We’ve gotten a lot of questions about Yosemite’s Approval list and why Grubcan isn’t on it.
So since we have a lot of new followers I thought I’d share the story.
Grab a cup of coffee or the beverage of your choice. I’ll try to keep it short.
Jim and I were backpacking in Yosemite in 2018 with a bear can stabbing me in the back. I have a Dana Design 65L pack and the canister only fit inside in the middle where I’d normally put my tent. (After backpacking for 40 years, I don’t understand why people carry canisters on the top of their pack- that goes against everything I know about proper balance and comfort- but I’d also love to understand this carrying technique.)
Anyway, I digress, so on the first day of our trip, I found myself saying to Jim, ‘we need to create a bear resistant container that’s shaped like our tent.’ I carry the tent on our adventures, and I put it in the middle of my pack so it goes along my spine, since besides food, it’s the heaviest thing I carry. I love this packing method and have happily been carrying 40 lbs. since I discovered it.
A few times throughout the trip we talked about what an ideal bear resistant container would look like and how it would open. My guidelines were no tools (I don’t want to depend on my ability to not lose something to get to my food), and I needed to be able to easily open but bears couldn’t. By the end of the 5 night backpacking trip, Jim had the initial design in his head. It had a long shape, but opened more like a clam shell. (Turns out you have to make the canister heavy to keep bears from being able to smash those.)
We are fortunate to have a Grizzly Bear and Black Bears nearby all that have been put into Animal Sanctuaries because they got into trouble with human food. So we were able to test our ideas easily.
What was fun about this process is how many people were impressed with our idea. It was different from the other canisters out there. To this day we get emails from backpackers thanking us for thinking outside the box.
Once we had a first good prototype, I got in touch with the Wildlife Manager in Yosemite since that’s where the idea had been born. I told her of our project, and asked when she thought Yosemite would open up their allowance system.
This was in 2018. She said they were working on it and it should be by next summer.
What I only discovered a couple of years later, is why opening up their allowance system was so difficult and why they hadn’t approved any new canisters since 2015, even though there is great pressure for them to do so.
Prior to 2015, Yosemite National Park was sued by a bear resistant container company, whose product isn’t allowed in Yosemite because it does not meet the guidelines Yosemite set forth for what a bear resistant container must do and not do.
I’m going from memory here:
- They cannot damage the environment in any way. (Like it can’t hang from trees or require rock movement etc. Some enterprising people even thought a canister that was hidden in the waterways would be good.)
- You cannot use any part of the canister in any other way. (Ie as a stool, the lid as a plate etc.) Granted, some of the canisters that are on their allowance list are used for stools and the lid used as a plate.
- IGBC approved
- The container must open in two motions only. Not one, not three. If it only has one safety measure then the bears can generally figure it out. If it has three then people generally won’t close it completely.
This container of the company that sued Yosemite, was considered to cause damage to the environment, and therefore not allowed.
Yosemite won the lawsuit but it cost them so much money, time and resources to fight that lawsuit, that they closed down the allowance system until they could find a way to approve new canisters that didn’t open them up to lawsuits.
Well, 8 years later, they still haven’t figured it out. Being that it is a government agency, and Yosemite now has an over visitation problem, the bear biologists there have stopped saying ‘any time now’ and saying, ‘we have no idea, approving new canisters has gotten to the bottom of the pile of things we have to deal with here.’
We have worked with the bear biologists there from the beginning to make sure that when/if they open the allowance system again, Grubcan will pass, but for now we have no idea when that could be.
In the meantime, we have a lot of happy campers that have bought Grubcan’s and I no longer have a Bear resistant container stabbing me in the back.
And best of all, we’ve created the Carbon/Kevlar version that we make right here in good ole’ Flagstaff, out of scraps from other things we make. (Airplane parts etc.) It’s the lightest 6.6L canister out there and has Jim’s patented combo latch that people are loving.
We’re so grateful for this adventure of creating a Bear Resistant Container.
We won’t be making the Clear 10L anymore, unless we find a US company to do it effectively. Which is why we stopped selling them at REI last year. (we only have about 7 left, if you want one of those you can get it here).
Grubcan is committed to protecting wildlife and the home we share with them, and we like making the bear resistant containers from reclaimed materials at our shop in Flagstaff.
We are grateful for all your support of our venture. We may not have the biggest selling container, but we’re proud to have one that has low impact on the environment, and low impact on your sanity (because you can easily open it when you’re starving 🙂
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