Lash a Pack to a Tree and Keep It Off the Ground

A pack on the ground gets wet from below, collects ants, and is a buffet for mice who will chew straight through a hipbelt to reach a wrapper you forgot about. Getting it eighteen inches up solves all three. This is not bear hanging, which is a different job covered separately. This is simple daily housekeeping.

How to do it

1. Pick the tree and the height

   A trunk or a solid limb with the pack hanging clear of the ground by at least a foot. Under a dense conifer canopy is drier than open ground even in steady rain.

2. Tie a clove hitch on the trunk

   Wrap the cord around the trunk, cross over itself, wrap again, and tuck the working end under the last wrap. It grips under load and unties instantly when the load comes off. If you learn one knot this year, learn this one.

3. Run the standing end to your haul loop

   Use the reinforced loop at the top of the pack between the shoulder straps, not a shoulder strap itself. Straps are stitched for downward load, not for hanging.

4. Finish with two half hitches

   Pass the end around the loop and tie two half hitches. It is adjustable, it holds, and cold wet hands can still untie it.

5. Face the pack lid into the trunk

   Rain runs down the trunk, so the pack body takes it, not the opening. Turn the lid inward and the zipper stays dry.

6. Empty the food out first

   Whatever your food storage plan is, it does not live in a hanging pack. Rodents will find it in an hour.

Where people go wrong

• Hanging by a shoulder strap. You will eventually tear a stitch line and shoulder straps are not field repairable.
• Using a knot you cannot untie. Under load and in the cold, a jammed overhand knot means cutting your cord.
• Leaving pockets open. A hanging pack swings and mice climb cord. Zip everything.
• Leaving it out all night in bear country without doing proper food storage. A clean pack can hang. A pack with food in it is bait.