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Bears are the extreme exception for a DNB

Most time as a DNB is spent in areas where bear-aware practices are simply not needed. Even in Ovando, Montana (where a woman was killed in town after camping on a BBQ site) the option to camp in places that are not a tent are very available.

Any place the mandates bear canisters is likely just not a place I necessarily need to visit. If and when that need arises, I could rig a weekend trip following all the precautions. Otherwise, I just skip those areas.

Plus pretty much every bear-heavy area either has lockers or can be managed with a simple bear-bag throw.

The extreme (but relevant) advice to not cook near a tent or sleep in the clothing or consider anything that smells to be tainted makes living as a DNB impossibly difficult since I regularly go into restaurants and eat in those same clothes. The idea that I would need too have a set of “eating” clothes separate from everything else, and, logically, that I would need to hang those up in a bear-bag as well as any food I’m carrying is just so impractical it borders on silly. What about my natural stank just from sweating for 12 hours? What about when I launder my clothing? Brush my teeth? Wear mosquito repellent or sunscreen? All of these things are interesting smells. I just cannot be worried about this stuff constantly. When there is the possibility of raccoons or bears I’ll just hang my bag, otherwise, for the most part, I just don’t plan on going anywhere that such practices are more required than most.

Where should the food go?

Lachlan Morton did Tour Divide by putting all the food into a single bag that fit between his aero bars. It was virtually filled with salted nut rolls. Usually, he would stay in a hotel in town so he didn’t have to bother with the bear-bag stuff. But if he did, he could have just slung that bag over a branch.