Going Stoveless – Cold Food for Thought

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This was one of my early UL techniques 30 years ago ( stoves and pots were heavier then). My dinners looked a lot like my lunches, but that's okay for a 9-day trip.

An additional advantage: if you're trying to make miles, you can hike as you nibble.

Another: I warm up quicker in the morning by hiking while eating my oatmeal cookies* than I do standing around in the cold waiting for water to boil and waiting for breakfast to cool enough to eat/drink it.

* if breakfast = cereal + fruit + nuts + some sugar, then breakfast = oatmeal cookies. If you don't cook, Trader Joe's cranberry oatmeal cookie are quite tasty and keep a long time.

I do a lot of wraps on my death marches. My own, or just bought from the deli section of the grocery store.

This thread was 2/3 CHAOS alumni.

Now it is 3/4.

> Stoveless is an option, not a mandate.

Indeed! That's what I try to stress to people with most gear choices. "Here's an option; maybe it will work?"

This is the second season in a row where I've pretty much put the kibosh using an alchie stove. For me it is sans stove or canister.

>CHAOS

Good times..good times. :)

I often go stoveless, not a big deal for me as I am not a coffee or Tea drinker but I know buddies that are cranky without hot drinks :-)

When I go to the Ruby Mountains in northern Nevada to hunt mule deer this October I'll be going stoveless to eliminate cooking odors.

I won't like it but with all the hunting gear I have to carry it will also help lighten the load. I AM sorely tempted to take my CC Sidewinder and the 12-10 alky stove W/ 3 cup pot B/C it's very light and far more odorless than ESBIT – but I won't.

1. rifle & scope -> 10 lbs. (Browning A-Bolt & Bushnell HDMR scope)
2. plastic roll-up deer sled & tow rope -> 2 lbs.
3. large lock blade dressing out knife -> 6 oz.
4. elbow length nitrile gloves & gallon ZipLoc bags (for heart & liver) -> 4 oz.
5. laser rangefinding binoculars -> 2.5 lbs.
6. baggie of wipes (clean up after field dressing) -> 3. oz.

But it's all worth it if I can bring home venison.

"Hapiness is a warm gut pile."

When I'm solo backpacking I go stoveless 90% of the time. I just like the simplicity of being able to get up and go in the morning and at night eat and go to sleep.

Stoveless also makes resupplying a bit easier IMO. I can last a few days on pringles and candy bars from a convenient store, but if someone is used to mountain houses, ect they'll have a bit of a harder time resupplying.

Nice article Pmags. Is that the LCW High Route in that pic? I tried it last year but got driven off by a thunderstorm. I decided to bail down to the CT and when I walked over to take a look down, I could see my car directly below in the Long Gulch TH parking. That was convenient. Would like to try again when my knee heals up. It was really cool.

I've only done stoveless on 1-2 night trips so far. It seems like I'd get tired of cold couscous or potatoes pretty fast and foods that don't require rehdydration would be considerably heavier for a week long trip.

A friend got me started bring subs along on trips that start on a Friday evening. If I get a large I can have half for dinner and half for breakfast.

I love PBJ tortillas on the trail. Funny that you can buy small packets of peanut butter at the store but not jelly. I'm not big on peanut butter by itself.

Thanks for the ideas.

Randy,

You can score single-serving jam and jelly at breakfast restaurants (sitting in a wire rack on the table), and at hotels serving a free breakfast. They aren't in the completely flexible pouch PB is, but honey is – PB and honey being another variation.

Oh no David! Get ready for another round of the ethics of taking extra packets debate! :)

That is where I get mine. I usually just take the ones they give me with my breakfast.

I used to do peanut butter and honey on bread when I bike toured as a kid. Not sure why I haven't done that backpacking.

PBB (peanut butter and banana) is my my favorite but bananas don't travel well.

PBB: How about those fried banana chips? Often found in the bulk, "health food" section. It would make a crunchy sandwich or you could do it "chips and dip" style. I avoid them in town as needlessly caloric, but on the trail . . .

Minimus.biz also sells single serving jelly packets.

Just to head off a collision…. The ethics debate has been had.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/xdpy/forum_thread/37830/index.html

Yep, that's the debate I was referring to. That was a LOT of fun.

Thanks Doug. I'll check that out.

I do eat those banana chips David. Never occurred for me to try them with the PB. Good idea.

>>Is that the LCW High Route in that pic?

Indeed it is! Great little route.

As for saving weight, I do it as much for simplicity as weight savings. Sometimes, esp by myself, I just want throw down my sleeping pad, sack out and eat.

