How to Set Up a Bear Bag
One of my camp duties that I’m devoted to is setting up a bear bag.
When I get to camp, I drop the pack.
Then rummage through my gear.
Pull out my tent.
Shake.
Clip. Clip. Clip.
Zip. Zip, again.
That’s done.
Then, bear hang.
What’s a bear bag?
A bear bag is one way to prevent bears from getting your food, toothpaste, and other valuable delicacies.
Basically, what you do is take all of your food and good-tasting, nice-smelling nourishment, put it in a bag, and hang it in a tree.
It’s a simple tactic.
And it’s effective.
To date, I haven’t had a bear, raccoon, squirrel or mouse get into my bear bag — once it’s in a tree. That’s mostly because I try to take every precaution I can to make it really, really hard to get at my breakfast.
Preparing Your Bear Bag
I’ve seen bear bags done in a few different ways.
Some people set up pulley systems to better manage weight.
That’s pretty fancy.
And cool if you know how.
I’ve experimented with that a bit, especially on my most recent trip.
But mostly, I keep it simple.
First up, I look for a tall, sturdy tree that’s somewhat limited on branches, like a Red Pine.
You want to keep an eye out for a branch that sticks out perpendicular from the main trunk, so you can hoist your bag up.
Once I’ve found that tree, I prep my bear bag.
Supplies for a Bear Bag
A bare bones bear hang usually consists of 50 to 100 feet of rope, a baseball-sized rock or a Nalgene water bottle, and the sack in which you’ll store food and other gear.
Rope.
Nalgene, half full.
Bag.
That’s it, really.
Prepping the bear bag works like this:
I tie my rope to the half-full Nalgene so that I can securely toss it over the branch.
I usually tie it around the neck, under the lip where the cap connects. I don’t connect it to the cap.
Then, I tie the other end of the rope to a stump, rock or my ankle, leaving enough slack to successfully toss the water bottle over my target.
Assuming the toss is successful, I would then untie the Nalgene and replace it with the bear bag.
Completing these three steps means you’ve successfully prepped a bear bag. The only other thing left to do is stash your food away, hoist it up, and tie it off.
Use a half-full water bottle or another durable piece of gear to use as your counterweight when setting up your bear bag. Ensure that it’s heavy enough to come back down once you’ve thrown it over the branch.
Tips for a Good Bear Bag
During my last trip in the BWCA, we got caught up in quite a bit of rain.
That made setting up a proper bear bag very, very challenging.
Why?
The wet 550 polycord mixed with wet tree bark made it nearly impossible to hoist up our portage pack containing a week’s worth of food for three people, plus some gear.
What would’ve worked better, for starters, would’ve been a thicker rope.
Even though there would’ve been more surface area dragging over the branch, I found that at this weight, while saturated, the rope just dug into the trees.
We literally couldn’t get it to budge beyond a certain point, which left us with an inadequate bear bag.
What makes for a good bear bag?
You want your food to be 8 to 12 feet off the ground, hanging about 4 feet below the branch, and about 6 to 8 feet from the trunk.
Think about that again.
Aim for a branch that’s 12 feet high.
Toss the water bottle about 6 feet out, away from the truck.
Left it dangle about 4 feet below the branch.
This little equation puts the food bag in a difficult-to-reach area in space, where bears and other critters aren’t as likely to get at it.
Is it possible?
Sure, why not?
But, unlikely.
Another tip for a bear bag is to wrap your food bag in a tarp or a rain fly.
I’ve woken up to wet food bag, dissolving paper containers — think about the cheese packets in macaroni and cheese — that left the inside just plain gross.
A real mess.
Creating any sort of rain barrier helps keep dew from saturating the bag, and, of course, helps prevent rain from flooding your food.
The final tip I’d share would be to have a friend help you out if possible.
For soloists, setting up a bear hang is a challenge that’ll occupy your time.
That’s a good thing.
It’ll drive you to be creative and think critically about the task at hand.
That’s good because it can get sort of boring at times while out alone.
For those camping with another person, the whole process becomes substantially easier.
I usually have one person pull on the rope while the other person pushes the bag upward. It helps to have a walking stick nearby or trekking poles to help get the bag up as far as possible.
Once the bag can’t be pushed up any farther, then the second person jumps in line to help on the rope side of things.
Pulling is easier with two people.
Hoisting is easier.
It’s just better with two people.
What to Keep In Mind
Thinking mostly of the supplies to set up a bear bag, if you do decide to use a Nalgene, be careful about what’s on the other side of the branch — or rather, what’s at the base of the tree.
I destroyed my first Nalgene by projecting it over a branch, only for it to come down hard on a protruding piece of ancient granite.
The bottom of the bottle exploded.
Tie your rope around the water bottle itself, not the cap connector. It break fairly easily; trust me.
I was out a water bottle in the wild.
Kind of a dumb thing to use, really.
When it works, it works great.
But, warning, Nalgenes aren’t indestructible.
An alternative is finding a baseball-sized rock to tie the rope to and throw over. Or, preferrably, if you have a sturdy piece of gear that’ll act as a good weight, use that.
The main goal is to get the rope over the branch and then come down so you can secure the bag to it.
If the rope drags too much on the branch and there isn’t enough weight to bring it all the way down, you have to start all over.
If you use a rock, pulling on that creates a projectile that could probably kill you or leave an embarrassing lump on your head.
Do this with extreme caution, please.
Beyond that, it’s important to know an assortment of knots when securing the bag and then tying the system off to a tree once the bag is in the air.
My go to is a Bowline Knot for the bag, then a hitch of sorts for the tree.
Sometimes I use a Figure 8 like I would for climbing, and maybe a Trucker’s Hitch on the tree.
Depends on how heavy the bag is, the tree bark, the rope.
It all comes down to getting outside and trying things out to see what works for you and your party.
Find what works and stick with it.
Have any good tips or tricks for a successful bear hang? Or, how do you prevent animals from getting at your food while camping? Leave a comment below.