High Sierra Topix

Lumbergh21 wrote:...gorp is the last thing I would accept. I've never been in a situation that I felt the need to risk a food borne illness. Not throwing mud at you, it's just that I think we all know that hygeine takes a pretty steep dive while hiking. A food that you eat by hand and are dipping your hand into is not safe in my book, especially if you're just someone on the trail that i don't know.

I've also been selective the few times I've accepted a handout. I'd turn down gorp for the same reason. But I've also turned down various energy bars that I know I'd rather die of starvation first than eat. Clif bars especially, those are just dead weight in my pack. I suppose I could use one as an emetic.

Harlen, your boys remind me of our dog. No matter how much we feed her, she always wants more! Dogs have perfected that irresistable begging look. And people food, of course, is preferred. So when backpacking with the dog, we have to add extra cheese sticks. Although the dog is a bit chunky and eating only dog food and fish would do her good, we are big suckers for those begging eyes. Children are pretty good at that look too.

I would say that someone who actually turns down food offered, has not really run out of food. If you really run out of food, you will be hungry enough to eat about anything, sanitation be damned. I got a kick out of Alpine Mike's story of eating dry cheese powder. Now that is "out of food". Reminds me when at NOLS, one of our burried caches (were allowed in those days) got wet and ruined most of the food, so we spent the entire last week of that trip with only Crisco and slightly rancid oatmeal, and a short ration at that! Thank goodness we had a good spice kit and could fish and forage. Nobody turned down those excessively spiced (Curry the best)oatemal and Crisco concoctions.

I've never quite run out of food, but...
Once on a long trip as a teenager I almost ran out of lunch food. Since my dinners and breakfasts were one package, one meal, I still had the planned amount (which was not enough by the end of the trip, naturally - seeing as I was a teenager). But lunches I just had bags of this and sacks of that, so I had been eating a little more than I should have. I had one packet of Wyler's drink mix - practically pure sugar. I would lick my finger, stick in the pouch, pull it out covered in flavored sugar, and lick it off. Repeat. I think that was all I had for lunch the last couple days.
Another time I managed to forget part of my stove, so that I my dehydrated and freeze-dried stuff was mostly useless. Yes, I could have cold-soaked, but I didn't get THAT hungry. And a fire would have been possible, but this was October, and fire danger was extreme, all fires banned in the national forest I was in. So I stretched the lunch stuff and the cereal I could eat cold to make things work. Wasn't too bad, it was only 3 or 4 days I think. I found that I liked not cooking, and have since done a couple short trips with no stove - but with enough food!

No time to read the thread right now to see if this has been said, but:

I put food in individual ziploc baggies by meal and day, then force myself to eat all of what's portioned out for the day/time and not dig into other bags. Seems to work well, but I eat for function, not pleasure, so the items are pretty simple and easily rationed.

paul wrote:I've never quite run out of food, but...
Once on a long trip as a teenager I almost ran out of lunch food.

Ah that reminds me that I did in fact run out of lunch food once on my first trip to Edyth L. (Cherry L. entry) in May 1986. The reason behind the relatively scant supply of snack food was an unreasonable and uninformed view I had of the bear situation in Kendrick Creek. I had believed a silly rumor that Yosemite airlifted problem bears there, so we were particularly spare with our lunch food. This wasn't an issue initially on a 4-day trip so difficult that it will always be THE death march in my annals. In spite of the difficulties and the fact that the position of the outlet torrent pinned me in a place where I couldn't get a cast into Edyth, we held up fine until the afternoon of the last day. Up to that point my off trail route finding had been the finest of my entire hiking career. I just needed to do the zig zag stepped ascent to the bounding ridge and it would be easy downhill to the car (OK, except for one last tough stream crossing). After 3.5 days of spotless off trail route finding I really missed my exit and I took us a full 800' higher up on the bounding ridge than I wanted to. From there the descent was still pretty easy but this routefinding blunder physically and psychologically destroyed me and my hiking buddy. Even though we had crested out our knees sort of buckled and we collapsed into the granite sand. We realized that we had flat out hit the wall and needed nourishment even for descent. Because we carried sufficient water (no shortage of places to load up) and we still had one leftover package of ramen from our dinner stash, we pulled out the stove and pot and fired it up. That helped but we weren't done yet. We then heated more water and expended some leftover breakfast stash (hot chocolate). We took a very brief nap, then we were fully refreshed and ready to finish the hike to the car.

