If you are in a campground with other people I wouldn't worry about it. Unless we are can't see anybody else from our site, we leave our coolers out at night. I keep the bags of food in the car, but that is mostly because of bugs.

I'm more concerned about/scared of ticks than I am of bears.

I used to tree plant in Alaska and black bears were like squirrels to me. Grizzlies, however...

I've never had a ranger tell me not to leave food in my car while camping on the East Coast. Out west, yes.

Read "A Walk In the Woods" by Bill Bryson, it's funny and he talks about bears a lot.
My brother backpacked into Yosemite with some friends and the second night, 14 miles in, a mama bear had her cub climb up and knock down their backpacks from the tree where they hung everything for safe keeping. Made off with all their food - had to share a bag of trail mix between 4 guys for the hike back.
At Tenaya Lake, Calif. where there is no longer a campground, morning trips to the car for breakfast supplies were routinely marked by gawking at bear prints on nearby car windows, damage to somebody's door frames, and my favorite, some idiot who stored his cooler inside a ragtop convertible which was shredded overnight. That was before they installed metal bear boxes.

Anonymous wrote:What is car camping? Do you sleep in the car?

It just means your car is either at a parking space at your tent site or close nearby so that you only carry items for your camp like coolers & tent etc a short distance from the car, as opposed to backpacking in to a location like say a shelter on the Appalachian Trail or a backcountry site with no roads.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ I give up

that is so cute but what are they doing up on the tree?

What is car camping? Do you sleep in the car?

We always take precautions and put our food in the trunk or hang our food if we're backpacking, but I've noticed that most people in campgrounds around here don't bother and they never seem to have any problem. I do think the bears are more wary of people here, even in the National Park. I've heard there are bear poachers out there, so maybe that's why.

Holy wow.

We routinely camp in MD, and always always put the food in the trunk of the car. If we left a cooler out, I'd expect skunk and raccoons. The campsites have bear proof trash cans, but there aren't typically warnings to keep you food out of reach of bears. I'd guess that maybe there's the occasional bear wanders through in the off season but that in summer when it's busy, they stay away.

This thread terrifies me. Exactly why I do not ever want to camp again. I would have a heart attack if I woke up to a bear ripping steel off of my car!