Food and Canisters
AYCE and the Ranger
We first met AYCE near the approach to Mather Pass. It was raining lightly and the weather looked ominous around the pass, so we made camp above Upper Palisades Lake to wait for the sky to clear. Soon three more hikers joined us. Later that afternoon, we were sitting and talking, and a lone hiker came by with a pack about the size of a day-hiker's. It was AYCE. We noticed that he had a fly rod poking out and chatted with him a bit about fishing. He announced that he thought the pass would be OK, and that he was going on. We were still dubious and decided to stay put. As soon as he was out of site, we spontaneously said, "well, he's certainly not carrying a bear canister. That pack is way too small!"
We didn't think much more about it, and didn't see AYCE for the next few days. Later, we headed out over Kearsarge Pass to fetch supplies. We got to the trail-head and waited for our connection into town. After a while, we noticed a familiar silhouette coming down the trail. AYCE had fished some side trails and was coming out to re-supply as well. He told us that a Ranger had stopped him on the pass. We assumed that he was fined for not having a bear canister, but in fact he did have one! We were amazed that he was able to carry his gear and a canister in such a small pack. Check out the full story on his site!
We'll talk about bears and bear canisters later, but for now let's assume you're carrying one. In some ways, they make handling your food easier, but in others a bit harder. There are probably lots of variations, but here's a few food handling techniques we used.
Packing a Canister:
Since we were carrying a 7-day supply of food, we had to really compress things to get them into our Bearikade canisters. Even then some wouldn't fit. I put the first day's food in a separate bag, since it would get eaten before we went to sleep. After a few days, some space opened up, and we began to put other items, like pots, and cooking items into the canisters. This made packing-unpacking a bit easier. When we first started, we considered putting each day's total food supply in one bigger bag and just having 7 of these in our canister. This didn't work well for two reasons. First, it wasn't compact enough to get things into the canisters. Second, some days we really wanted to eat certain foods "out of order." A better way is to pack each breakfast and dinner separately, and intersperse them with snacks and lunches in layers throughout the canister. Some items, like condiments and spices are best kept in a separate bag at the top. This way, you'll be able to reach several choices without digging through every item. Anyway that worked for us.
Each night after dinner, we'd sort out the next day's meals and put them at the top of our canisters. The next morning, we'd get up early, break camp and start hiking, eating some energy snacks along the way. As we hiked, our meal routines got more efficient.
Food Packaging:
You'll need to repackage most items you get from the super-market, since they're just too bulky. Zip-lock bags are good for some things, but might not be the best choice for breakfasts and dinners. We used thin poly bags, cutting off the excess and taping them shut. However you do it, be sure that your items are secure and pack well. I carried a mixture of peanut-butter and honey that I ate with a tortilla for lunch. I mixed the ingredients at home, and used a vacuum packager to secure the gooey mix. This worked pretty well, with no "accidents." Of course I put the packets in a container bag just in case.
When we first packed our canisters, we couldn't get even six days worth of food inside. We tried pushing down from the top, but didn't make much progress. We started to worry about breaking some packaging. Finally, we tried thumping the canister on the ground, and that worked amazingly well.
Equipment