I love the thru-hiking community. It is a diverse community with a wide range of backgrounds. Each and every person has their reasons why they pack a small number of necessities into a backpack and go spend four-to-five months out in nature. Living out in nature is a very unorthodox life.
That being said, it is also a community that has its own orthodoxy. For example, there is a belief that you cannot say that you have thru-hiked a trail unless you walk every single mile. I always found this one rather silly. If that is the case, then no one has thru-hiked the PCT legally since 2013. A portion of the trail was closed to preserve a nearly extinct toad and no one is allowed to hike that portion. Some do illegally, but walking on preserved land is also strictly against the Leave No Trace code. I have always taken the stance that one hikes the trail that is in front of you. If what is in front of you is dangerous, then you must reroute — and that is okay.
The walk every step orthodoxy is very much alive on the AT. Fortunately, as the senior trail, she is well established and one can actually do it. That is for another discussion. What I want to talk about is whether one should carry a bear canister the entire hike.
When I thru-hiked the PCT, there were two areas where one had to carry a bear canister. The longest part of the trail was the Sierra Mountains. Normally that means shipping your bear canister to Kennedy Meadows South (mile 703.4) and sending it home at Kennedy Meadows North (mile 1018.1). Yes, there are two Kennedy Meadows in California. It was very annoying to see ultralight backpackers with their tiny packs zooming without a bear canister.
One of the core principles of Leave No Trace (LNT) is to Respect Wildlife. If you are hiking through an area where an animal lives, you should nature alone. Nature provides balance. There is just enough food for the creatures that live there. Don’t tamper with it. Eating the berries that are meant for the local prey animals can put nature out of balance. We carry our own food and are not in a survival situation.
The black bears spend the summer and fall foraging for calories so that they have enough fat reserves for the winter. Because of that, nature has tuned their tastes towards desiring calorie dense foods Who has an ample supply of calorie dense foods? Why, humans do! So, it is critical that bears do not taste human food lest they associate humans with calorie dense food. Once that happens, it means that park rangers will have no other choice than to kill the bear.
In my opinion, killing a perfectly healthy bear because they discovered that they like Cheez-Its is morally wrong. I don’t judge the park ranger. I blame the visitor walking through carelessly and not properly storing their food so the bears can’t reach it.
On my PCT hike, I discovered what it is like when a creature learns that human food is delicious. Fortunately, it was not a bear. It was a chipmunk that got into the bear box at Warner Valley Camp (mile 1351.4). The bear box was left open and it chewed into my food bag. It also damaged my friend Nap’s as well. Fortunately, Tenacious Tape is ideal for a repair like this.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has made it clear that everyone should carry a bear canister. On their thru-hiker Frequently Asked Questions page they say the following about carrying one:
Yes – bear canisters provide the most surety
and flexibility to ensure bears on the A.T. do not access human food,
therefore providing the best protection for bears against becoming
habituated to humans and human food. A fed bear is a dead bear.
There is more detailed information on the ATC’s webpage on Bears.
For most of my PCT hike, I carried a zPacks food bag.
This is the ultra-light solution. Weighing only 3.4 ounces, it handled the entire PCT, SHT, IAT, and multiple camping trips. The bag was awesome, but I will not use it on the AT. I’ll carry my bear canister instead.
Here is the problem with bear hanging. When you are tired — really tired — the last thing you want to do after you are done eating is hang your food. So what do you do? You use your food bag as a pillow. In the case of this light weight solution, the cordage is also very light and is constantly tangled. It also becomes quite unmanageable once it is sticky with pine sap.
The proper thing to do is to suck it up and carry the canister. It weighs 2 lbs. 11 oz. However, a full one-liter Smart Water bottle filled weighs 2 lbs. 5 oz. On the PCT, I often had to carry three filled Smart Water bottles and I’ll never have to do that on the AT, so it is a wash. The canister also makes a fine camp chair, so it serves a dual purpose.
I’ll probably be one of the few who properly follows the rules. I’ll try not to judge the action of others.
