Isle Royale Forums

Three and a half weeks till we are on IR.

One of our group posed the question "Do we need to hang our food at night, because of the animals?"

I thought I would ask. Do we need to hang our food at night because of the foxes on the island? If so, any suggestions?

I usually hang the packs up around 3-4 feet to keep off the foxes, but more so the squirrels, who will chew through a pack in no time flat.

Bob

Ditto on the squirrels. They will go thru the tent too! Lost our trail mix that way (and a hole in the tent)--we were in camp, but not around the tent. I've slept with the food pack in tent and haven't had any problems.

I've never hung our food and have never had any problems. The Squirrels and Jays are very bold when it comes to stuff left out unprotected.

I've never hung my food bag on IR. Although, I've encountered some pretty brazen camp foxes at Daisy Farm and Three Mile. I suppose I should reconsider this when I'm on the island in July--it would suck to lose food on the 3rd day of an 8 day solo!

I've talked to several rangers about this issue, and while stopping short of requiring you to hang your food, the Park Service seems to "highly recomend" doing so. In the past few years there have been several close encounters with wolves, and the park service is concerned that if the wolves begin to look at campers as a food source, there is no good thing that can come from the situation. Always better to be safe than sorry.

Why not just keep it all in your tent? I keep everything in there unless I'm camping somewhere where there are bears.

My buddy and I have a two-person Kelty tent with a vestibule on each side. We usually keep our packs on the ground in the vestibule area to keep them out of the elements and have never had a problem with small critters coming in and chewing through them. Although, I guess there is a first time for everything...

My wife and I just got back and we had only one problem with a squirrel. We were at W. Chickenbone #1 and a squirrel chewed through my wifes pack to get food that was not in there. The food was in our tent (and prior to that was carried in my pack), and yet it still went through her pack which was leaning up against a tree. From then on, while we were not at the campsite we put everything in the tents and had no problems.

In my experience, food is safe if you keep it in your tent AND you are in the campsite. If you aren't in the campsite, it's best to hang the food as the squirrels will go right through the tent if no one is around to scare them off a little.

Thanks for the replies, all.

I am also trying to determine how to deal with food on an upcoming trip. Reading everyone's suggestions, it seems we have to worry about the squirrels most of all. To those of you who hang your food: do we not need to worry about them finding ways to get to the hanging bag like they always seem to get to bird feeders? It seems that hanging it from a tree branch, even a good distance from the tree itself, would still not be safe enough. Or is it as simple as the squirrels not being active at night?

At night we put our food at the foot of our tent and had no problems at all. During the day though, they can be pretty nasty. When we stayed at W. Chickenbone a squirrel chewed a hole through my wife's pack even with it sitting completely open. After that, we just stuck everything in our tent and tried to stay near our campsite. W. Chickenbone ended up being the only place we had problems with squirrels. We stayed at S. Desor and Hatchet Lake with no squirrel problems and then we were at the shelters at Washington Creek.

The one problem with hanging food is that many of the trees that are near the campsites do not offer branches that you can hang a food bag from. That is why we ultimately decided to stick our food in our tent.

What about hard plastic tupperware type containers with tight fitting lids as opposed to stuff sack bags or put inside stuff sack bags for hanging. They don't add much weight but do add piece of mind. I've used these anywhere I camp without bears and haven't had any issues yet. Has anyone used this method and had any issue?

My hiking partner carries the bear can everywhere we go even though its overkill. It fits in the pack nice and doubles as a camp seat. I only carry my bear can when actually camping near bears as I am 120lbs and try to shave all the pack weight I can.

Nitsirk wrote:What about hard plastic tupperware type containers with tight fitting lids as opposed to stuff sack bags or put inside stuff sack bags for hanging. They don't add much weight but do add piece of mind.

I've never heard of anyone doing this yet, but it seems like it could work. Conversely, I've seen the squirrels on Isle Royale do some amazing things...one time I essentially saw them do the equivalent of a high-wire trapeze walk, followed by what I can only describe as a fireman pole-slide down to a food bag. When I saw it at first, I wasn't even mad, it was amazing.