rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
Posts: 12,687
|
Post by rebeccad on Nov 3, 2016 6:59:03 GMT -8
Weight...hmmmmm........... eat the bulky, heavy stuff first? That's my approach. Though I've been starting to rethink that--might need to save the larger, more caloric dinners (admittedly not always the bulkiest or heaviest, but usually) for later in the trip when appetites have kicked up a notch or two.
|
|
zeke
Trail Wise!
Peekaboo slot 2023
Posts: 9,886
|
Post by zeke on Nov 3, 2016 7:05:51 GMT -8
For a week long trip, I can fit all in my BV500 except for the food I eat on day 1. I have spent many years getting my food right. At 1.5 #s a day, it isn't that difficult to carry an extra days worth. If some sort of mishap occurred, causing me to lose 2-3 days worth of food, I'd head for the car. In most instances, this would mean completing the planned hike. Yes, I would get hungry, but no, I would not plan to do this beforehand.
You can obviously do as you like, but if you go out without enough food for your trip, you are courting disaster. Consider your own hypothesis. You are out on the trail, with only enough food to last 1-1.5 days short of the destination. You wake up and some critter has destroyed 2 days of food. Now, you are 3 days from the car, plenty of water, but no food. Not deadly, but uncomfortable for most people. Bonking due to lack of calories is no fun.
rebeccad Remember to pack along some EVOO and those calories can be added to most meals. Boosting energy without adding much in the way of weight to carry. 251 K in an ounce of Olive oil, compared to just 71 in an ounce of scotch. 167 in an ounce of PB. 157 in cashews. Obviously, it is easier to fit an ounce of EVOO into a full bear bag over, say, an extra ounce of cashews.
|
|
sarbar
Trail Wise!
After being here since 2001...I couldn't say goodbye yet!
Posts: 994
|
Post by sarbar on Nov 3, 2016 7:59:28 GMT -8
Your food runs out? Is wrecked? You hike. And you suddenly hike a lot more, and get the trip done faster. You don't call for help because you ran out 2 days before. It's called sucking it up. I know. I have run out of food. It's amazing how suddenly you can hike a 19 mile day..........
|
|
rebeccad
Trail Wise!
Writing like a maniac
Posts: 12,687
|
Post by rebeccad on Nov 3, 2016 9:47:52 GMT -8
Let's take another scenario. You are on the trail, 3 long days from the trailhead, because you're traveling light and fast. You've skimped on the food, so you only have one day's worth, but you know you can go 2 days without, maybe not happy, but you won't die. Except...you keep bonking from lack of calories. You can't make your mileage. Now you realize that you are looking at 3 or more days without food. Because while you can live without food, it's pretty challenging to keep up a high level of energy expenditure without any. At some point, your judgment probably erodes, too (okay, yeah, most of us would say that happened when you decided to carry less food than you need). I can see so many ways this can go bad.
I don't carry a full extra day's worth of food. But I make sure there's going to be at least enough lunch left over to provide minimal fuel for an extra day of walking out, or of staying put with an injury. This is a minimal amount of weight to share among the 2-4 of us on any given trip--some extra trail mix, an energy bar each, and maybe a packet or two of peanut butter.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2016 10:05:01 GMT -8
Because while you can live without food, it's pretty challenging to keep up a high level of energy expenditure without any. At some point, your judgment probably erodes, too (okay, yeah, most of us would say that happened when you decided to carry less food than you need). You, rebeccad , are quite correct. Judgement goes out the window with sustained high energy output and no food. Heading out from Chamberlain airstrip, in the Frank Church River Of No Return Wilderness, we discovered that the trail we wanted to take was no longer maintained. The Ranger gave us information on how to get to our destination. The whole 'we are taking the wrong trail' put us 2 hours behind with the back-tracking. With wanting to get to our destination and a lack of food (for want of making a meal) we began, individually, to make some errors in judgement. Collectively, my wife and I got to a camp site. From choosing a campsite till we finished dinner, my wife and I did not let each other out of visual range. In this way we kept each other from following though on the 'stupid.'
|
|
|
Post by swimswithtrout on Nov 3, 2016 18:54:39 GMT -8
I've never even come close to running out of food, even on an "expected" ~ 25-30 day self-supported trip. I still had food left over, and the total food weight for 2 was 37 lbs. That's only 9.8 oz's of carried food per day/per person.
Of course I did carry a 12oz frying pan and 12oz of fishing gear, as I was also "Self supporting" us, as far as supplying the extra protein we'd need, aside from the dried carb staples we carried, making it a total food weight/extra cooking gear weight of 10.2 oz /per person/ per day for a ~ 30 day trip. .
The longer you're out, the more prepared you need to be. BP'g near/ above timberline in the Rockies can force you to hole up for 1-3 days at a time if a bad monsoon wave moves through. In the Wind River Range, I'm often 3 days from the nearest TH and at least 5-15 days from my car, if I were forced to try to hike back to it.
I always carry at least 2-3 days worth of simple staples.
|
|
tomas
Trail Wise!
Posts: 1,906
|
Post by tomas on Nov 4, 2016 6:15:44 GMT -8
I've run out of food on trail before. Once because I got caught in an unexpected snow storm and another because I wildly misjudged mileage. In both cases I went hungry and I walked out. But it wasn't fun and the bonking factor was in play.
As for the whole mooching food off of other people as a back up plan? Grow up and carry your own weight.
|
|
ErnieW
Trail Wise!
I want to backpack
Posts: 9,937
|
Post by ErnieW on Nov 6, 2016 7:13:13 GMT -8
Who is flaming ErnieW ? You specifically asked for others to chime-in on the concept of trail fasting for weight savings the last few days. Sorry that some of us disagreed. Sorry you didn’t like that.
Sorry no one flaming but it seemed it was getting a little heated when I said that your fellow hikers can help you or you help them was going in the direction of being called mooching and begging. It did feel a little like I hit a nerve that is almost a religious belief about having extra food. I actually participate in forums to hear what others say. I also would like to point out that I was saying no food for the last day isn't the end of the world. No food for the last few days shouldn't be a planned condition.
|
|