We home dry several fruits and make our own jerky. We also buy nuts and granola from Nutty Guys web site.
My favorite nuts are butter toffee almond. My wife prefers cashews and peanuts. I like dried blueberries and
bananas the best. My wife likes just about any fruit dried except for apples and pears which gives her allergy
problems. We also add in Luna and Kasha bars.I also like corn nuts and pretzel nibs for something salty besides
jerky.We unwrap the bars and pack them 3-4 to a ziplock. All the other stuff goes in ziplocks. We don't overfill
the bags so they are easier to fit into our Bearikade Expedition cans. If the trip is longer than a week I add in some
multivitamins, glucosomine and calcium tablets. We both keep ziplock bags of food in our front pouches so we
can access them all day without taking our packs off. I usually start the day with 2 full ziplocks. One bag is
dried fruit and toffee or candied nuts, the other is jerky, corn nuts, pretzel nibs and salty nuts. We eat bars
and dry granola for breakfast. We are not coffee drinkers at home so we don't miss the hot drink. We use the
ziplocks for used tissue after we finish off the food.
If we are hiking in the fall with longer dark and cold hours we will bring a stove and eat hot stuff like everyone else.
I also don't try to do 18+ mile days except in the summer.
When I started taking the family we would pack about 2 pounds per person each day. As we migrated away from
freeze dried and all that packaging we cut down to 1.5 per day. My wife and I still ended up with extra food so
we cut it back to 1.25 pounds per person-day in the last 3 years. We haven't been hungry but I do loose weight
which is a positive for me. If I was doing the whole PCT I would still go light and make up the difference on the
town days.
