Food

I’ve heard that eating on the trail is like a job. You just gotta do it or you’re not going to get very far.

The way I view backpacking, Jan and I should be able to hike, eat, and enjoy both. I like to cook and I like to organize things, so it was a pretty natural fit for me to choose to prepare significant portions of our meals ahead of time. The rest we will buy along the way.

So how much food is enough? There are some basics to backpacking food, but the most important consideration is calorie density. Basically, how many calories can you cram into the least amount of weight? There are some differing opinions on this, based largely around your weight tolerance. Ultralight hikers want foods that are around 125-150 calories per ounce because they can get the most energy from the least weight. Most long-distance backpackers consider 100 calories per ounce the limit of worth. If you’re out for a day hike or a weekend – the sky is the limit! Carry your fishing gear, deli sandwiches, fresh fruit, and beer. But on a long trek, if you do that, you’re basically burning more fuel carrying it than you can restore by eating it.

Then there are factors of perishability and deliciousness. Dry food is light food, but not all dry food is tasty, so I bought myself a dehydrator and started playing around. Turns out, it’s really easy and fun! But after I started looking at how many meals we were going to need, I realized I could never dehydrate it all myself. For reference, Jan and I decimated 6 apples’ worth of apple chips in one long training hike. Apple chips take about 8 hours to dry, so multiply that by over 100 days… and that’s only a snack! So I did some internet research, gathered some recipes that sounded good, adapted them for the most streamlined trail prep, and started making lists.

1.     Gather and update recipes

2.     Count rotations of each and create variations

3.     Make shopping lists (Berkeley Bowl for produce and special bulk bin items, Safeway for processed foods, Cash & Carry for bulk dry goods, online for bulk dehydrated food, and my own task list for dehydrating)

4.     Spend money

5.     Repeat

6.     Where have I seen this list before?

Cash & Carry bulk

Berkeley Bowl bulk

Costco bulk

Dinners

Now that's a lotta oatmeal!

Assembly was an arduous process, one made easier by Jan figuring out how to feed us in the current moment while I fretted about getting sick of cheese powder and if I dried those peas too much and does corn taste okay with curry and, and, and… Consecutive evenings of Friends on Netflix Instant provided entertainment while I measured out baggie after baggie of food. 

Disclaimer: I was so busy calculating how much food to buy and putting it all together, I didn’t even get around to actually trying any of it.

We leave tomorrow morning and I still don’t know if it’s going to be enough food, or delicious, or even if I screwed something up, but I guess that’s part of the adventure. No matter what, I can count on this:

“Hunger is the best seasoning.”

The Final Countdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9zN7o_s2Y

I shall summarize the events of the past few weeks:

• panic
• stress
• make lists
• spend money
• repeat

In general it feels like everything is happening at the.last.goddamn.minute.

First of all, we did our equipment shakedown a couple weeks ago. Seeing as it was Easter and we didn’t make reservations anywhere, we decided to kick off to the Ventana Wilderness Area. Beautiful, but please note the name: Wilderness Area. You know what that means? No signage or wrong signage, zero trail maintenance, and poison oak everywhere. So how did it go, you ask? Well, Jan got poison oak (natch) and my brand new boots proved to be sponges on soles. Gore-Tex, my a**.  

Second of all, I have been madly trying to plan and prepare our resupply boxes. This is really fun, really stressful, and really expensive. Many weeks ago, Jan produced our final resupply schedule and according to our division of duties, it is now my turn to do the actual resupplies. There are two general approaches to resupply: 1. Buy it as you go, 2. Prep it ahead of time and mail it. The first is more convenient, the second offers more nutrition and diversity. I’m not a ramen-every-night kind of girl, so option number 2 is the one I went with. Of course we will supplement at convenience stores along the way, but imagine eating out of 7-11 for 4 months straight.

Last of all, there is THE QUESTION: “So are you ready?!” I get this question a lot and I am never sure how to answer it. “Yes” seems over-confident and makes me feel like I am tempting fate to prove me wrong right out of the gate. “No” seems rudely deflating for the asker and sounds like I am totally unprepared. So to everyone who asks, here is the real answer: yes and no. I’m as ready as I can be in terms of fitness and equipment and enthusiasm. I’m ready to leave my daily responsibilities and focus just on the simple task of walking. But I’m not ready for all the things that can go wrong. My resupply boxes aren’t done and I’m still worried I’m never going to be able to hike it all. I’m not ready to leave my amazing job and daily luxuries and my two sweet kitties.

Geronimo "Derek" (Zoolander) Drees & Princess Vespa

I’m not ready for body odor and no showers. But I’m also ready to not worry about it. I’m ready to trust my legs to carry me 1800+ miles and I am scared they won’t. Life is full of contradictions and I am keenly aware of them all in this moment. We stand on the precipice of this adventure. In 10 days, we jump.