[pct-l] Sleeping with food everywhere except the Sierra???

[Bob Bankhead]

I carry my bear canister everywhere in the Sierra, even where it is not mandated by regulation, and even some places in the Cascades where bears are or could become an issue. Just because the use is not mandated does not mean it's not needed.

My Bearikade Expedition canister is a carbon fiber cylinder with two perfectly flat metal ends and serves many purposes:

1) Protects my wallet (and possibly my hike) from penalties imposed by rangers enforcing the regulations that I'm required to obey, no matter how I may personally feel about same.

2) Protects my food and trash (or the bears, depending on your point of view). This has the added benefit of allowing me to sleep soundly at night when B'rer Bear wanders by on his nightly rounds.

3) Camp seat (beats the hell out of a wet log or sharp rocks)

4) Camp table for eating or journaling

5) On rare occasion, a step stool (helpful in shelters)

6) A stable, wind-proof base for my gas stove. The 20x24 inch piece of CCP that serves as the frame of my pack gets strapped 3/4 of the way around the bear canister body, forming a tall solid windscreen that projects well above the top of my pot on the stove.

7) Ever-increasing storage space for gear that must ride in the outside pockets of the pack when the canister is full of food at the start of the hike. The value of this option is directly proportional to the number of days between re-supply. Also helpful for protecting fragile items and other smaller gear when checking my pack for airplane travel. Things in external pockets tend to  disappear otherwise, even with the pack in a duffle.

Handy things, these canisters.You just have to look at the positives rather than obsess over the negative added weight. 

YMMV
HYOH
ROFLMAO
etc.