All kinds of animals can get into your food wherever you camp. Mice and other rodents, not to mention bears, will gnaw right through a tent or backpack to get at crumbs or goodies left inside.
It’s our responsibility as campers to prevent wild animals from getting any human food. This disrupts their natural diet and makes them dependent on people and makes them a safety threat. Bears who become habituated to humans and a nuisance may end up being killed.
In addition to avoiding problems with animals, your health and enjoyment of your outdoor adventure relies on following proper food handling techniques.
General Food Storage Tips
Keeping human food (and other aromatic items such as toiletries) away from animals requires similar practices in both a campground and backcountry campsite. Here are some general tips:
- Never leave food, trash or other scented products inside your tent.
- Never leave your food unattended. Jays, squirrels and chipmunks can quickly snatch food in broad daylight, and other animals come foraging at night.
Food Storage in a Campground
- During the day, keep all your food secured in your medium coolers or car, even if you’re sitting nearby or on a short jaunt to the outhouse, and especially if you’re away on a hike.
- At night, place any loose food, plus a cooler if you have one, inside your vehicle or into a metal bear box if there is one.
Food Storage in the Backcountry
If you’ll be in the bear-inhabited backcountry of a national park or national forest, or on a national scenic trail such as the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail, follow its regulations and recommendations for food storage carefully.
If you’re backpacking in an area where there are no defined regulations, you can choose between three methods:
- Using a provided metal food locker
- Using a bear canister or bear bag
- Hanging your food on a tree or pole
Metal Food Lockers
Some campgrounds as well as designated backcountry campsites provide large metal bear-proof boxes in which you can stash your food, trash and toiletries. These are sometimes communal, so there’s no guarantee there will be room for your stuff. Also, it’s important to secure the latch properly so bears can’t get in.
Hanging Your Food
Here are the main methods for hanging food:
- You can suspend your food from a high, sturdy tree limb.
- At some backcountry campsites you’ll find bear poles, a major improvement over tree branches. A long metal lifter pole is provided for hoisting your food bag up onto one of the hooks.
- Or you may find a high horizontal metal cable strung between two poles, which is usually easier to hang your food bag from.
Pros:
- You don’t need to buy specialized equipment. Some rope and a sturdy bag are all you’ll need.
Cons:
- If you’re backpacking above tree line or in desert areas with low shrubs, hanging from a branch is not even an option.
- Hanging food in a tree can be difficult and time-consuming. Trying to maneuver a food bag with an unwieldy pole onto a hook atop a tall pole takes a lot of effort.
-
Some bears have
learned to pull on ropes to get at the bag.
Food Handling Basics
The last thing you want to do while camping is spending time dashing to the toilet. There are three common ways you can become sick from improper hygiene and food handling while camping:
- Transmission of pathogens to your hands and mouth after going to the bathroom (fecal-oral transmission)
- Eating spoiled food from a cooler
-
Improper
handling of raw meat
How to avoid fecal-oral germ transmission:
- After going to the bathroom, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water (away from camp and away from a fresh-water source).
- Dry hands with a towel not used for drying dishes.
- If you can’t wash, use hand sanitizer or sanitizing wipes.
- Wash or sanitize your hands again before preparing a meal.
-
If you plan to
share a bag of trail mix with others, shake the food from the bag
into their hand. Do not let unwashed hands reach into a bag of
food.
How to keep cooler food from spoiling: Chances are you’ll have a cooler if you’re car camping. In it you’ll want to keep any perishables, such as meat (especially raw), cheese, eggs and milk, at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or colder so they don’t spoil.
- Pre-chill the cooler with ice or ice blocks for an hour before you put in any food.
- Fill large polycarbonate water bottles with water, juice or milk and freeze (leave room at the top of the bottle for expansion). These keep your cooler colder longer than fast-melting ice cubes, and you can drink the liquid once you don’t need the ice.
- Double-bag any raw meat so it doesn’t leak onto other foods; freeze ahead of time whatever you’ll be eating after the first day.
- Put the food you’ll eat first near the top. Put frozen raw meat on the bottom, where the cooler is coldest.
-
Use a
thermometer inside the cooler to check how cold it’s staying.
How to handle raw meat in camp: It’s a good idea to cut up your raw meat at home into bite-size pieces and place in a zip-top bag. That way you have less to wash in camp. Here are additional tips:
- As you would at home, be especially careful about handling raw meat. After you cut raw meat in camp, place the meat pieces into your cookware and immediately wash the cutting board, knife and your hands with soap and hot (if possible) water before you touch anything else.
- Never cut veggies or cheese on a surface that has raw meat residue on it.
-
Any plastic wrap
from raw meat needs to be double-bagged and stored in your cooler or
trash bag until you get home; or dispose it in a campground-provided
trash bin.
More food handling tips
- Keep odors at a distance: Cook food and wash dishes (and hands) well away from your tent so odors don’t attract animals near where you sleep. Use only a tiny bit of liquid unscented soap.
- Dishwater: Strain out any food scraps and put them in your trash. Disperse rinse water over a rocky area if possible, well away from your campsite.
