Newbie questions about food etc…

[john w cochran]

First thinks to all those that have posted here etc… I've been reading a fair bit here and other forums.

I'm planning a 12day hike and it will be my first long hike. I've done a couple days, but nothing longer.

I'm planning my meals and have a tendency to get anal about stuff, but that can bog me down, and there in lies my question. How detailed do most of you go in figuring you carb/protien/calorie figures?

I'm figuring on cooking(boiling water) for breakfast since I'll be making coffee anyway, and dinner. Snacking all day and for lunch.

I'm ovo/lacto vegetarian and will be taking dehydrated stuff and freezer bag cooking with a ff stove. I've made some tofu jerky stuff, plan on dehydrating some spaghetti, taking homemade trail mix, dried apples. I've got some quinoa, and brown rice dehydrating to test with today.

[Bob Gross]

Are you planning on going twelve days without any resupply? That is a big load. Not very many backpackers go for more than one week on a food load.

While you are busy dehydrating your spaghetti, do some pasta sauce also, or at least some tomato paste. It is very easy to dry. Quinoa seems to work with anything. How about a nice green pesto sauce?

You might get bored with your food if you don't have enough variety. It doesn't take much to spice it up, literally. You might want to build in some extra stuff to your diet plan. You never know how your appetite will shift mid-way on the trip. Also, you want to make sure that you can eat a major portion of your food without any cooking. You never know when you will have some kind of total stove failure. I've had firewood be wet and butane canisters run empty, I've had denatured alcohol bottles leak, but I have never had an Esbit failure.

–B.G.–

[Anonymous]

"I'm planning a 12day hike and it will be my first long hike. I've done a couple days, but nothing longer."

You might want to consider taking a trip in the 6-8 day range before jumping from two days to twelve days. There is a huge difference, and it not just in the days hiked x daily food ration. There have been several good threads on this subject that would be well worth searching for and reading before you commit to 12 days.

"I'm planning my meals and have a tendency to get anal about stuff, but that can bog me down, and there in lies my question. How detailed do most of you go in figuring you carb/protien/calorie figures?"

For shorter trips, say up to a week, you have quite a bit of leeway. Beyond that, you will probably have exhausted your reserves of body fat and, at that point, what you carry becomes very important indeed. Again, look up the above mentioned threads on this subject and then decide whether or not you want to do a twelve day trip without gaining more experience in intermediate level trips. FWIW.

[john w cochran]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I'm going to be doing the alabama part of the pinhoti, i figure it will be 9 to 12 days, depending on how I push. Since it will be May in the south I will not push too hard if it is real hot, which will cut down on the hiking time. Probably do early morning, mid/late afternoon early evening mostly, depending on how well the trail is marked also.

I'll probably hide a stash of food and fuel about half way at a road crossing. This will let me do some adjusting as I see what I've used and done to that point.

I'll most likely do some pesto and spicy olive oil, and other stuff, kinda using the groovy biotic stuff as a guide.

I had planned on doing a longer trip a couple months back, but my dad had a heart attack. I work on boats and do 28 days on 28 off so if I don't get this done in May it will be late this year, November, December, or next year. I've got plans for other trips etc… so I'm going to try and get this done. I walk several time a week 5 to 7 miles, depend on the time I have, with a pack load of 38/40 lbs, my base is 17/20 depending on the hammock and season. Since it will be May I'm looking at 17lbs and I haven't trimmed all I can yet… still heading to light weight and need to so tweaking on the pack, and a few other items..

But I will continue to read more here at I play with my dehydrator, work on the menu, and make a other items. Not mention I need to put my hackintosh together since I finally got all the parts…

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