Any bear-country advice I've heard says not to sleep in the same clothes that you cooked your dinner in. OK, but I would assume you probably don't want to keep them in the tent with you either, as that would just be exactly the same as wearing them.
If it's raining and/or cold, you've got to do something with your rain shell jacket, rain shell pants, insulting torso layer, insulating pants layer, baselayers, underwear, socks, hat, etc. (I'm not cooking naked!). It's not like there's room for all this in my bear canister along with my food! OP Sacks might be useful for this purpose, to keep stuff in the tent with you, but if any scent gets on the outside of them, they're worthless, and they also tend to get small holes in them easily, also making them worthless.

What do you guys do? And what do you think we SHOULD be doing?

Oh, and what's everyone doing with their stove and pots?
Again, just not enough room in the bear canister for everything.

Where are you hiking?

All around BC as well as a bit in the Canadian Rockies.

Serious black and grizzly country (their population is much greater than the human population in many areas) though they're not typically aggressive or 'trained' for human food. Still, we get a few bad incidents a year and not all of them are due to pure human negligence. Food can be scarce for their large populations at times.

Yeah, that's important info! I've never been in grizz country so I can't give advice.

If I were traveling in grizz country, I would cook in one set and sleep in another. Not fool proof, but I would want every advantage I could get against brown bears.

Yes, I get that's the way to go, but my question was, where would you put all the cooking clothing while you're sleeping?

"Serious black and grizzly country (their population is much greater than the human population in many areas) though they're not typically aggressive or 'trained' for human food."

Hi Bradley,

Have you considered going "cold food" and limiting your cooking to heating water for tea(coffee has too strong an odor). No cleanup, no food odors from cooking volatilized and ending up impregnating your clothing and wafting out into the forest for bears to pick up. This way you wouldn't have to change clothes. Just wash your hands, brush your teeth(perhaps with no toothpaste), and bag your food and trash. It's my standard technique when in bear country.

Thanks for the advice Tom; it makes sense but the unfortunate thing is that ALL of my trips are in bear country. Every now and then it might be fine, but it is rather important to me to have some fun and cook decent meals especially on longer trips where the monotony sets in.
But maybe you're right, and that is the only real solution.

Tough choice, Bradley. I can empathize with your dilemma, especially on longer trips. I've done it that way for 9 days and, for sure, it gets pretty old after about 5-6 days.
I ended up going cold after considering the potential consequences of a bear encounter, likely to happen at night when I am horizontal and sleeping, or half asleep, and at my most vulnerable. Still, not an easy decision. I hope you figure something out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always been told that bears are not normally active at night.

Maybe not normally, but after years of training they seem to know that sleeping campers (sniff...sniff...) mean "dinner is served" somewhere. (I believe it takes "just once" for them to make and remember the connection.)

May after a few generations of "re-education" they will again be sleeping at night.

They're typically most active around dusk and dawn... and I do sleep in a bit.

I don't really have extra clothes with me to change into (that pesky obsession with carrying extra weight) so it just becomes a case of mitigating risk. I think the most important thing to do is to cook down wind from your camp (and well away from you camp).

Dehydrated food is the best bet if you want hot meals because you are only boiling water (no simmering food smells coming from your stove). In the evenings I like to string up my entire pack. I don't like the idea of sleeping with my pack since it's been carrying my food all day and will no doubt have a strong food smell. Hang your food a good distance away from your camp so you don't draw the bears in close to your tent.

As far as my clothes smelling like food while I'm sleeping... my hope is that my human stench will be stronger than the food smells. Now let's just hope that human scent doesn't smell like food to Mr. Griz.

I wear one set of clothing for the duration of a hike. I try to limit the amount of odorous food that I wipe on my clothes.

Focus instead on keeping a clean camp, and keeping your cooking, sleeping, and food hanging areas a good distance apart (30 meters).

You shouldn't be cooking in your clothes anyway. Seems quite impractical. Use a pot like the rest of us. ;-)

Edited by ashleyb on 05/09/2009 21:53:52 MDT.

One big factor is if the local bears are habituated to the people/food equation. If they are, more precautions make sense.

I think it's important to remember that an average of about 1 person a year is killed by bears, and close to 20,000 people a year are murdered and over 40,000 killed on the roads.

Bears DO commonly destroy gear and raid food. I store food as regs require or as the situation dictates. I never worry about keeping separate "cooking clothes." I don't know anyone else that does, either. Cooking gear goes with food. If it doesn't fit in with the food I hang it separately. If in treeless country I'll seal it in plastic as best as I can and hide it well downwind of my camp.

Bottom line: take reasonable precautions and then don't sweat it.

Unless you wipe food off your hands onto your clothes,I do not believe you are going to get much food oder on clothing to attract bears. I found one way to get rid of smells from your clothes is to set them or stand near a smoking fire.
Your clothes will soon smell like smoke!

I won't suggest the clothes sequestration strategy is for everyone. I'm a Scoutmaster responsible for the safety of the kids in my troop. We take bear country safety practices very seriously.

While changing the clothes you wore while cooking and eating may seem like overkill, for group of 11-17 year-old boys it's simply a precaution we take to separate them from anything that may smell like food in bear country. Personally, my cooking and dining habits are practically perfect ;-) but my scouts are less meticulous. It's not uncommon for them to spill food or wipe food on their clothing. It's equally likely that one of them has a partly eaten bag of gorp or a Clif Bar in a pants or jacket pocket. Prior to going sleep we remove the outer layer worn during meal prep and dining and either wear a sleeping layer or skivies to bed. The only thing we let them take to their tents is what they're sleeping in and a bottle of clean water. The clothing is stowed with packs under a gear tarp more than 100ft away from the tents. Clothing with food spilled on it is stowed in the bear bags like all other "smellables" until is can be rinsed in a creek or pond.

Smoking your clothes over a smoldering fire would probably be just as effective. But in many backcountry areas open fires are prohibited. Sequestering clothes is always possible.

BTW: We practice the "food is fuel" approach to backcountry cuisine and only "cook" water. We heat water twice a day: for chocolate, coffee, and oatmeal at breakfast and rehydrating soup and dried meals at dinner. Everything else is "peel and eat." This minimizes clean-up, smells, and waste. We don't typically hang cooking gear because it rarely comes in contact with food.

I listen to the advice given by the rangers/dept. of fish & wildlife/park service entity in the area I'll be hiking in. Being totally meticulous about what you do with pots, clothes, etc. is good practice but might be overkill in many areas. Where I live, bears are so rare that I don't bother changing clothes. I'd worry more about squirrels here.

There are a lot of lines of clothing marketed towards hunters that absorb and block odors. They're not particularly light or eco-friendly, but they might be good for people who are very concerned about picking up food odors.

I will be honest. I don't wear deodorant or antiperspirant when I hike. I don't wear sunscreen or bug dope.

Every synthetic shirt I own reeks of BO after 15 minutes on (from that synthetic fabrics hold smell even after washing). The smell of my clothing is not good after 2 hours going uphill. After a couple days...yuck.

I worry more about salt hungry mt. goats wanting me than bears. And in truth, I have had issues over the years with trekking poles being moved at night from under my tent (the straps).

I sleep in my tent with my pack under my feet, my shoes next to me inside. The only thing I leave outside is my Ursack tied off or my BV in the bushes.

I choose to not worry - but I am careful. A better solution is to cook a couple miles before camp then hiking on after dinner. That way you have no cooking smells in your camp.

As for my clothing...I don't bring a lot of extras so again, I choose to not worry. I do though make it a habit to not wipe my hands on my pants ;-)