Date: 2007-12-07
To: Garlic's no-cooking philosophy--top ten list
Miles today: 0.0

Garlic here. One of the greatest simplifications I've made in my hiking over the past few years is my diet. A couple of years ago, I started hiking without cooking. That changed everything! The list of reasons:10) My pack is over 1/2 pound lighter, sometimes 1 pound depending on fuel needs. Much less bulk, too, about 1/2 the volume of a sleeping bag. That decision finally got me under the 10 pound threshold. As a result I'm able to successfully use the gossamer-thin Gossamer Gear G-5, which saved yet another pound.9) Resupply became so much easier. On the northern half of the CDT, I only made two food drops in very remote places. I do not plan on making any food drops on the AT. 8) I don't have to try to find fuel anywhere, and that's one less thing to worry about, to paraphrase Lord Tea. That made town stops on the CDT that much more enjoyable.7) I can eat anywhere in any kind of weather. Everytime I pitch my tarp for bad weather, like the severe pm storms in the Rockies, I can eat a meal. 6) And I hate cooking over a hot stove in a swarm of bugs attracted to the heat.5) Meal times are faster, leaving more time for walking, which is the main reason I'm out there. 4) I felt just a little safer up in grizzly country in my campsites with no cooking odors or spills.3) I feel safer without the fuel on board and I've had a few close calls with stove accidents.2) Life is a little simpler, and I can concentrate on hiking and where I am, rather than on food and cooking. No dishes to wash, either. Pickle doesn't even carry a cup.And finally Number 1) As young James (PCT '04) put it so well, pack for a hiking trip, not a camping trip. Everything in the pack should support the hiking. If it doesn't, get rid of it.I was hesitant to do this because I was afraid of several things, like food spoilage, food variety, and not having a heat source. But after my first committed cold food hike, I was hooked. I hiked a 160-mile stretch of the CDT in the San Juans in 6 days with no resupply, a record for me. The next trip was 230 miles in eight days without a town stop, because I was able to resupply from an RV at Rabbit Ears Pass, CO (from folks who became pretty good friends (thanks again, Gerry and Connie)). I couldn't have had so much fun on these trips with traditional cooked food.Besides, I got really tired of the basic carbs-n-cheese sauce packages I was eating all the time, anyway. I guess that's #11.The final justification came last August. Pickle and I were camped in an evening snow storm above treeline in the Wind River Range, WY. This was in the last week of a two-month trip without cooking. We pitched tarps and settled in for a meal. As I snacked on delicious dried hummus and crackers in my warm bag, thoroughly enjoying watching the snow blow over the rocky surroundings, I recalled one of my first campsites in similar conditions. I remembered hypothermia settling in while trying to get water to boil out in the wind and snow, trying to build wind blocks with the huge packs, nearly burning the packs and knocking over the stove, and having a generally bad time, fighting a building feeling of resentment of my wonderful spouse trying to get warm in her sleeping bag in the heavy tent. What a difference a few years of experience makes.More on the actual diet later.Garlic