Backcountry Eats

Those of you who have ever been out backpacking for more than an overnight trip should be well aware of the many limitation one has when cooking in the backcountry. Now factor in how I will be resupplying at some small grocery store with limited selection of food, I will be using a pop-can alcohol stove that can't easily regulate heat and will need to ration my fuel-use to last until the next resupply. Needless to say, I won't be eating very fancy meals but I certainly like to be creative with my meals. I am excited to see what sort of trail concoctions I will create along the way and how skilled of a chef I can become over a pop-can stove.

"Dieting" for Thru Hikers

Maybe not quite Michael Phelps' diet but you get the point

One of the best things about thru hiking is all that work requires a whole lot of calories, which mean I get to eat a whole lot of food. Back when I rowed, I used to pile on the food in the dining halls and never have to worry about putting on any extra pounds. Luckily, I have a decent metabolism and in this past year my appetite has significantly decreased, but I will be happy once I get out on the trail and get to eat like a fat kid again. These past few months I have also transitions to a semi-vegetarian diet where when I cook for myself I don't cook meat. This should help prepare me for the trail where you don't necessarily want to take chicken breasts or ground beef with you.

I have recently been reading some good advise on keeping yourself properly fueled for a thru hike from dietician, experienced backpacker and trail angel, Brenda Braaten. Her blog, Pack Light Eat Right, provides excellent advise on what types of food your body needs to power through a long distance trip such as the PCT. She advises a 50:35:15 diet where 50% of you food should consist of carbs, 35% fat and 15% protein. While protein is important for muscle building, a thru hiker is mostly concerned with getting enough complex sugars and high calorie fats to burn throughout the day. That mean oils and fats should become a more significant portion of my diet on the trail and my protein intake can really just stay similar to my typical diet.

Another major difference for me on the trail is there are not really such thing as meals, just bigger and smaller sized snack breaks. When I am hiking I tend to eat a big snack, or what many may refer to as "breakfast", before I start my day. Throughout the day, every time I take a little break I will grab some trail mix, granola, or other bars to munch on. I will usually stop for "lunch" which is actually just a bigger snack that may take a little more time to prepare. As I go I may even shift to having my biggest snack or "dinner" in the middle of the day. This can be especially advantageous in the desert where I will likely be taking a siesta during the hottest hours of the day anyways. However, I do like to have a big reward to look forward to towards the end of the day. One new backpacking trick I will start practicing on the trail is never cooking food where I plan on sleeping. This will help keep the critters away and let more of those calories go towards helping me make the final push of the day. Only for those "biggest snack" will I break out my cooking gear; a retrofitted pop-can and gas-line antifreeze.

Fuel for the Fire

One of the biggest changes for me will be moving away from using a white gas backpacking stove and replacing it with an alcohol stove. While alcohol stoves tend to be lighter than white gas or canister stoves the weight difference is only a minor factor in my decision. Instead the larger concern is fuel availability. One of the biggest advantages of using an alcohol based fuel is that it can be commonly found at most gas stations under the brand name HEET.

Yellow = Methanol, Red = Isopropanol

The yellow HEET bottles are composed primarily of methanol and used as a gas-line antifreeze. The methanol in HEET is intended to remove any moisture in a car's gas tank, but it also burns cleanly and has an ideal vaporization pressure for a pop-can stove. Other liquids more commonly associated with the word alcohol, such as grain alcohol, could also work but I can think of much better uses for that than fueling my stove. Rubbing alcohol surprisingly does not make a good fuel source as it generally is only 70% alcohol and is composed of isopropanol which doesn't burn as cleanly.

However, there are some major disadvantages to using alcohol, such as the inability to moderate the fuel input into the stove. The heat output from methanol is generally much more reduced than other backpacking fuels as well. Overall the advantages of using alcohol stoves win out and many PCT thru-hikers get along just fine with them.

Pop-Can Chef

As I can attest from my attempts thus far, using a pop-can alcohol stove is not necessarily the easiest backpacking stove to cook with, but it is quite possibly the coolest. What I really like about pop-can stoves are their do-it-yourself nature. I must give full credit to the great site Zen Stoves which helped instruct me how to construct my own stove. There are many options out there and I have gone with the pressurized-jet design for a more fuel efficient system. After many trials and errors (including almost lighting a kitchen table on fire) I have finally gotten a hold on how to light these stoves as shown in the video below.

First the methanol must be poured into the stove before anything is lit and the screw sealed tight when finished. The pressurized jet design requires a primer plate to heat up the methanol inside the stove. The cool part of this design is the flame actually never reaches the fuel in the stove. Instead the fuel is heated increasing the vapor pressure within the stove eventually causing the pressurized fuel to shoot out of the jets. The jets will then catch some of the flame from the primer plate and continue to burn until the fuel inside is depleted.

