Non-perishable, but lightweight foods for backpacking
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I just returned from southern UT. I was dayhiking & kayaking. I packed and refilled a small plastic container, that had an opening that facilitated pouring contents into mouth, with raw sprouted sunflower seeds that salted myself with celtic sea salt.
I have had backpacking friends pre pack a meal in a sealed container of quinoa or lentils, chopped veg, lemon juice or vinegar, herbs, salt, water at the beginning of the day. They say the action of walking, the ambient heat, the time hydrated and "cooked" the contents. At the end of day, their meal was ready.
Do you have access to dehydrator to prechop and dehydrate the vegs. Can you make jerky ahead of time, so you have enough meat protein. Vinegar or lemon as an acid will help keep the contents sanitary in those "cook-while-you-walk container meals". Sugars will cause fermentation and can be explosive or leaky. Fats spoil more easily without refridgeration. Do you have water filter and will there be water sources along the way?
Add a quantity of salt (with trace minerals) to your packing list. It's light, and will provide necessary
electrolytes added to your food or drink.1 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »So you're back @midwesterner85? Yes? How was the trip? The half marathon? Did you end up doing well in the food category? No food poisoning and ample supplies? How far did you hike? Inquiring mind/s want to know. Please share!
No, not back. The half marathon is Sat. and I start backpacking Sun.
Oh cool. I guess I didn't note a post from you for awhile until today so figured you were out hiking, now back. Have a great adventure.
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I just returned from southern UT. I was dayhiking & kayaking. I packed and refilled a small plastic container, that had an opening that facilitated pouring contents into mouth, with raw sprouted sunflower seeds that salted myself with celtic sea salt.
I have had backpacking friends pre pack a meal in a sealed container of quinoa or lentils, chopped veg, lemon juice or vinegar, herbs, salt, water at the beginning of the day. They say the action of walking, the ambient heat, the time hydrated and "cooked" the contents. At the end of day, their meal was ready.
Do you have access to dehydrator to prechop and dehydrate the vegs. Can you make jerky ahead of time, so you have enough meat protein. Vinegar or lemon as an acid will help keep the contents sanitary in those "cook-while-you-walk container meals". Sugars will cause fermentation and can be explosive or leaky. Fats spoil more easily without refridgeration. Do you have water filter and will there be water sources along the way?
Add a quantity of salt (with trace minerals) to your packing list. It's light, and will provide necessary
electrolytes added to your food or drink.
The food I'm taking is nuts, peanuts, heavily cured meats (mostly pepperoni sticks), dehydrated eggs, protein powder, and coffee. I've backpacked before going low carb, and am very familiar with water filtration. My pack is going to be very heavy with mostly non-dehydrated food, but I've save a little bit of that weight back by just packing a folding Esbit stove and fuel cells. The plan is to only boil water in the morning to have dehydrated eggs and coffee. Otherwise, for water I thought at first that I would switch to bottles and chemical treatment in order to save weight. However, a 2 day trip earlier this month attempting to use that method showed it was just not what I wanted to do. I will bring my trusty Camelback hydration reservoir that I've used for years, along with a Katadyn water filter.2 -
Beef Jerky.0
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I thought about it, but there is only so much beef jerky one can eat. At a certain point, that stuff causes some painful bowel movements.
I'm probably not online again until after the trip. I'll try to update everyone when I return.3 -
OK, So it is time for an update...
6/24 did the half marathon and then went to pick up my backcountry permits to find out that my initial route was not going to work for 2 reasons - 1 area was closed and the other area had a steep snow field with the last report from 6/12 suggesting ice axe and crampons (neither of which I had). Without any more recent information and nobody has apparently hiked it yet this year + they say the views are not that great past that point anyway... so the permits were changed to go around the closed area and then have a 0 day to skip the further hike out and back over that snow field.
6/25 - Headed out for the long day to go around the closed area. Full pack with food and 3L water weighed 48 lbs. (yikes!). 18.2 mile day and 3K+ elevation both up and down to go over a pass and then down to camp. It was a long day and my feet became quite blistered. I sweated a lot and refilled my 3L reservoir once on the pass. That night at camp, I tried to filter water from a lake and found that my filter was plugged. Throughout the whole day / evening, I did not end up eating much more than half of my 4,500 calories packed for the day. It was a long day, though.
