How to store food backpacking in the Grand Canyon

Hello there! I recently finished a 5-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon (the Thunder River — Deer Creek loop), and learned *so much* on this trip I’m breaking it up into multiple posts.

Here’s my day-by-day trip report from May 2021.

Let’s talk about food storage. I had read all sorts of horror stories about overly bold rodents and ravens stealing food, and if there’s anything that keeps me happy on the trail, it’s FOOD, so we were pretty determined to not join the ranks of hungry hikers.

I’m happy to report we had zero negative run-ins with critters.

Here’s what we did!

The three-bag solution

1. Food went inside a Loksak (basically a fancy, scent-proof Ziploc)

2. Loksak went inside a ratsack (a wire mesh bag)

3. The mesh bag went inside a nylon tote. I used free totes I’d collected over the years, but of course you can drop more cash on a purpose-built one at REI.

I balked at adding that third nylon bag at first, because I had hit major trip-planning (and REI spending) fatigue, but that final layer was useful for a couple of reasons:

• They protect your sleeping bag and other goods from getting snagged by the wire mesh.
• Nylon totes are much easier to hang in trees, so you don’t need to bring rope for that purpose.

That said, I think you could probably simplify that set up if you’re so inclined.

I used two of these setups for a five-day trip:

1. One smaller ratsack for my snacks for the day, which I kept stashed in an external pocket of my pack for easy access
2. One large ratsack with all of my other food, buried deep in my pack

We hung those bags in trees every night and as far as we can tell they were never disturbed.

Orange bags = food.

I think I probably could have skipped the small wire mesh bag and just used a Loksak during the day, but … don’t mess with success, right?

More on backpacking the Grand Canyon:

• The training plan that carried me into and out of the canyon with ease, despite living in a basically flat part of the country (still high on this success!)
• Day-by-day trip report for the Thunder River—Deer Creek loop in late May.
• Water cache & carry plan
• Why I went stoveless, and my five-day menu that I didn’t hate and sometimes even loved
• Here’s my LighterPack list. (Green stars: MVPs of this trip. Yellow stars: brought too much. Red stars: should have left at home.)