Date: 2006-01-17
To: Pre hike Food preparation - 2 months out
Miles today: 0.0

Well it is January 16th and I am right in the middle of my pre hike food preparations. I now have foods I think will work or have worked for me in the past in bins in my basement. Now that the start date is nearing I have to plan and build my mail drops, and prepare the items I will need. I¢ve waited until January to start working on food in earnest in order to have the freshest product. Some of the food that I pack now will not be sent to me and used until possibly September or October, having the expiration date way beyond than is a wise move. I know there are a few places where a mail drop is a must or is highly recommended (Fontana Village for one) and other places too.   I guess that is where good communication with the home support comes in. Having a dynamic plan that can change as the hike changes will greatly improve my success. Whenever I plan a backpacking trail menu I always go back to my backpacking roots. Well sort of, if I went all the way back I probably wouldn¢t like the food. In the 1960s trail food was not so great; we¢ve come a long way since then. What I mean when I say back to my roots is I base a rotating menu from the Philmont menu. I figure their menu is planned by professionals trained in proper nutrition and hopefully they know what they are doing, God forbid I sure don¢t. They seem to keep abreast with new products that work well on the trail. I substitute items into the menu and I place protein item where they have protein, starch (carbs) where they have carbs and so on. I was originally planning on buying commercial trail food i.e. Richmoor, Alpine Aire, Mountain Home meals for my main dinner staple. I still do have some of these commercial items on hand now and I have more of them on order. They are no longer the mainstay of my food plan; I¢ve discovered there are a lot of good supermarket foods that work very well now.   I now have packets of ¢Lipton / Knorr Sides¢; these are either pasta or rice dishes that were designed to be used at home as a starch side dish in a meal. I have used these before on troop backpacking trips with great success. On these troop trips we carried canned chicken, liquid butter to be added in camp, in this form it would be a little too heavy for a thru hike. I did an experiment where I substituted butter buds for butter and powdered milk for milk when store items required them, I don¢t have the dehydrated meats yet but I¢m sure they will work out. I will make up supplemental packets of the milk powder (Nido), butter powder (Butter Buds), meat (Freeze Dried Chicken or Beef or Turkey) and Vegetables (Just Tomatoes mixed vegetables) to add to the Sides I bought. I am waiting for the delivery of a bulk quantity of dehydrated/freeze-dried chicken, beef, turkey and vegetables.Other store items I plan to use as breakfast and lunch are oatmeal packets, Pop Tarts, Jerky, trail mix, dried fruit, cocoa, peanut butter, meat spreads, foil packet Tuna, Spam, Chicken, etc. I¢ll use various kinds of crackers to spread the lunchmeat, peanut butter or cheese spread on. One of my favorites is a Nabisco product called ¢Royal Lunch¢; these crackers are very dense and take a pretty good beating. A commercial trail food equivalent to this cracker is a ¢Pilot Biscuit¢ and can be bought for some backpacking suppliers. I also intend to buy bagels, pita bread, tortillas and other pack able breads when in town for variety. I may even pull out some old Boy Scout tricks like making biscuit mix in an orange or some other utensil less cooking I¢ve taught my scouts on those ¢Nero¢ days ((A day spent in town doing chores but you hike out a short distance to the next campsite - short for near zero day) (a Zero day refers to no trail miles accomplished that day - ¢I stayed in town all day¢))I just discovered that scrambled eggs can be made inside a plastic bag on top of boiling water. I tried the method and it worked pretty well. You put the content of one or two eggs into a pint freezer bag add salt and pepper, seal shut and squeeze the air out. Squash the content and mix well. If you use powdered eggs, after all the powder is dissolved allow a little air into the bag and shake again until air bubbles are in the mix. Place the bag on top of boiling water; I had mine simmering to control the steam. Let it sit 45 seconds, take out mix by squeezing the bag and put back on the other side. Repeat until all the content is cooked. I tried both real eggs and dehydrated powdered eggs (Deb El Scramblers) with a decent amount of success. I¢ll be boiling water for cocoa or tea in the cold mornings and I might as well use the heat for a warm meal too. I am going to try adding dehydrated onions, peppers, and bacon bits to spice up the flavor of the dehydrated eggs. This should make a decent morning protein and a change of pace breakfast. I don¢t want to get sick of the pre packed foods part way through the hike and then dread my mail drops. Many advice books write about hikers getting sick of foods they liked at the beginning of their hike from having it too many times. I keep thinking variety in menu is important. I don¢t want to get bored with the foods as that would make the hike feel longer. I¢ve heard a good amount of the hiking hours a hiker spends is thinking about your next meal. I want to look forward to sitting down and having fun playing with my food at the end of the day.Many years ago a friend introduced me to Russian Tea, which is a mixture of Tang, Instant Iced Tea, Cinnamon, Allspice, and Cloves. I intend to have this drink as a warm breakfast tea during the cold months, I figure it will give me vitamin C and warm me up, then as the days warm up and I learn to get moving faster I¢ll drink it cold. The recipe is: 2 cups Tang, 2 cups Iced Tea mix, 1 tbsp Cinnamon, 1 tsp Allspice and 1tsp Cloves. I add a little sugar, as I like it sweet. Deserts: I bought a Jello Instant Cheesecake mix and tried preparing it with trail ingredients. I used the appropriate amount of Nido powder for the milk called for by the ingredients on the box. I then put the amount needed for on serving into a Ziploc with the proportionate amount of water (using the milk proportion). I squeezed the mix until all the powder was gone, opened the bag and inflated a little, closed the bag and shook content. Put aside 20 minutes. After waiting I found the cheesecake to be jello like consistency that tasted pretty good. As I have done with commercial trail (trail food) I sprinkled some graham cracker crumbs into the bag and mixed while eating. I want to try other instant puddings to see if I get the same results.I like BJ¢s Warehouse Club Trail Mixes. I¢ve tried making my own mixture only to find this ready-made one is really good. I plan on adding their fruity mix with the regular mix to get a more fruit in my diet. As the trip goes on I¢ll revert back to just plain regular trail mix and skip the supplement. Also SAMS trail mix is pretty good; I¢ll buy it when shopping in towns that have a Wal-Mart.All the mail drops will be boxed with a label in the order to be shipped. I plan on having packets of 1 day, 2 day meals built within each mail drop. I don¢t know how many miles I will cover each day at any particular time along the hike, 30 miles in one stretch may take 3 or 4 days and in another stretch take 2 or 3 days. By communicating back to the home team that a ration adjustment is needed, she can add or delete a day easily. I also figure there will be a time when I reach a mail drop and I don¢t need it at all. In this case I¢ll bounce it to a Post Office further up the trail and communicate the need to not send another drop there.On the same thought once I see and feel comfortable with what I can buy in town I¢ll have only supplemental items sent in. So that brings me back to the big question, ¢How much food is enough, without having too little or too much?¢ I guess only time will tell.