Five day cooler

[Grandpa]

five day huh, well just came from Costco and they had a six day. First Liar doesn't stand a chance.

We save all plastic pop bottles, wash them, refill with water and freeze them. Ice won't last as long as with the gallon milk jugs but we can stagger them around to spread the cold better and fit nooks and crannies better.

Since I also use bottles instead of a bladder when hiking or hunting, I fill my bottles 1/2 full and freeze, then top it off the morning I leave so I have good cold water most of the day.

[swduncan]

I now need a new cooler after discovering the fatal flaw in the one I have.

An important thing to look at with coolers is to see if the drain is really going to allow all standing liquid in the cooler to drain out. Wet, soggy food containers is not appetizing or sanitary in my mind.

I just came back from a trip where I used the freeze-the-milk-jug idea, and found my food wet and soggy because one of the jugs had developed a slow leak. The cooler was an Igloo Maxcold, and the flit-brained troglodytes that designed the thing put the drain about 2" off the bottom. So, there will always be 2" of water in the bottom before any reaches the drain. I don't camp that much, and usually my coolers are used for drinks and are filled with water and ice so I never thought about the drain when I bought the cooler, but there was obviously a reason it was on sale ;-)

While the freeze-the-jug idea works great, the best arrangement I had was when I cut a piece of plywood to fit the divider slots and created a full-depth well at the drain end of another cooler. I filled that with cube ice, and the ice stayed clean and the food stayed dry. The drain plug on that cooler got broken off, and the Maxcold was the replacement.

So, I'm looking for a replacement and need one that:

1. Has a drain that is at the lowest point in the cooler, or at lease minimizes the amount of water that can accumulate.

2. Has a divider slot near the drain end.

3. Has a sturdy, racoon-proof latch. Does such a thing exist? On the weekend's trip the raccoons got my breakfast sausage out of there faster than I could have.

4. Has a threaded drain cap, not a flip-open plug.

5. No wheels.

Any ideas?

[alex k]

the article from camping life.com , ice chest shootout, may help. they did a comparison of 5 major coolers