What do you car/truck campers do with your food when you sleep at night?

Just wondering because of all of the signs in Crested Butte and other places about bear activity. Even their trash cans at gas stations have special latches, and the locals said the bears come into town at night to forage. That might make it safer to actually car camp at the campgrounds since the bears all leave to explore the night life around these mountain towns.

Last year a tv station in Denver went up to Aspen and filmed 32 bears in one night roaming town looking for garbage to eat.

I often sleep in my 4Runner with my food. If I'm in a tent, I just leave it in the truck. In Grizz country I sleep with bear spray.

Dave, I slept in my Santa Fe this week, then found out from the clerk at the motel where I stayed one night that the bears are breaking windows to get at food in their parking lot, so they are telling everyone to bring their food in at night.

Anyone take a gun with them when they car/truck camp?

Check this out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/triplet-bear-cubs-break-i_n_1646215.html

I sleep in my 4runner with my food, bear spray and a gun, sometimes a dog too . While in a tent I just leave the food in my car.

*Side note, I had to use my gun to scare away a mountain lion that was stalking me earlier this year at night. Don't worry, I didn't shoot it, I have great respect for wildlife. I tried other means of getting it to stop first such as yelling and throwing rocks, the report from the handgun worked though.

Good thing you weren't sleeping in your car in the motel parking lot! Sometimes it's like the insurance commercial running right now: "You have to set up a meat perimeter so bears don't get too close."

Seriously, like Jason, when I car camp my food is inside a cooler inside my vehicle as are all my cooking implements. If I'm in bear country there is bear spray and a loaded weapon within easy reach. If I'm tent camping I leave all the food and cooking stuff in the car and make sure to change out of the clothes I wear when cooking.

If I had to sleep with bear spray I don't think I'd be doing much sleeping

I always leave the food inside my car, except in certain areas (The Portal at Mt. Whitney) where the bears are adept at getting into vehicles and the law requires that you use a bear box.

Vacuum sealers are a godsend. Put all the ingredients for one meal in a bag and seal it. No odors to attract critters of any kind.

I sleep in a tent when car camping and put my food and cook gear in the truck. I sleep with bear spray at easy access. No gun. Sometimes when I'm on my own I only use the cook stove for coffee and to heat water for freeze dried meals, so not much cooking.

I have been camping for many years and have had a bear in camp at night when backpacking and a couple of other close encounters, but I honestly think over the years the few scary looking human characters I've seen in the woods seemed like a bigger danger than bears.

My RV is for rent.
Sandy

I was an Asst. Scoutmaster when the boys were Boy Scouts and we were taught to put the food in plastic bags, put a rope on the bag and string it up high enough to be out of the bear's reach. That was 20+ years ago and I don't think there were as many bears as there are now.