Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Stoveless hikes?

I have been interested in a thread on the PCT forum related to hiking without stoves, and the food involved. I was fascinated by the following post. This person hiked ~3,000 miles!



I am sometimes astonished by what I see people bring up the trail, in terms of food. (yes, Laura, you!)

It's one thing if you are the fitness queen and know how to sling a 70 lb pack by preference. But it is another if you are the average duffer, trying to claw your way uphill.

My breakdown for the walkabout this past August:



Yup: I tore through this daily, still lost somewhere around 15 pounds during the trip. Dinners were Mary Jane Farms meals, unless I could fish.

The gourmet meals are left to very short trips, 1-3 nights in length tops. I have decided, yes, that cooking and good food are an integral part of my experience in the backcountry, but I'm also trying to learn how to do more with less in terms of those meals.

Contrary to popular belief, the 60+ lb pack is not my favorite thing to lug around. For now, while I can do it, I will continue. And this year/summer, I am not the fitness queen. I just celebrated my year anniversary of my knee surgery, and am very proud that I can scramble and claw, just like everyone else, at the levels prior to my initiating training for the Challenge.

I know of a select few people, my friend Sean - who just decimated the 14r record - is one of them, who can eat the same things day in and out and never get tired of it. That's just not me.

What is in the plastic bag next to the String Cheese (kind of a reddish blob??)

Food is a nightmare for me; I am so allergic to some things that I need to carry an Epi Pen (different from a Steri Pen)It only gets worse as time goes by, so some of the standard items that most people carry are off-limits to me.

Are those hot wasbi peas in the middle bag?

> What is in the plastic bag next to the String Cheese (kind of a reddish blob??)

Looks like salami. I'd like to know: How long can you trust string cheese and salami to be ok without refrigeration?
- - - -

On another note: The "stove" setup I carry could almost be considered "stoveless" when compared to other stoves.

My "Esbit Titanium Folding Stove" $14.95 at REI plus homemade aluminum foil wind screen plus lighter weighs less than two ounces. The esbit tablets at half an ounce each last more than a day each. The stove, lighter, wind screen and 3 tablets weigh in at 3 oz, about equal to the Snow Peak 600 ml cooking pot/water cup.

Cool: but I'll bet the custom granite stand adds to that . . .

Yuppers, Bee: hot wasabi peas (more for the zing and crunch rather than any real caloric value). The meat is salami.

Steve, I've had no problems with salami or string cheese for up to two weeks. The cheese is sealed, so no bacterial growth. Can't vouch for the salami, and I know DUG has had issues in the past.

Actually, my greatest weakness, requiring a stove for hot water, is coffee in the mornings. I mostly combine it with hot chocolate to make mochas, but at least there are better options in the instant coffee market now (Starschmucks, TJ's) that pack small and taste really good. I also find that having tea before bed helps me get to sleep more easily.

I do admit I need a pack intervention: again, I'm not as big a fan of hauling giant loads as people think. I just *can* do it.

"Pack Intervention" -- love it!

It would bee fun to see the contents of a big trip before beeing stuffed in the pack.

Meadow Farms Elk/Beef salami, jerky, and Laughing Cow Babybel cheeses seem to last a long time.

There are also lots of natural veggies to choose from in the mountains. Pussy-Willow stew is an excellent source of protein, but perhaps a little bland.

But seriously, shouldn't a tasty, well-prepared, hot meal be part of the wilderness experience? That's why I carry an Enzo Trapper bushcraft knife for skinning out those little creatures I trap - marmot is a little greasy, but packed with calories. Or try a little belly-tickling trout fishing for some backcountry shushi.

In the interests of ultra-light travel, if someone could come up with a reliable GU I.V. we'd be well on our way to a no-solid-food carry. "Better living through chemistry", I say!

You don't need a stove for Marmot Boodog. Just a fire and some stones, which you shouldn't have to carry.

Marmot Boodog

With the opening of a marmot-hunting season, Marmot Boodog becomes a very popular and fun outdoor activity for Mongolians, especially men. Marmot hunting and boodog cooking is a prerogative of men. A freshly killed marmot is separated from intestines and cleaned. Then, a prepared marmot is filled with preheated hot stones and tightly sealed. The marmot meat is cooked by the heat of stones from inside. Additional heating is provided by open fire or gas burner. The same amount of precaution as described above must be used for handling the marmot cooking process. When done, the marmot meat is very tender and tastes like wild duck according to some foreigners.

Ingredients (5 servings):
1 medium marmot
Salt

Cooking gear:
From small to medium sized smooth stones
Firewood

Cooking time:
Approximately 1.5 hours

Clean the marmot, separate the intestines and slightly remove hair from the skin. Rub the inside with salt, fill up with hot stones and seal tightly. Additionally, roast the marmot on slow open fire or with a gas burner. Usually, Mongolians do not use seasonings in order to keep the specific taste of marmot meat. When the cooking is done, the stones are pulled out, rolled in hands, the meat is cut into pieces and served hot.