In addition to my stove I am still hunting for an ideal lightweight pot with a lid (I've heard that Walmart sells a pot designed to collect grease that works well). I partially ruined mine on my last backpacking trip when I slipped on a muddy bridge falling on my pack which significantly bent my aluminum pot. I also am debating whether or not to carry a pot stand and may just find rocks on the trail to rest the pot on. However hopefully by the time I get to Canada I will have mastered the art of cooking on a pop-can stove.

Leaving the Boots Behind

One of the toughest decisions for me was whether to take my traditional hiking boots or go with much lighter trail runners. After much debate I decided to go with trail runners over my Gortex hiking boots. I will start with an old pair of New Balance trail runners I've had for a while and transition to new pairs along the way when my shoes wear out. I just recently bought a pair of Montrail Sabinos that hope I can hold off on needing until I get to Kennedy Meadows but we will see. Anyways thought I would take some time to explain my logic in switching to lighter shoes.

Easiest Way to Drop a Pound

Seeing how my last post was all about the lightweight gear I think the point is pretty clear I'm not looking to carry any excess baggage. Considering that fact that my giant Gortex hiking boots weigh in at just over 3 lbs and my trail runners weigh in under 1 lb that is a savings of 1 lb per step. Now considering that the trail is 2,663.5 miles to Manning Park and each step I take is about a yard (long legs certainly help), that adds up to roughly 4.68 million steps! This was one of the facts that convinced me there is a pretty strong argument for switching to lighter shoes.

My Biggest Fear: Sprained Ankles

This was from an IM volleyball game gone bad just last year

While many of my family and friends may be worried about me getting eaten by a bear, falling off a cliff, dying of thirst, getting stabbed by a vagrant or being captured by a sea eagle, my biggest worry is getting a sprained ankle. My ankles and I have had a very shaky relationship ever since I started playing basketball. I started using ankle braces which only seemed to make them weaker. Over the years I have sprained my ankle many times and am constantly trying to find new ways to strengthen them but to no avail. Part of my was worried (and is still a little concerned) that I would need some sort of surgery to fix my weak ankles but it hasn't come to that. One thing was clear I was not sure whether or not I would be comfortable without some high ankle support from a heavy-duty hiking boot. Then I discovered trekking poles.

Trekking Poles

For those who find jogging a bit too challenging

Even as a kid I never really understood the advantage of a walking stick. Sure you would pick out the coolest stick you could find in the forest but after a while I'd get bored and tired of carrying it and just throw it back in the woods. I used to always think trekking poles were for old people or people who want to make walking look like exercising. It certainly didn't make any sense to me why experienced hikers who were in shape needed to use poles to make their way up through the backcountry. Well call me an old man or a profession walker, but I have grown to be a huge advocate of trekking poles. Here are some of my reasons:

1. They give you an extra set of legs by having two extra points of contact with the ground (that way tall gangly folk like me don't have to worry as much about loosing our balance)
2. When you do trip up and take a bad step you can catch yourself with your poles and keep yourself from putting all of your weight on your now twisted ankle.
3. You can use your arms to help power your way up mountains.
4. When you are going downhill the poles can help take some of the pressure off your knees and other joints.
5. They can provide extra stability when crossing rivers or streams.
6. They can double up as tent poles and allow you to set up a tarp without any trees nearby.

Yes I realize many of these points make me seem like an old man but as I said before I do not trust my ankle to get me through this trip unassisted so its great to have a safety net. I have already noticed on some of my trips this past summer how my trekking poles had prevented me from getting a minor sprain on some of the bad step I took. Also when you will be taking 4.68 million steps the odds that one of them will not end so well is pretty high so better to have the trekking poles there to keep me upright.

However I also realize that I don't want to turn my hiking poles into the same crutch as my ankle braces became. I have started to regularly practice certain ankle strengthening techniques I picked up from a yoga class. They have actually been working quite well (or at least have a great placebo effect) and my balance is improving. Most involve either standing up on you tip toes and maintaining you balance in different poses and/or balancing on one leg. I'm hoping if I keep this up ankle sprains will be a thing of the past for me.

Wet Shoes

Finally one of the last reasons that helped me finalize my decision to ditch my boots was what happens when they get wet. Now my Gortex boots are very good at keeping water out. I can walk through shallow streams in them and as long as the water doesn't get over my ankles my feet will stay nice and dry. However when that all day rainstorm hits and everything on be gets soaked I will be waiting weeks for the insides of those boots to ever dry out. A better approach is to simply accept the fact that you feet will likely get wet along the way and got with a pair of shoes that actually can dry out; like trail runners.

