Results of the more stringent 2024 bear-proofing food storage rules in the BWCA

"Last spring, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) managers toughened the rules for how visitors store food, hoping to reduce the odds of encounters with bears.

"So far, they say, the moves appear to have worked."

As a frequent visitor to the BWCA I think it's too bad this was needed but it was, too many sloppy careless campers resulted in many habituated bears which is as bad for the bears as for the humans. There was a lot of complaining but compliance was pretty simple - either get or rent certified bear proof storage or hang. I'm glad to see that it seems like it worked.

During my one and only trip to BWCA, we hung, and sometimes it was tough to find a way to hang 12’ up and 6’ from a trunk. You need a large limb in an area where there are no lower limbs and no other trees nearby. There were sites where we couldn’t find such a limb and resorted to rigging lines between trees and did not achieve 12’/6’. Luckily, we were not visited by any bears and got away with it.

I’ve been in parks where the sites were equipped with either wire pulley systems (Olympic and Shenandoah NPs), an elevated log chained between trees (Yellowstone) or steel storage boxes (Grand Teton and Yosemite NPs). It’s a lot easier hanging if the site is equipped for it. But, BWCA is so huge with so many sites it doesn’t seem feasible to equip sites there with storage systems.

Which I guess leaves carrying a bear-proof container as the best solution. In the BWCA, where we averaged 8 carries a day, that’s a lot of carrying. I think I’d invest in one of the bear-proof sacks if I went there again. Hopefully, they are approved for use in the BWCA.