Wondering what my fellow Jeepers recommend for Bear avoidance? Goal is to keep camp clean to avoid the bears in the first place.

Some things I have heard:

1) use your wench to lift your cooler into the air from a tree branch
2) Place sponges soaked in ammonia on top of your cooler
3) Place an empty cooler right out in front of camp so that the bear will see it is empty and move on.

What do you do / recommend?

 

Before we hunker down for the night, we like to stack everyone's coolers and food bins on top of one another. Whoever passed out first, well their cooler goes on top of the tower so that if a bear DOES venture into our campsite while we're sleeping that person's food gets eaten first. Usually by the time the bear knocks over the tower and starts on that poor sumbitch's food, a few other campers have been woken up by the ruckass and their movements/noises will almost always scare the bear away. (Unless it's a Grizzly, then he can have WHATEVER he wants in that campsite).

It's a good thing that bears don't drink beers, cuz that's all I smell like when I go to bed.

Oh.. and it's never a bad idea to fire off a bear banger, or keep some pepper spray nearby if you're campin in bear territory.

 

Ha, ha! Nice.

 

Are bear containers available at stores like bass pro or rei. Are they metal like an ammo box?

 

I always assumed a 'bear container' was just something like a barrel that you could easily hang from a tree. I bring a 50m length of rope with me camping; along with a few solid caribiners and string up my cooler and dry goods from a solid tree branch. Using a winch is a neat idea though - as long as you don't get the hook caught in the crook of said solid tree.

 

when it comes to bears, dont leave food out where you are going to sleep, if you have a fire set it up at least a couple food ball fields away from where you are gonna sleep, do not sleep with any food around you. keep a fire in ur camp going at night, um if a bear comes do not run, back away slowly, and if you have to run try and have a pack or something on you and drop it the bear will go to that first to smell it, and then get to a tree or a safe area....

 

MMMmm... Bears climb trees. Well, they do here anyway. CHEERS!

 

You're are usually supposed to hang your food about 10-12 feet about a 100 feet away from your camp.

 

Bring a big gun.

 

Bear container's that I've seen on backpacking trails have been 1/4" aluminium boxes with multiple latches that are bolted to the ground.

If that's not around I tie my good smelling stuff (with the exception of the girlfriend) up in a tree, as high as I can get it, away from the tent.

If I'm in a hard sided vehicle I just put the stuff in there.

It's worked for me in both blackbear and grizzly territory. As far as personal protection goes, I have a knife. I carry and over/under gun once and a while but I never have it loaded until I want to use it so it would be of little use in an attack.