High Sierra Topix

I’d break the car storage issue into two components: odor and visibility.

Odor: mylar and other metalized based wrappers (chips, energy bars, oatmeal, Mountain House etc), cans (soda, canned coffee, beer) and glass bottles (again beer) are designed for long term storage without oxygen getting in. This also means that they let very little odor out. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that these food coverings would not be sources of appreciable odors for bears. You could even put a high odor food (jerky) in a canning jar or mylar bag to provide a good odor barrier. This said, any traces of food that you put on the objects might be smellable. So, don’t store these items with your jerky prior to the journey!
     More importantly, any other food residue in the car is odoriferous. My car is well used, so those cheddar rockets stuck between the seats, that peach pit and samosa wrapper from Fresno, or Schatt’s bakery bags, and the Purell would all be odor sources that may attract a bear regardless of how odor proof your energy bar/beer is.

Visibility: A covered trunk would work to screen food in a sedan, but it is difficult for those of us with other cars (I’m sure none of us own a Subaru ). You could put a few energy bars and a bottle of water in the spare tire well. I place my post-trip change of clothes on the driver’s seat, not in a bag that might attract a bear. Also I don’t bring deodorant.

I’ve heard stories of river rafters being harassed by bears that knew how to open, and liked to drink beers. This illustrates that bears are clever, and quite able to recognize that a non-odoriferous object may still contain food.

This doesn't really answer your question about the cooler, but does address the general problem of leaving post-trip food in your car: clear out your trash and put suitably wrapped foods in a place that a bear can’t see.

Friends of mine have a vehicle without a normal trunk. When they are forced to leave food in it, they store the food in a large heavy sealed steel box. Then that goes into the back somewhere and covered with a large piece of black fabric. Hopefully the bear doesn't smell anything or see anything that looks like food.

Although expensive, but there are bear-proof panniers used by horse packers that you could put food outside the car. If worried about human theft, you can chain them to a tree.

Most trailheads that have experienced bear problems have trailhead have bear boxes to store car camping food. Rather than a bulky cooler, I save the smaller foam "coolers" that come when you order fresh meat from Amazon, tape them shut and put that in the trailhead bear box labeled with my permit number and return date (otherwise the rangers may remove your food). It actually makes me mad when I see someone has put a huge cooler, half full, in a bear box, using up all the space so nobody else has room for their stuff. If you put a slab of dry ice on the top the food will stay cool for quite some time.

For all the damage a bear can do to a car, I would rather have the means to place all food outside my car. As for food scraps in the car, that is dramatically reduced when grandkids do not ride in my car and since I have quit snacking while driving. I now do all eating at a rest stop outside my car. It is not just at trailheads, but people who live in bear country have to be careful about this all the time.

Does comprehensive insurance cover "destruction of car by bear"?

By the way, I am headed to the Wind River Mtns in Wyoming, and there, even though there are grizzlies, the Forest Service just recommends that you store all food inside the trunk if a bear box is not provided, this includes the vast amounts of dispersed camping along roads to the trailheads. The trailheads that are heavily used have bear boxes.

Wandering Daisy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:40 am Does comprehensive insurance cover "destruction of car by bear"?

Yes.

John

John Harper wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2020 7:53 am I've got a bear resistant cooler, not sure how to consider that. Is putting it in a food locker even necessary? They're technically just like a bear resistant food canister, IGBC approved, so why not just that type of cooler?

depends on where you are... around Tahoe they're okay to use if appropriately locked, in Yosemite they said to empty the cooler and leave it unlocked/open.

a number of years ago we were camping at Whitney Portal and had moved almost everything from the cooler to a bear locker, but had forgot about a baggie of baklava, half a sandwich, and some beer/ice (which I wasn't planning to move anyways)... just locked the lid and chained the cooler to the bed before retiring for the evening. around 11pm a bear hopped into the back of the truck, threw out our hiking poles and some other gear, bit off the cooler latches and wrestled with the locked cooler for a few minutes before giving up. on his way out he left a fresh pile of berry scat next to our tent, obviously unhappy.

the food and beer were unharmed but the now upside down cooler needed some parts, the truck bed was full of slobber and bear hair, and everything was scratched up. I moved the cooler into the bear locker for our walk up Whitney.

precision, not his first go at a Yeti:

Wow, @Enigmagic! Impressive!

At Icehouse Reservoir a few years ago, the neighboring campsite left their bear resistant cooler (I don't know the brand) out overnight. A mother bear came through our camp with large a yearling cub and proceeded to jump, many times, on the cooler until it broke the lid into pieces. She then ate the neighbors steaks near our tent. The man insisted he had done nothing wrong by not using the bear boxes as his cooler was 'certified' - fair enough, but if there are available bear boxes I'd use them. The irony was that neighbor's dog slept through the whole thing.

Around August 4-5, I was at Crabtree Camp. Right at the stream crossing, there is a substantial steel food storage box. The backpackers had filled it up... with bear canisters! What's up with that? The backpackers who arrived later had no space at all for their food.