I am not an ultralight backpacker, but probably "light," (meaning 30 lbs for a 6-7 day trip) and strategizing about eating well is, for me, an enjoyable part of the challenge. I use a snowpeak stove to boil water for food and drinks, but not otherwise for cooking (at least on longer trips).

Eating tasty, satisfying, nutritious food during a trip is important to me, but probably just as important is having hot drinks at breakfast and dinner. I am not a coffee drinker. For me, hot drinks include tea, bouillon, instant miso soup, hot chocolate, and my newest and greatest find, Alpine Spiced Hot Cider , which I found at a Dollar Store.

I haven't had problems with String Cheese or Salami for 7 days at a time, but your experience may differ.... I've also brought the mini Babybells which, like string cheese, are supposed to be refrigerated, but haven't had problems (yet). Laughing Cow makes a truly shelf-stable cheese product that is available at Trader Joes and other places...personally, I wouldn't call it cheese exactly, but it can spice up a tortilla.

I do buy some Backpackers Pantry offerings, but my favorite freeze-dried foods are MaryJaneFarms and Packit Gourmet. I supplement with shelf-stable products found in dollar stores, K-Mart, Target, and the like, including mashed potatoes, instant bean soups, foil-wrapped tuna, salmon, and chicken. Basically, these stores sell food that never goes bad, which is a little scary to me, but it offers a potential treasure trove for backpacking.

Does Winton Porter have a PCT counterpart?

Nothing beats the Esbit rig yet for minimalism, but I am working on it. A titanium wood gas stove is in the works that will actually challenge the weight of the Esbit (and beat it cold on longer trips). See all that plastic and paper? Every 1/2 ounce of that stuff holds about the same energy as one Ezbit tab. The WG stove turns that into clean burning fuel

Laura, I'm sure that you understand, but others might not, that my comments to you regarding wonderful backcountry cuisine and crushing backpack loads, are created simply out of jealousy!

I didn't even mention the occasional spirits, which I gave up for it's weight 20 years ago.

Thanks for the culinary advice, Wagga. I guess I've been doing it all wrong.

My wife and I will be hiking in Ecuador in November...so we'll try the local Hamster. I understand Hamster is very good if cooked the Andean way.

Boy, are we a bunch of savages...

"An old Englishman I met in Africa was
reminiscing about his exploration in earlier
days, and the shock of one culture meeting
another for the first time. 'Can you imagine', he
said, 'people so primitive that they love to eat
the embryo of certain birds and slices from the
belly of certain animals? And grind up grass
seed, make it into a paste, burn it over a fire,
then smear it with a greasy mess they extract
from the mammary fluid of animals?' While I
shuddered at such barbarism, he went on:
'What I've been describing, of course, is a
breakfast of bacon and eggs, and buttered toast."
Gaskill, G (March 1964), from Reader's Digest

Dale B. Dalrymple

Didn't see hamster when I was there, but here are some gourmet Ecuadorean preparations of guinea pig to whet your appetite.




(Avert eyes now if not interested. Though actually, the pictures are a step above McDonalds.)

No video on YouTube, but if you've seen the movie...

Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: [a goanna is sizzling over a fire. Sue looks ill] How do you like your goanna? Medium? Well done?
Sue Charlton: You don't really expect me to eat that?
Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: Yeah, its great. Yeah, try some of these yams, try the grubs and the sugar ants. Just bite the end off, they're really sweet. Black fellas love 'em.
Sue Charlton: [tentatively tries a yam] What about you, aren't you having any?
Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: Me? [Mick starts working on a tin with his knife]
Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: ...Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit.

Of course I know you're joking, but others may not, and I sometimes get feedback that I'm "intimidating". So, I thought I'd put the rumors to rest...

time for a mountaineering literature food quote

Most expeditions have some story about their food and attitudes to it vary from the haute cuisine of some French expeditions to the blunt assertion of Tilman, the famous eccentric and explorer, that he did not mind as long as there was some.
Joe Tasker, Everest the Cruel Way page 158

as for me. get up, quart of Tang and a granola bar, GORP,etc for lunch, cold snacks at end of day for dinner. No stove, no fuel, no pot, no cleanup, less bear bait. Just some "human fuel"

And another:

"Stand up ya voracious man-eatin' sonofabitch and receive yer sentence. When ya came to Hinsdale County, there was seven Democrats. But you, ya ate five of 'em, goddam ya. I sentence yah t' be hanged by th' neck until yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin' ag'in reducin' th' Democratic population of this county. Packer, you Republican cannibal, I would sentence ya ta hell but the statutes forbid it."

-- Hon. M.B. Gerry (reportedly) sentencing Alferd S. Packer