]

I can eek out a few extra miles by cooking and moving on, plus I have one less thing to do when I'm setting up for the night. I agree with earlier post. Shelters are for eating at, not sleeping.

[jefals]

I can eek out a few extra miles by cooking and moving on, plus I have one less thing to do when I'm setting up for the night. I agree with earlier post. Shelters are for eating at, not sleeping.

So far, for me, tho, when I finally get that 34 pound pack off after a long day, the last thing I want to do is put it back on.

[jefals]

Also meant to say that you are likely in no imminent danger if you do in Appalachian black bear country, but again there are other reasons to abstain when in certain areas. Didn't mean to sound preachy either, I cook at camp in many situations just not in the high-use designated sites.

Probably should have mentioned that I'm generally in the Sierras. Now that is black bear country - people have seen em, but nobody I've run into has, including folks who have been hiking and camping up there all their lives.
Again, I wouldn't be frying burgers up there, but I kinda agree with folks that think a mtn. House meal is c oing to be ok..

[soilman]

In all my years backpacking I don't ever remember coming across someone who has stopped along the trail, but not at a campsite, to cook a meal. I don't think cooking at camp has that much impact on increasing wildlife problems. Regardless of where one cooks you still have to carry trash and uncooked food. So bears, rodents, and other varmints may be attracted to your camp by the simple fact that you have food.

[Tipi Walter]

Camping in grizzly country versus in the Southeast probably changes everything. I cook in camp and often inside my tent vestibule, but my trips are in the Southeast mts of NC/TN/Georgia and Virginia.

[Bansko]

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.

[rafe]

From my experience, the sort of "cooking" described by the OP won't draw critters, particularly if you are conscientious about clean-up and disposal. Make sure food is double or triple-wrapped; ditto for used packaging, dishes, your spoon or spork, etc. If we were talking CDT, or parts of PCT, I'd take it a few steps further -- ie. no cooking whatsoever near where I sleep.

[jefals]

From my experience, the sort of "cooking" described by the OP won't draw critters, particularly if you are conscientious about clean-up and disposal. Make sure food is double or triple-wrapped; ditto for used packaging, dishes, your spoon or spork, etc. If we were talking CDT, or parts of PCT, I'd take it a few steps further -- ie. no cooking whatsoever near where I sleep.

Where on the PCT are you referring to?

[Cheyou]

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.

That is the silliest thing I've read all day !

Thom

[heatherfeather]

As an aside, you don't have to eat on the trail in the middle of your hike to avoid cooking in your campsite. The classics recommendation is to sketch out a rough equilateral triangle about 100 yards on each side. Your camp site is one corner, your cooking/eating location is another corner, and your food storage location is the third point. The bear is most likely to check out your cooking/eating location and food storage area, not where you are sleeping.


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[Slo-go'en]

The food backpackers typically cook doesn't have a strong odor. Cleaning your pot and tossing the gray water off into the woods next to camp makes for a longer lasting odor.

In Griz country we would not set up the tents until after cooking, used a bandana as a napkin instead using our pants legs for wiping our hands, disposed of the waste water in to the fire pit and put our clothes outside of the tent at night. Food was hung well away from camp and down wind.

[rafe]

Where on the PCT are you referring to?

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."

[Tipi Walter]

Bears also defend their kill---so should hikers keep their food close by for the same reason? Some people even say we shouldn't hang our food because it cannot be . . . defended. Easy access therefore to a hungry bear---his own private restaurant. Nobody wants to really test this theory, though.

Sleeping in my tent with my food bags in the tent vestibule works for me and apparently for Lone Wolf. Recommended? Oh heck no. And mice will swarm.

But remember this---After a big dinner you're sleeping in your shelter with a 2 lb bag of food with you in the tent---Your stomach. Any righteous bear can probably smell you and your sweat and your scalp and your old bug spray and probably your 2 lb bag of food in your gut. We are walking cheese sticks.