6/26 - I borrowed another hiker's filter and was able to add about 2L of water to my reservoir. I had a life straw as a backup and soon found that it wasn't going to be a long-term solution. It is a real pain to drink straight from streams and I couldn't carry water so I had to rely on there being frequent streams. Over the first few miles, I considered and basically decided to take an early exit. The quickest route out from where I was at was 11.3 miles for the day. I went through the 2L of water by mid-day and drank periodically from streams with the LifeStraw as best as practical. The plan was to hike out and hitch-hike back to my car. That is exactly what I ended up doing and by the end of the day was buying lots and lots of water from a convenience store.
TMI:All day on 6/26, I urinated once. And it was dark yellow and a bit painful even. I was so dehydrated that I drank 2L of water in the evening that I got from the convenience store and 1/2 L of soda; but still did not urinate until the next morning. It's depressing to have to cut my hike short, but between the dehydration and the heavy pack, blistered feet (I did get some new hiking boots already), and the poor ability to get much from that Life Straw... it was just safer to pack out early.0 -
Sheesh! That sounds like a whole lot of not fun while learning lessons mess! I hope you're recovering now, finally!0
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Bummer to Murphy's Law but I bet you're seeing some silver linings and planning the next hike already!0
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Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!0
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Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
It was 48 lbs. for 6 days. Still pretty heavy. I brought more food than I really even needed and had clothes that I probably didn't need such as a wool hat and down jacket because I thought it would be colder. I always end up bringing too much.0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
It was 48 lbs. for 6 days. Still pretty heavy. I brought more food than I really even needed and had clothes that I probably didn't need such as a wool hat and down jacket because I thought it would be colder. I always end up bringing too much.
I usually pack too heavy also! I have a friend who is into ultra-light backpacking and he was telling me some number and if I remember right he could do a 6-day on 25-lbs or something like that. I may be off on that but there are folks who have it down and can go light.0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
It was 48 lbs. for 6 days. Still pretty heavy. I brought more food than I really even needed and had clothes that I probably didn't need such as a wool hat and down jacket because I thought it would be colder. I always end up bringing too much.
I usually pack too heavy also! I have a friend who is into ultra-light backpacking and he was telling me some number and if I remember right he could do a 6-day on 25-lbs or something like that. I may be off on that but there are folks who have it down and can go light.
Yes, that just makes me nervous. Also, I would have to add a couple lbs. for medical supplies on top of what others would pack... plus the low carb food options (which is why I created this thread). I did find that protein powder and powdered eggs are probably the lightest items. In hind-sight, I should have brought that for nearly all my food in order to get the most bang for my blender bottle weight. At least I brought a small and light-weight stove... but I never used it. I only ended up eating the summer sausage and nuts.
On the water topic, an ultra-light backpacker suggested the stuff (can't remember the name - maybe Aquamira?) that has 2 parts where you basically make bleach on the trail and add it to a water bottle. I've tried the bottles and just don't like it for a few reasons. First, I sweat a whole lot and I need a whole lot of water. So not having a good long-term filter is just plain devastating. To filter that amount of water every time I cross a stream is going to take way too long (5 min. to mix the solution before even adding to the contaminated water - then waiting even longer to drink it - in some places, crossings are infrequent enough that I would have to clean, drink, and repeat 2-3 times and lose a lot of time). Second, any system where I have to scoop water into a container first (this includes the Sawyer Squeeze filter) is sub-par to the Katadyn that can be used even from an extremely shallow stream. Third, I like having water right next to my lips when I want to drink - which is often. The bite valve is much better than having to try to reach back to my pack for a bottle (which for my current pack, that means taking it off completely).
Finally, I have a heavy pack at >6 lbs. empty. The first step if I really want to go ultra-light is to get a lighter pack... but I don't want to sacrifice more comfort than I gain with lower weight.0 -
Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
Only problem with that is you need to sanitize your bottles VERY carefully after or you can get nasty bugs from unpurified/unfiltered water left in lid crevices or inside bottle walls. Water is always the heaviest part of a pack. Tough to carry enough if you are in an area without readily accessible streams or lakes.0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
It was 48 lbs. for 6 days. Still pretty heavy. I brought more food than I really even needed and had clothes that I probably didn't need such as a wool hat and down jacket because I thought it would be colder. I always end up bringing too much.
I usually pack too heavy also! I have a friend who is into ultra-light backpacking and he was telling me some number and if I remember right he could do a 6-day on 25-lbs or something like that. I may be off on that but there are folks who have it down and can go light.
Yes, that just makes me nervous. Also, I would have to add a couple lbs. for medical supplies on top of what others would pack... plus the low carb food options (which is why I created this thread). I did find that protein powder and powdered eggs are probably the lightest items. In hind-sight, I should have brought that for nearly all my food in order to get the most bang for my blender bottle weight. At least I brought a small and light-weight stove... but I never used it. I only ended up eating the summer sausage and nuts.