Now I actually just finished one of the muddiest hikes I have ever been on out on the Juan de Fuca Trail here on Vancouver Island and let me tell you my trail runners were soaked and didn't dry out too much on this long weekend hike. However I've been in the situation with wet Gortex boots and I don't want to be trudging through weeks of rain in Washington or Oregon with soaked boots. Regardless I'm sure there will be plenty of mornings where I am simply dreading getting out of my warm sleeping bag to put on my cold wet shoes but that's all part of the trip.

Heavyweight Turned Lightweight

More or less my previous mentality

One of the biggest adjustments I have been making for my PCT hike is transitioning from being a heavyweight to a lightweight hiker. I have always viewed myself as more of a packmule when it came to backpacking and like to load up my pack with excess gear and enough food to last for two days after I get off the trail. Back on my first Boy Scout trips we would all weight our packs at the beginning not to prove how light we could get them but to show how tough we were. I think my Philmont pack weighed in at around 70 lbs.

Even after a grew up a bit I still had that same mentality. On a solo trip on the Appalachian Trail I was lectured by thru-hiker about all of my excess gear which I took as a complement thinking how I could carry more than anyone on the trail no problem. Well I have finally woken up to a new style of backpacking thanks to one of the more famous PCT hikers.

Ray Jardine - The Lightweight Backpacking Guru -

A few of the first guidebooks and trail journals I had read kept referring to lifetime adventurer Ray Jardine and his PCT Hiker's Handbook. I figured I should get my hands on a copy to see what this is all about. Turns out that is not that easy since it stopped being published and I had to track down a copy from a used bookstore in California online. Anyways, The PCT Hiker's Handbook advocates many simple ways to cut your pack weight by focusing on the essentials and understanding the balance between what one needs to complete a thru-hike and what they think they need.

I think I have settled on the balance that seem right for me which has caused me to upgrade many of my bigger items to lightweight versions and get rid of gear that I never end up using on backpacking trips. The biggest changes are what thru hikers refer to as the three essentials; your backpack, sleeping bag and sleeping system. The book also convinced me to drop my heavy boots and complete my hike in much lighter trail runners. Check out my gear section for more details.

The handbook provides much helpful advise on backpacking techniques too, such as avoiding unwanted animal visitors at night by stopping to eat dinner a few miles before where you plan on sleeping. Jardine also advocates some different backpacking techniques not everyone would agree with, such as sleeping with your food in your tent which I don't plan to do on my hike. Others I have decided to try, such as bringing an umbrella to shade you on the hot desert sections.

What I envision sleeping with your food would lead to

Lighter Gear

Much of my preparation for the trip was the seemingly endless hours of scouring internet gear reviews to find the coolest, lightest, most durable and most affordable gear for my trip. I never thought of myself as one of those hiking gear heads who obsess over trail gear until I took a moment to realize how much time I was spending reviewing gear and how attached I became to some of my choices. I have been nothing but happy with my gear choices and have now tested out all of my gear on various trips this past summer, fall and spring.

All in all my base packweight (weight of my pack minus food and water) has significantly decreased down to just 16.1 lbs. My dad can certainly attest to my obsession with pack weight after I borrowed the kitchen scale when I was home in December to see how many ounces each article of clothing weighed. In case you are curious I've put together a table to break down my packweight (clearly proving my recent thru-hiker insanity and a view of whats to come)

	Item	Brand	Weight
In Pack	Backpack	ULA Circuit	36 oz
	Tent	ENO Hammock Sleep System	52.5 oz
	Ground Pad	MEC Yellow Closed Cell Pad	6 oz
	Sleeping Bag	REI Halo +10	44 oz
	Water Filter	Platypus Gravity Works	12 oz
	Water Bladder	Camelbak	7 oz
	Stove	Homemade Pop Can Alcohol Stove	1 oz
	Cooking Pot	Generic Aluminum Cookpot	5 oz
	Umbrella	Euro Schirm Swing Lite-Flex	8 oz
	Packcover	Generic	4.5 oz
	Pack Towel	MSR	2.5 oz
	Stuff Sack	Sea-to-Summit	4.5 oz
	Bear Bag	Generic	3 oz
	Rope	Generic	5 oz
	Mosquito Net	Generic	0.25 oz
	iPod	iPod Shuffle	0.5 oz
	Headlamp	Black Diamond	4 oz
	Digital Camera	Olympus Stylus Tough 8010	7.5 oz
	Chargers	Generic	4 oz
	Med Kit	Generic	5 oz
	Knife	Gerber	1.5 oz
	Whistle	Generic	0.25 oz
	Compass	Generic	0.5 oz
	Emergency Blanket	Generic	3 oz
	Lighter	Bic	0.5 oz
	Duct Tape	Generic	0.5 oz
	Fire Starter	Generic	1 oz
	Jacket	Marmot DriClime Wind Shirt	10 oz
	Rain Jacket	DriDucks	6 oz
	Long Sleeve Shirt	TekGear	8.5 oz
	Long Sleeve Shirt	Under Armor	10.5 oz
	Shorts	REI	8.5 oz
	Long Johns	Adidas	9 oz
	Bandana	Generic	1 oz
	Hat	Generic	2.5 oz
	Gloves	Mountain Hardware Power Stretch	1.5 oz
	Total		16.1 lbs
Worn On Trail	Hiking Poles	REI Traverse	18 oz
	T-Shirt	Northface	7 oz
	Pants	REI Sahara Zip-Off Pants	15 oz
	Boxers	Generic	0.5 oz
	Socks	Smartwool	2 oz
	Shoes	New Balance Trail Runners	26 oz
	Sunglasses	Oakley Half Flak Jacket	0.5 oz
	Total		4.3 lbs
Sierras	Crampons	Yak Traks	5.5 oz
	Bear Canister	Bear Vault	41 oz
	Total		2.9 lbs

