There's a first time for everything. For me, using a bear canister in
June while hiking in the Adirondacks was new to me. In the Adirondack
High Peak region, it's mandatory to use a bear canister in the
backcountry. Apparently by the early 2000's bear encounters had become such a common occurrence that it was mandated that travelers use a bear canister, instead of using usual methods such as hanging from trees. Typically these containers are used more in the West than they are in the east, and provide much better protection from bears eating your food.
Bear containers are heavy. They need to be somewhat to withstand the punishment of a hungry bear trying to eat your dinner. I did a bit or research to find the lightest one I could for a three day trip for one person and figured I would pick up the Bare Boxer Contender 101. It's manufactured by a company called Golf City Products which surprisingly makes golf products such as golf cups for holes. It was on back order at the time I ordered one, but I did get it before my trip. In the Adirondacks you can borrow and/or rent them as well, but I wanted to have my own to be able to know what it's about and pre pack it.
So, this thing looks like a barrel made of heavy plastic with a separate lid with three half turn locks on the top of it. The operation is quite simple - you have to rotate all three locks until the arrows point inward, then the lid can be removed. There's one catch - you can't just simply twist the locks to rotate them, they have a little protected piece that needs to be pushed down to rotate it. A key or swiss army knife will do the trick for this. Even though it is one of the lighter ones I could find, it isn't all that light, weighing in at 1.6lbs. It also is less packable and needs more strategy to pack than just a bag of food, since it's a hard barrel shaped container.
Challenge #1: Packing the bear container. I bought a bunch of freeze dried meals to take with me on the trip, as well as usual trail snacks - trail mix, etc. to take with me on my three day trip. Most of the freeze dried meals are in a large pack and the contents are hard, so fitting them in the box was pretty difficult. I made the decision to ditch some of the foil packs they come in, in order to fit more food in it... I cut the packs open and transferred the contents into a ziplock bag. The idea was to reuse the one of the foil packs for multiple meals, and that worked well. I also had to change my meal plan and opt for more energy dense foods instead of what I would normally bring for lunch... i.e. snickers bars instead of sausage and cheese with crackers. Packing anything fragile in the box is just guaranteeing it'll come out in crumbs or all broken up. I did manage to pack three days worth of food for one person in the box. It may be stretched to 4 days, but more compromises would need to be made for choices of food.
Challenge #2: What the hell do I do with the container..? I didn't know what to do with the container when at camp. It seems weird just to toss it on the ground and leave it there, but that's exactly what you do with this. The idea is if the bear comes around and is interested in your food, it will just bat the container around until it gets frustrated, then leave. The barrel shape and smooth surface doesn't allow for the bear to pick it up and walk off with it. It's advised that it's put a distance away from the camp, in some bushes or something like that so it's less likely to be moved around... and not near a cliff or water.
Conclusion
The bear boxer contender is a good piece of kit for one person, three days worth of food or 4 pushing it. it needs a little to get used to packing it and is heavy though. I believe some of the hardware on the lid can be changed to aluminum or titanium to lower the weight a little without sacrificing strength.
I did find using a bear container more convenient that trying to hang my food. Many times when hanging food, I would be walking all around near the camp looking for any semi-suitable branch to hang food from, only to give up and find a not-so-ideal branch to hang my food, that a determined bear would likely get my hands on my food. This eliminates all of that... but at the downside of being an extra 1.6 lbs to carry around and being awkward to pack.
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