Pre-Hike Food Prep

It’s a miracle- back on the trail only 4 weeks after my last like!

OK, as you can tell from the featured photo, I’m approaching food WAY differently on this hike, for several reasons.

I’m packing commercial meals for my lunches and dinners 😮  This is partly to have an opportunity to review these particular dishes, and partly because I’m trying to go lighter than I ever have.  Commercial meals are lighter than the fancy feasts I normally favor.  We’ll see how it goes.

I also normally don’t cook lunch, but I will on this trip so that I can experience as many of these meals as possible.

Now, to back up a little bit.  I try to pack at least 3000 calories per day.  Even though on a strenuous hike I can burn twice that, my personal experience is that if I put at least 3000 calories into my furnace I’ll feel fine for at least 8 days (my longest hike to date).  I do not like to cook breakfast- I don’t really want to fiddle with my cookset in the morning, especially cleaning my pots yet again.  Over time I have come to favor granola bar type things for breakfast, and on this trip each morning I will have 3 Sunbelt Bakery bars (1 fudge-dipped coconut, 1 apple-filled and 1 raspberry-filled) which will total 450 calories.  FWIW I have yet to find anything along the lines of a CLIF bar that doesn’t remind me of eating sawdust.  I will also have some cold instant coffee, because if I don’t get my morning caffeine my brain won’t work and I’ll do stupid things.  Like make wrong turns, leave items behind in camp….I have no limits here in what I’m capable of.

Normally I would space 3-4 snacks during the day, but on this trip I will snack only in late morning and afternoon, because I’m going to cook TrailForks meals for lunch.  I’ve heard good things about their food, and the offerings venture into the type of cuisines that I favor.  I have chosen Limey Beans & Rice, Apricot Almond Couscous, Coconut Chana Masala, Unwrapped Burrito and Loaded Veggie Hummus.

For my dinners I’m bringing 5 different double-serving meals from Good To-Go.  I’ve really enjoyed a couple of their meals in the past, and they have some great new ethnic dishes that I’m anxious to try.  I’m bringing their Chicken Gumbo, Bibimbap, Thai Curry, Pad Thai and Indian Vegetable Korma.  In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m partial to Middle Eastern and Asian dishes.

For snacks, I have the ultimate backpacking food- Snickers- as well as Peanut M&Ms, Fritos, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Combos and Snyder’s Cheddar Pretzel Bits, as well as Tanka meat sticks with apple and orange peel.  I repack most of the larger items into ziplocs to save space, after which my 5 days of food looks like this:

My snacks are based on personal winners from previous hikes.  I don’t eat Combos in my regular life, and only rarely eat Fritos either, but they both really hit the grease-craving spot on the trail.  The Tanka meat sticks are pricey but they are SO good.  I eat them a lot at home too.

I decided to use an Ursack for food storage this time.  I will be in an area where bears are occasionally present, but no bear/human/food incidents have occurred.  The place where I’ll be hiking requires that you either hang a bear bag or use a bear resistant storage method, i.e. an Ursack or a bear canister.  All of the food above fits into the large OpSak odor-proof bag that I use inside my Ursack.  Except that you get to keep your first day’s meals in your pack, because you’ll eat them before you need to hang your bag or store your container.  The Ursack will cover my bases with bears at a relatively light weight, and will provide extra protection against mini-Bears.  Where I’m going I once encountered a carnivorous mouse, who chewed through my food bag AND a ziploc to get to my….beef jerky.  Mule said it was a devil mouse, and that once it had tasted flesh it couldn’t go back.

Altogether, my 5 days of food provides 3,067 calories/day and weighs a total of 8.81 lbs.  That’s around 1.7 lbs./day, right within the generally recommended target of 1.5-2.0.  Because I’m only going to need to boil water for these meals, my kitchen weighs more than a pound less on this trip as a bonus, and I will have no problem being under 25 lbs. total pack weight when I hit the trail in 3 days.

Oops, that 8.81 lbs. includes 9 total ounces of Bulleit Bourbon and Jack Single Batch in mini bottles.  Hey, they’re multipurpose items….disinfectant, sleep aid, etc.  Plus they have a few calories 🙂   Sipping a quality bourbon at sunset in the woods is one of life’s simple pleasures, and a little bit of luxury weight that I have absolutely no problem with.

I will post food reviews upon my return.  Any “five star” meals just might make the cut for my next section hike in December.