The food question

Excerpt from a journal (belonging to one “Dr. Moreauque”, or perhaps “More-oak”?) discovered an island somewhere in the Pacific:

Day 267

Curse the [illegible] Creator! The time has come, I fear, to concede defeat. I’ve tried positive visualization, seed transplantation, and even inspirational jungle retreats, but the ability to photosynthesize eludes me still. I’ve yet to experience a repeat of the Day 135 phenomenon, which leads me to conclude that the leaves I found in my hair fell from a tree and were not, in fact, an early indication of success. Without the ability to produce my own food, I fear I must submit once more to that most inefficient solution: eating.

~

I agree with whoever wrote that: the ability to photosynthesize would be great! All you’d have to do to “eat” is go outside in the sun, which is where I’ll be spending quite a bit of time anyway. No need to worry about pre-planning food for hikes, dehydrating meals to reduce weight, or repacking everything into bags to eliminate unwieldy packaging. Feeling hungry? Take your hat off and let your leaves get a bit more light (because in my world, they’d grow like blades of grass in place of hair). But alas, as the above journal entry attests, we seem to be stuck as our poor heterotrophic selves. And that means we need to figure out how to carry the food we’ll need rather than producing it as we go (drat!).

Pictured: what I want to be when I grow up?

For most long-distance hikers, myself included, this means a combination of buying food when feasible and mail drops for the special treats and/or small towns. Before the planning stage of my AT hike, I had no idea you could mail something to a post office and have them hold it for you until you arrive, but that’s exactly the concept behind the USPS’s General Delivery scheme. In theory, you can mail just about anything to anywhere and pick it up when you arrive. It’s the perfect system for resupplying when the only other option might be a gas station convenience store. Alternatively, some hiker-friendly businesses will hold packages, which is even better if you roll into town on the weekend when the post office is closed…

My partner Naomi has kindly volunteered to be my support person for my PCT hike, so I’m leaving her with a small mountain of dehydrated food, some simple recipes, and a list of the first few places I’ll want to resupply by mail. Flat-rate boxes are excellent for sending food, and I found some fluorescent orange duct tape at an art store, so she can make the packages nice and garish, which will help the postal workers identify them among the herd of resupply boxes they typically receive.

Robin the Cat, certified food expert, inspecting a selection of dry goods. Some through-hikers report needing ~6,000 calories a day, so the perennial question becomes how to get those calories without carrying a small grocery store on your back. Robin recommends dry kibble, but I’ll stick with tastier options like granola, dehydrated almond paste “cookies” (middle column of ziplocs), and simple heat-and-eat meals like soup mixes or reconstituted refries.

I imagine the balance of food I buy in towns and ask her to mail will change as I go—something about the best-laid schemes of mice and men comes to mind—so unlike for my AT hike, I’ve only planned out the first few stops. The other change from my AT adventure is my cooking setup. Rather than lugging along a liquid fuel stove, which is great for groups but miserably heavy for one person, I’ll bring a tiny “stove” that’s little more than pot supports and a platform to hold a solid fuel tablet. I found a lightweight titanium pot with a screw-top lid, so I’ll truly be spoiled for choice: I can either add water to a dehydrated meal, seal the container, and let it rehydrate cold as I hike, or I can have a nice warm dinner on those days when I need a morale boost. And the best part? All that weighs less than the silicone bowl I would have brought had I decided to forgo a stove altogether and eat cold meals for five months! Ours is a glorious age indeed!

I’ll leave the topic of food for now lest I further bore my three readers (Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi Robin!). I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it later, however. After all, until someone succeeds where Dr. More-oak (?) failed, food will remain a topic of intense discussion among hikers, alongside gear weight and revolutionary uses for duct tape.

More to follow, including a rundown of my own gear setup for fellow hiker geeks,