On the water topic, an ultra-light backpacker suggested the stuff (can't remember the name - maybe Aquamira?) that has 2 parts where you basically make bleach on the trail and add it to a water bottle. I've tried the bottles and just don't like it for a few reasons. First, I sweat a whole lot and I need a whole lot of water. So not having a good long-term filter is just plain devastating. To filter that amount of water every time I cross a stream is going to take way too long (5 min. to mix the solution before even adding to the contaminated water - then waiting even longer to drink it - in some places, crossings are infrequent enough that I would have to clean, drink, and repeat 2-3 times and lose a lot of time). Second, any system where I have to scoop water into a container first (this includes the Sawyer Squeeze filter) is sub-par to the Katadyn that can be used even from an extremely shallow stream. Third, I like having water right next to my lips when I want to drink - which is often. The bite valve is much better than having to try to reach back to my pack for a bottle (which for my current pack, that means taking it off completely).
Finally, I have a heavy pack at >6 lbs. empty. The first step if I really want to go ultra-light is to get a lighter pack... but I don't want to sacrifice more comfort than I gain with lower weight.
I use a large gravity fed water filter. It filters a lot of water very quickly without any pumping! It works great in groups. Just scoop up a large amount of water and hang from a tree. Doesn't work well in shallow water sources or trying to get in-between rocks.0 -
canadjineh wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
Only problem with that is you need to sanitize your bottles VERY carefully after or you can get nasty bugs from unpurified/unfiltered water left in lid crevices or inside bottle walls. Water is always the heaviest part of a pack. Tough to carry enough if you are in an area without readily accessible streams or lakes.
Yep, don't want to forget and take a drink out of a non-filtered bottle but it is an option if water sources are far apart and you need to carry water and the only thing you have is a straw.0 -
canadjineh wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
Only problem with that is you need to sanitize your bottles VERY carefully after or you can get nasty bugs from unpurified/unfiltered water left in lid crevices or inside bottle walls. Water is always the heaviest part of a pack. Tough to carry enough if you are in an area without readily accessible streams or lakes.
Yep, don't want to forget and take a drink out of a non-filtered bottle but it is an option if water sources are far apart and you need to carry water and the only thing you have is a straw.
Water crossings were not terribly far apart, but I was sweating enough that it didn't take long to be thirsty again. Most of the water crossings were very shallow, though. They were small streams created by snow melting from above, so it was only running as quickly as the snow could melt. Leaning down with the heavy pack wasn't working, so I had to take my pack off and on again each time I drank; which meant I passed over a few opportunities just because it was just a pain to do that.0 -
We don't refrigerate our eggs, do you guys? Eggs I imagine might be difficult to carry.0
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getfitchelle wrote: »We don't refrigerate our eggs, do you guys? Eggs I imagine might be difficult to carry.
Eggs are difficult to carry, but powdered eggs in a freezer-grade plastic ziploc are easy to carry. The freezer-grade plastic bags can withstand very hot water. The plan was to put powdered eggs in a bag, then heat water and pour enough into the bag to re-hydrate the eggs. Seal it up and mix by shaking / rolling the bag. It's best to have a handkerchief or gloves because the bag will feel hot. When fully mixed, open it up and eat out of the bag (bring a spoon).0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »canadjineh wrote: »Use your straw to drink out of your water container! You can fill it up with stream water and do that so you can keep moving. 48-lbs for 3-days is heavy. Good luck next time!
Only problem with that is you need to sanitize your bottles VERY carefully after or you can get nasty bugs from unpurified/unfiltered water left in lid crevices or inside bottle walls. Water is always the heaviest part of a pack. Tough to carry enough if you are in an area without readily accessible streams or lakes.
Yep, don't want to forget and take a drink out of a non-filtered bottle but it is an option if water sources are far apart and you need to carry water and the only thing you have is a straw.
Water crossings were not terribly far apart, but I was sweating enough that it didn't take long to be thirsty again. Most of the water crossings were very shallow, though. They were small streams created by snow melting from above, so it was only running as quickly as the snow could melt. Leaning down with the heavy pack wasn't working, so I had to take my pack off and on again each time I drank; which meant I passed over a few opportunities just because it was just a pain to do that.
Carry your water so you don't have to stop often. It would be worth it to carry enough to go at least a couple of miles at a time. I drink a lot when I hike also, probably about a 16 oz bottle for every 1.0-miles going up and about 1/3 of that going down.0 -
Bumped - and @baconslave can we add this to the open threads page?1