OTOH, sometimes, esp during the later part of Fall, I absolutely want a hot meal.

Good to have choices!

or how about Trader Joe's flattened bananas? If you prefer chewy to crunchy.

Hey! No taunting the Trader Joe-less! We're finally getting 2 in Colorado, 1 in Denver and 1 in Boulder. Because or of our bizarre liquor laws, only 1 will sell alcohol. I haven't heard any updates of when they are opening but supposed to be sometime this year. I'll definitely check out those flattened bananas.

Mrs Mags is ecstatic over TJs opening here in Boulder.

She lived a few years in Flagstaff and became an ardent fan of them.

Plus TJs is owned by a German company and apparently TJs stocks some specialty items that she could only get back in the Aldi markets in Germany (Same company).

To make this thread related, I suspect Mrs Mags will be a regular customer of TJs. She'll be stocking some cool food I can bring on my stoveless backpacks! :)

In your article, below the iced coffed picture the next title is "Some food choices for going stoveless". It seems to me the question naturally asked would be "What FOOD should I bring?"
Did a smart device swap words on you?

The not-so-smart device (aka my brain) missed that one. :)

Well written and had some good ideas. I definitely fall into the camp of "you can't beat a hot meal at the end of a cold/wet day" but some of your meal ideas make me think twice. I've never thought about rehydrating mash potatoes or dried beans with cold water. I'm a fan of doing burritos using tortillas, cheese and rehydrated bean flakes. There's no reason I couldn't do that cold instead of hot.

Thanks.

I had a funny experience on a car-camping trip this past weekend. Our companions brought the typical car camping luxuries: fresh eggs and veggies, coffee, cookset, folding chairs, etc. My boyfriend and I just grabbed our typical backpacking kit. While our friends futzed with their stove and burned their scrambled eggs and lamented their watery coffee, we had already gobbled up our simple and tasty granola-and-almond-milk concoction (topped off with fresh fruit, my idea of luxury) and rinsed out our bowls. I think the would-be chefs were a little jealous.

I very rarely bring a stove while backpacking. I love to cook at home, and have worked in many facets of the food service industry so I know my way around a kitchen, but on the trail I become an incredibly picky eater (the whole theory of "everything tastes good when your outside" never holds true for me). Trying to replicate home-cooked food on the trail is, to my mind, a losing battle. Stuff like eggs and pancakes never comes out right. Mountain House meals always feel like a rip-off to me. Seven-dollar pasta? Really? I like to pack homemade cookies and bars for breakfast, and I consume huge numbers of Clif and ProBars. Energy bars are a guilty, expensive pleasure in real life, but totally justifiable while hiking. ;)

I'm also very fond of those little Ziplock brand tupperware containers for no-heat cooking. The 8-oz capacity ones weigh less than 15 g each, and are way nicer to eat out of than freezer bags (also easier to rinse and reuse). Favourite "recipes"?

Instant Fiesta black bean mix plus instant mashed potatoes inside a tortilla wrap. Cheese and sun-dried tomatoes optional.

Instant split pea soup with toasted kasha (buckwheat), plus a little extra bouillon powder and olive oil.

Rice, bean thread, or ramen noodles with miso powder, ginger powder and dulse. Add freeze dried veggies of choice. (This requires a larger container, I find). Variation: stir peanut butter and tamari sauce into noodles. Yum.

Most of the quick-cook foods we eat on the trail have been pre-cooked. Trail cooking for most is largely a matter of rehydration, which only requires heat for psychological reasons. Throw your "ingredients" into a container with enough water to cover, let it sit in your pack for a couple hours while you hike, and you have a meal that requires virtually no effort to prepare. And, even if you do still bring a stove, it's good to have a back-up method for when the stove fails or you run out of fuel.

For those who hike in places that have direct sunlight (that is, west of the Mississippi…), leaving your freezer bag or tupperware out in the sun, wrapped something black (like that emergency trash bag) can yield a substantially toasty meal. Hey, it's hot enough to melt your chocolate, right?

Home dehydrated banana is a wonderful chewy snack. Don't need the Trader Joe's, although I do find their label "Bananas, Flattened", to be really funny for some reason. (Duh! of course they're flat, can't you see?)Can't stand banana chips, but oh! plain dehydrated banana is like candy. Pair up with chocolate peanut butter or hazelnut butter.

Also awesome with the chocolate peanut butter is the little packet of Orange Marmalade on a wrap. My favorite hiking lunch. Now, if only I could find gluten-free wraps that didn't just shred when rolled–last one I tried I had sticky fingers from the marmalade squooshing out the cracks. Lick fast!

Diane-
Maybe corn tortillas would work?