Note that I have broken the list down for what gear will be in my pack, what I'll wear on me, and what gear I'll need just for the Sierras. You also can figure I will be adding anywhere between 10 to 20 lbs of food and water depending on how long of a resupply I have. Overall I've almost cut my pack weight in half which is a huge change and I have already been loving the benefits on the trips I have been on thus far with my new gear.

Resupplies - Feeding the Hungry Hikers

I figure I should provide a post on resupplies, or at this phase, how I hope resupplies will work. Trying to understand how resupplies can work is the biggest challenge I am facing now. I have never mailed myself food to a post office I have never been to, or tried to find provisions for a week of intense hiking from a Chevron convenience store. Needless to say it is difficult to anticipate what I will be comfortable with for resupplies but important to have an idea ahead of time.

What's a Resupply?

One of a hiker's largest obsession (as with most living things) is FOOD. However when you are out backpacking through the wilderness there aren't always giant supermarkets waiting for you at the top of a pass or in the middle of the desert. That is where resupplies come in.

Unlike the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail travels through more remote areas and thru-hikers aren't always a short walk or hitch away from the nearest town. Therefore, it is important to plan out which towns you do plan on stopping at along the way and understand what kind of groceries you may be able to find.

Frequency

For most of the trip I will try to resupply for 4 to 6 days. However there are some longer stretches through wilderness areas and national parks that will require me to carry food for 7 or 8 days. This can be quite heavy especially on those first mornings out of town. I have been trying to find a good tradeoff of not having to travel off the trail too far or too often to resupply without getting too weighed down by weeks worth of food.

Mail Drops vs Scavenge Convenience Stores

Mmmm Priority Mail

Another difficulty in planning resupplies is deciding when to send a mail drop or try to just buy food from smaller grocery stores or large convenience stores in town. A mail drop is when you or your family/friend sends a package full of food to a local post office for you to pick up when you arrive. Mail drops are necessary in some towns along the trail where there simply are no options for buying food. They can also be used to ensure you always have food you can take with you backpacking in towns that may have smaller grocery stores. Many of the PCT guidebooks and thru-hiker journals advise against using lots of mail drops because your trip becomes more inflexible in terms of what towns you must stop in and when. Plus you have no idea what foods you may be craving if you pack up your food before you leave. My strategy is to send out resupplies from the trail only to the towns that have no other options. When I get to a town with a good grocery store and I know the next town I reach won't have sufficient food options I will mail forward a package full of food.

We'll see if I can make it on Doritos and Little Debbie for a week

The other option is to simply buy whatever food is available. Some of the towns will have bigger supermarkets or grocery stores that most of us are used to shopping at. Many though will only have limited supplies and maybe not the most ideal foods for thru-hikers. You also have to consider how the thru-hiking season is a fairly narrow band of time. Being a sheep at the back of the herd I have to hope that the earlier crowds haven't picked through all the good eats at these little stores before they can restock for the next week. I envision by the time I reach Washington I will have a good idea how to make convenience store food fuel me for 100+ mile sections.

How Do You Know?

None of this resupply planning would be possible without the help of some great PCT guidebooks I have been using. My favorite is Yogi's PCT Handbook. Yogi, a veteran PCT hiker, has complied a guidebook with recent updates from thru-hikers on where the best places to stop for food or lodgings are. This has proved critical in planning out how I can find enough food to get me though my hike.

Planning resupplies is all about understanding what your options are to help making sure you have the right food to fuel you through your trek. While the type A side of me wants to box up all my food in the next few weeks and get it ready for family or friends to ship out to me, I'm glad I'm giving myself the flexibility for my trip and know it will all work out in the end.

PS Only a month until I leave for San Diego to start my hike!!!