Sleeping with your food

[ChinMusic]

Several experienced outdoorsmen have made this clear with regards to the AT and food:

sleeping with your food is the best method

I'm beginning to become a believer.

Are there any reports of such AT hikers regretting sleeping with their food? There def seems to be issues with hanging.

[Tipi Walter]

If you want mice to run over your face and chest, sleep with your food. If you sleep in a zipped up tent with your food, expect chew holes from mice to get at your food.

This last year I had 3 encounters with mice running over my face while I was sleeping in my tent during a rainstorm with the food not inside the tent but in the vestibule and I left the tent door open. Leaving the food in the vestibule will at least protect the tent body from getting chew holes when the tent's zipped up. Had I zipped up the tent and left the food in the vestibules, they would've explored the bags and not me. They love midnight food patrols.

If it's raining or a blizzard, I put all my food bags(including the dog pack)in the tent vestibules. Otherwise, I hang em off a tree limb. Not with a rope but just off a nail or a branch.

[Valentine]

My understanding is that on the chance a hungry bear comes along he may be interested in you. Especially in Grizzly country. I have heard of mice chewing holes in bags to get to food.

[ChinMusic]

My understanding is that on the chance a hungry bear comes along he may be interested in you. Especially in Grizzly country. I have heard of mice chewing holes in bags to get to food.

Please, NOT talking about Griz Country. Stick to the AT.

[Tipi Walter]

My understanding is that on the chance a hungry bear comes along he may be interested in you. Especially in Grizzly country. I have heard of mice chewing holes in bags to get to food.

I don't know how many food bags I've had with chew holes in them. Mouse chew holes. They love the gorp and the peanuts and will chew right thru a nylon stuff sack to get at granola bars and cheese. I even woke up one morning and found one of my opened pack pockets filled with dog food from the dog pack. They must've been running some kind of midnight conveyor belt, carting single pieces of dog food like ants from one bag to another. What were they thinking? That they'd have time or a future using my pack as a long term home? Never try to understand the rodent mind.

Another time I was wearing high top jungle boots and while I was sleeping they filled the toe with hickory nuts.

[Lone Wolf]

i've tented and cowboy camped hundreds of nights and never had a mouse or bear chew thru my tent or food bag

[Gaiter]

don't be a dumbarse.... nearly all bear attacks involve food (and trouble bears)

[Lone Wolf]

don't be a dumbarse.... nearly all bear attacks involve food (and trouble bears)

i been trampin' on the AT 20+ years. ain't never been no bear attacks

[Lugnut]

Mice tend to congregate around shelers. I've never seen a mouse anyplace else. Bears are a different story.

[Blissful]

Had a squirrel chew through our food bag in a vestibule in NH. Got out in a thunderstorm and hung it.

[Captain Blue]

I have hiked 6,200 miles on the AT in the last 15 years. I sleep with my food in my tent. I have never had a problem with mice chewing through my tent or bears attacking me. I do use the food cables, poles and the boxes were available. I have seen a few times where mice have chewed through food bags even though the food was hung. But I have not seen any chew holes in tents. I am not saying it does not happen. I just have not seen it.

[DAJA]

i been trampin' on the AT 20+ years. ain't never been no bear attacks

Failing to see your logic... In my mind, your arguement would lead me to almost definitly always hang my food on the AT. If there has never been a bear attack on the AT in the last 20 yrs, the laws of probability would suggest that an attack is due! (larger bear population + human encrouchment + large number of inexperienced hikers w/food = potential for bear attack)

I nearly always hang my food using the PCT method. Have never lost food to any critter, and for peice of mind, it's well worth the small amount of effort required.

[garlic08]

If you sleep in a virgin site, where the fauna is unaccustomed to human presence, you should have no problems sleeping with your food. That's a risk you can choose to take, or not. Personally, I don't. But it is wise to hang your food very well at the shelters and at pounded campsites--you know, the places where the squirrels and chipmunks are begging.

I have seen a mouse chew through a tent to get at a food bag at a pounded campsite in Washington State. Cheeky little bugger.

[bigcranky]

If there has never been a bear attack on the AT in the last 20 yrs, the laws of probability would suggest that an attack is due!

You misunderstand probability.

A bear attack is not a random individual event like flipping a coin.

[McKeever]

I have had a bear walk right up to me while cooking on the AT at dusk. A very surreal experience. I just picked everything up and eased down the trail. Another time a bear aggressively ran out on a blow down sticking up off the ground and growled at me and was apparently a momma bear, also in the Smokey's. Another time a bear ran a big circle around me on Sawtooth ridge on the AT before Catawba. I turned a litte sideways and lowered my head slightly and only gave a few slow steps back. It was enough to show the bear I was not threatening it so it went on about it's business and I went on with my hike with an elevated heart rate. I was false charged in the SNP one morning and the bear just tuned back and walked off.

My point is I know of an account of a hikers tent ripped into on the AT in NJ a few years back and a lady was killed and eaten in the Smokey's along a water shed. Black Bears consider humans food. I think there have been enough reports and accounts to consider counter measures to make your camp bear resistant. I sleep with food most of the time, but also bear bag when in doubt. I like the new PCT method. The debate running now is about the usra bag. http://www.ursack.com/

[Reid]

Last time I went camping in kilmer, my own dog drug the food out and ate the rice krispies. I think he's part rat anyway.

[Tipi Walter]

Mice tend to congregate around shelers. I've never seen a mouse anyplace else. Bears are a different story.

Mice tend to be more of a problem not only at shelters but at established campsites. All of my encounters have been at "pounded" campsites with no shelters in sight.

If you sleep in a virgin site, where the fauna is unaccustomed to human presence, you should have no problems sleeping with your food. That's a risk you can choose to take, or not. Personally, I don't. But it is wise to hang your food very well at the shelters and at pounded campsites--you know, the places where the squirrels and chipmunks are begging.

I have seen a mouse chew through a tent to get at a food bag at a pounded campsite in Washington State. Cheeky little bugger.

Sleeping at a "virgin" site does significantly reduce rodent patrols. Now, if you stay put at said virigin site for, let's say, 15 years, you'll have a whole colony of rodents, generations of them. Even with traps and clever eradication, they just keep on coming. Outside the scope of this thread.

I've also noticed that in the worst conditions, subzero blizzards and butt cold temps, that the mice are no where to be seen. Then you can sleep with your food, hug it close, keep some of it in your mouth like a chipmunk while you sleep, coat your body in honey and walnuts, whatever. It's too dang cold for the mammals!

[DAJA]

A bear attack is not a random individual event like flipping a coin.

So your suggesting bear attacks are pre-meditated... Damn techonolgy age, even the bears know where i'm going to camp in advance!

[Cookerhiker]

....Another time I was wearing high top jungle boots and while I was sleeping they filled the toe with hickory nuts.

Hey I can relate to that! Hiking through the Smokies in '04, I awoke in Russell Field Shelter to find 2 shiny acorns in each boot.

[Tipi Walter]

Hey I can relate to that! Hiking through the Smokies in '04, I awoke in Russell Field Shelter to find 2 shiny acorns in each boot.

Apparently rodents do not follow the dictum, "Think ye not of the morrow." This reminds me of an old radio announcer joke about one of them making a wreck of his dictum. Or the opposite. Heck, I forgot it.