My brother. Has to have the best of everything. Watch “Guys with a YETI” and it’s my brother to a T. He once had a Honda Civic with such a massive sound system that his battery wouldn’t charge, so he was forever asking for boost. Solution: add a 2nd alternator.
I loved the “take a moment to ponder the price of the YETI” while he drinks a beer.
I wonder if they’d be good for brewing beer? Pickle IPA, anyone?
A white 5-gallon bucket is one of the most useful free things on earth, until you need one and don’t have it. Then they become so scarce you think maybe you only dreamed they were a thing. I wanted a bucket for my tools, but couldn’t find a free one anywhere. Finally bought one from Home Depot, only to see a free one on the side of the road later that same day.
Sure, but just look at the accessories you can get:
I doubt I could bring myself to buy one at their retail prices but I did get a Yeti tumbler and a coffee cup a while back as a gift, and I’ve got to admit they are pretty fantastic. Are they 700% better than the stainless steel tumbler I got for $5 on clearance? Definitely not, but they are of markedly higher quality, and I suppose that barring unforeseen circumstances, I don’t know why they wouldn’t last me the rest of my life.
That’s the only demographic that I kind of understand the massively over-engineered aspect of their coolers. If you’re on a fishing trip and need something to keep food & game ice cold for a week, I get why you might think that spending $300 on a cooler is at least rational. But when you’re just going to the beach and need to keep your beer relatively cold for six hours, the economics might not work out.
You can’t just cut a hole in the floor of the boat and use that?
Olive barrels from a Greek restaurant or grocer are excellent free containers, although the top opening is smaller than the buckets. Used to be, and maybe still are, standard for food and clothing on canoe trips.
(Krinos is Greek for Yeti.)
Whitewater is a different ball of wax and the Yeti bucket would not exist if not for whitewater.
I have several dozen storage containers of one sort or another. Some work well, others suck.
A simple 5 gallon bucket with a lid is a classic dry container from yesteryear, but they tend to fail when squeezed… like from water pressure. That’s why the Yeti is thicker and therefore heavier.
If nothing else, I am experienced. I have experienced many, many, many dry container failures of one sort or another in whitewater. I would not even consider a regular bucket with my sleeping bag on a whitewater trip. I don’t have a yeti bucket but I would not expect them to fail like a regular bucket.
There’s always a reason… if you’re interested in finding it.
I’ve got similar experiences. After using cheap coolers for years the upgrade to a Yeti was a huge difference and has changed how I think about car camping food storage. To the point that my (hopefully still on) camping trip 10 hours from home this summer I’ll probably pack the cooler at home instead of buying out there. Being able to save an hour on travel day by not having to go grocery shopping will be very nice.
I used it at Oshkosk last summer. There was ice available at $5 per bag but the line was a half hour long and a limit of two bags per person. A few days in they just ran out of ice. I was glad not to have to deal with that. Probably saved $60, and three hours of my life.
Looks like a wet sleeping bag waiting to happen.
Have you ever been on a multiday whitewater camping trip and when you set up camp, you find out your stuff is wet?
That is why this bucket is so over built… but I bet it’s dry.
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I hate this shit. It’s pure spite because they can’t be bothered to follow a very simple law. I wonder whether they serve a similar page to California customers? And what will they do once more states adopt similar laws?
Well, I can’t be bothered to switch on my VPN to look at a bucket.
That’s really the weak link with generic hardware store buckets; if used for repeated load carrying, they routinely fail at the handle attachment point, rendering them useless. Although I have no experience with it, from the looks of it the webbing handle on the Yeti bucket appears to be a substantial improvement. From a rafting and canoeing perspective, the taller bucket and tougher lid also make a better seat around camp, and probably a better pooper if that was your purpose. In places where you have to carry out human waste, 50$ would be worthwhile insurance against leakage imo. For food storage, camping garbage, recycling etc. I actually prefer these FDA approved square pails. They fit into places better and I find them easier to pack.
ULINE - Shipping Boxes, Shipping Supplies, Packaging Materials, Packing Supplies
The US Bureau of Land Management has guidelines and recommendations for portable toilets used on rivers, where they are required equipment for all overnight trips.
https://www.blm.gov/or/permit/info/portabletoiletinfo
Note the test they recommend:
It passes the leak test - shaking a full toilet over your head with no leakage.
I have heard stories from boaters who had dodgy portable toilets get called on it by BLM officers, where the officer says they will waive the fine if they perform the above test. Usually, said boater just takes the fine…
Those things are great! No only are they air/water tight but they strengthen the bucket considerably. I have used that system for animal-proof food storage to good effect. Not certified bear-resistant but a pretty good poor-mans approximation.
Joke’s on them - GDPR applies to me as an EU citizen even though I live in the US. Geoblockers reflect a poor understanding of the law
Ya I used to guide multi-day trips in another life. Not only is that human feces, but human feces warmed by the sun for a week or more. Where I worked, the rookie rowed the shit boat and also took the bucket to the sani-dump at trip’s end. That might be the nastiest task I’ve ever had to do.
The olive barrels I referenced above would probably take rougher handling than the buckets, because the lid is screw-down rather than a press fit. We’ve used both without leakage, but not in white water.
We hoist them in a tree if bears are an issue, but they resist smaller critters. The plastic handle on one of ours has little raccoon bite marks.
I’m guessing that it’s the same bucket as the yeti version, just with cheaper branding.
Avoiding that line and frustration is well worth the cost of admission to the expensive cooler club.