I wanted to throw a bit of levity based on several posts, but there are too many to remember. Mark's friend could use diminishing property values to his next unabashed begging spree.

I don't recall ever running out of food, nor have I ever been asked for food. I normally plan for a day or two extra, just in case. I normally bring back a bit more than planned because I don't tend to eat as much grazing material as I think I will. My appetite tends to be lighter than I anticipate. I'm working on tapering food down a bit. At the end of the last meetup, I think I had 4 days worth of grazing baggies left.

WD wrote:
Harlen, your boys remind me of our dog. No matter how much we feed her, she always wants more!

Let them eat fish!

WD, was it you who said that one can't live on fish 3 meals a day? If so, why not?

(Here it is:

Fishing and foraging never can provide enough calories if you also have to walk 10+ miles a day.)

I once met some serious fishers who said they only brought a big pan, lemon pepper, bread crumbs and olive oil, and that they planned to eat fish morning, noon and night! Why not? What do you say Mark, and Giantbrookie, as our resident epicureans? Maybe not for a week, but how about for a weekend trip- ever done that? We ate seventeen fish that day for lunch with the boys, but our fishing skills are so weak, that we can never count on fish in good enough amounts.
If it is possible, and do many JMT/PCTers use this strategy to avoid resupplying- Markskor? Longri?, et al ?

The shorter the trip the less I depend on fish to supplement my diet. The longer the trip the more I rely on fish--like about 60% of my dinners include fish. But fish 3 meals a day--not me. Way too much time cleaning and preparing even when fishing is great. Simple breakfasts and nuts, dryed fruits, energy bars and and jerky for snacks/lunch. Mark cooks the fish in foil and I boil the water for rice/mashed potatoes with freeze dried veggies added when we have fish. We put up with a few freeze dried dinners to keep things simple some evenings.

You could get enough calories from fish. They are fully lacking in the carbohydrates your muscles prefer for fuel though.

Lots of people don't even eat much for the first few days. On a short hike you can eat pretty much anything. Go ahead, pick any single monotonous food and go with it. (I'll bet you chose something with lots of carbohydrates). After a week it would be harder to sustain.

I spoke with a famous adventurer and she told me about foraging for food on long solo trips (not in the Sierra). It sounded like a full time job, constantly on the lookout for edible things, stooping to pick a single berry, diverting to check out some possibility. When I asked her about fish she told me they weren't as satisfying as you'd think. She said, you eat three fish and it's like you ate nothing. I didn't understand that. But she was speaking from direct experience.

As for using fishing as a way to cut food weight on the JMT (or PCT), I've thought about it before. You'd have to reserve some time/energy for fishing instead of walking so you might be slower. Then there's the extra gear and the uncertainty. I came to the conclusion that for me there were easier ways to shave weight.

Well, if you make it a full time job, you can forage and fish, but you missed the latter part of my statement - AND walk 10+ miles a day. The fish only diet may work for a few days, but long term, it does not cut it. You can "survive" but not "thrive" with some added foraging, but fish alone? I doubt it. Most fish are low fat, so the idea of a ketosis diet also would not work. Perhaps those who advocate this should do an experiment and go on a 10-day trip, 10-15 miles a day, no food, and just fish.

It is interesting that the myth of native peoples living off hunting alone, dismisses that the vast amount of food was gathered and preserved by the women. In fact, some evolution theories say that the reason women have better color vision is that they had to be very good and quick to pick out colors of berries.

Supplemental fishing is GREAT! I can cut back to 1 pound food per day if I fish. If fishing is very good, then I do come back with some extra food; if fishing is rotten, I come back empty but far from starving. If fishing is average, it all works. I am sort of a "itcy foot" person so just sitting around and fishing all day is not my style. I rarely take a "zero" and if I do, I rather do day-hikes, climbing or exploring. About 1-2 hours of fishng is all I can manage.

Cute kids Harlen!