Yeti Tundra Cooler
What does your favorite frosty beverage and the wild Grizzly Bear have in common? In a Yeti Tundra cooler nothing! The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) a US Forest Service Dept. of Agriculture Committee, officially approved the YETI Tundra series cooler for use on public lands occupied by grizzlies.
From Yeti Cooler’s Blog:
“We’re proud to be the first cooler to survive the IGBC tests,” says Ryan Seiders, owner of Yeti Coolers,” and proud that our entire Tundra line has passed the tests.” The IGBC testing simulates bear attacks and then subjects products to an hour encounter with two adult Grizzly bears. The ultimate goal is to eliminate accidental bear feeding. Once a bear is fed, it will come back to a campsite, typically necessitating the bear be destroyed. So, not only will a Yeti Cooler protect your food, it will protect the bears, as well.
The chances of a personal encounter with Gary, the grizzly, are not likely stalking shallow saltwater species from your skiff. But it is refreshing to know the cooler keeping your drinks or catch cold is built to take some serious abuse. I spent a solid month with the Yeti Tundra 35qt dispensing my own abuse.
The 35 qt Tundra is the smallest of the series, which goes all the way up to 250 qt. The rugged Roto-molded one-piece casing produces a nice looking and feeling cooler. It’s not the same look or feel you get from their fiberglass series, but it also comes in about $130 cheaper.
Tundra includes T-Latches and molded-in, self-stopping hinges. Plus incorporated rope-handles, non-slip/non-marking feet, and recessed leak-proof drain plug. The integrated slot for their optional Tie-Down Kit is a nice finishing touch.
The Tie-Down Kit is one of two options I found most useful. The second is their optional Sea-Dek Kit. I used the cooler several times as an impromptu front casting platform and found it’s 15 ½” height helped to extending my view of the flats. A note of caution, I highly recommend using an attachment system like the optional Tie-Down Kit to keep the cooler in place if you plan on fighting fish from it.
The most important reason for a quality cooler like the Tundra is to keep your cold stuff from getting hot. Here the Tundra certainly shined. I ran several different tests and kept a log of real world use. While there are a lot of variables that affect the coolers ability to keep it’s cool, from my tests prechilling the cooler and items you put in it, was the biggest determiner of the ice’s longevity.
When the cooler and the food/drink items going in the cooler were not prechilled there was up to 60% loss in the ice’s longevity. The loss in longevity was much more substantial than I would have thought, but as with any quality insulated product it will hold heat just as well as cold.
A long weekend in the sun was the backdrop for the hardest stress test I put to the cooler. The common sense rule for fuel is 1/3 to get where you’re going, 1/3 to get home and 1/3 just in case. The Yeti held to this rule too. There was enough ice in the cooler at the end of the test, to last a couple days more before I would have been concerned about the temperature of my frosty beverages. While I hesitate to put a day factor to the ice retention capabilities, due to many variables, it’s safe to say with a little effort the night before, it’s not out of the question to get up to 5 days from the ice. I highly suggest that regardless of the manufacturer of cooler, following the steps outlined in Tips for Maximizing Your Yeti Cooler's Performance will help to extend your ice longevity.
Over all I was very pleased with the performance of the Tundra. I only found a couple items that I would change. The drain plug is well thought out short of one point, I lost mine. Under most circumstances the need to completely remove the plug is unnecessary, but I had to, and somehow it got lost. A simple tether would be a cool addition. The second, and slightly more annoying detail, are the plastic sleeves on the rope handles. They have ridges for grip. Yet after carrying a loaded down cooler for some distance, the ridged handles became uncomfortable. For short distances it was not an issue.
If you’re in the market for a rugged, high quality cooler for outdoors activities, I recommend a look at the Yeti’s Tundra series.
Cheers,
Capt. Jan
Check out Yeticooler.com for a dealer near you.
