High Sierra Topix

I'm up to my ears in food prep for the High Route in August. Last night I handed a dark crumble to my wife and asked her to "Name that animal." Predictably, she suggested chicken. It was roast beef.

I have found dehydrated canned chicken to be far superior to dusty cubes of FD chicken breast. This is particularly true if you use canned chicken that is a mix of dark and white meat. Yummy!

I wanted to see if other canned meats fared as well. First I tried Del Real Slow Cooked Carnitas from Costco, Comes vacuum sealed in two 12-oz packets. I washed off most of the white fat using just hot tap water. Dehydrated 9 hours at 145o. Fantastic result! The dried pork was crispy, light and "fluffy", with thin threads of dried pork. The stuff re-hydrates readily and has the obvious roast pork flavor. Works great as an addition to my breakfast Ramen and I've used it with my tamale bark to make several meals of tamale pie. It would be fantastic in burritos.

I also experimented with Butterfield Farms canned roast beef in beef broth. A packet of four cans, 12 oz. each. I dehydrated two of them yesterday. The dried beef chunks had a much higher density than either the chicken or the pork. I got little dark nuggets. They're much harder to chew as dried pieces than either the thread-like chicken or pork. I poured some boiling water over several beef chunks, and they responded appropriately. They don't rehydrate as quickly or as well as either the chicken or the pork, but they did at least as well has ground beef gravel mixed with bread crumbs, and they have a nice roasty beefy flavor. This will immediately replace the ground beef gravel I've used in the past in my chili mac and my pasta and red sauce.

How long will they last without spoiling? No idea, really, but I'm not concerned about it. Meals for the first half of the trip will be just packaged in ziplocks. Meals sent to my resupply points will also be vacuum sealed. They should be fine for my 24-day itinerary. In the past I've under-dried on occasion, and after storing the meals for several months, I found the dried Italian sausage gravel had gone a bit off. I could tell immediately by the subtle odor, and the taste was not quite right. In other words, you can tell with your nose and palette when a meal starts to age, long before it becomes unsafe to eat.

I recommend the dried pulled pork with enthusiasm. The roast beef was a success, too, although not as satisfying as the pork.

Wouldn't it be lighter to just fish along the way?

I don't go into the Sierra without a fly rod, but I haven't eaten a trout in decades. At the end of the day, I don't want to spend my down time fishing for food, gutting fish, then cleaning up the gutting mess and the cooking mess. No thanks.

missing out.

Thanks for sharing your newly discovered treats. I have a thru-hiking friend who also dehydrates her own meals (except she is vegetarian). After vacuum sealing, she freezes all but the first two day's meals. She has never had any spoilage problems.

Rlown- You can do both on the High Route- fish briefly at the end of the day when you are in good fishing territory, and carry meat (if you are a meat eater) those days where you really have to make miles. It is not an either-or choice.

I did the route in 31 days, north to south for two stretches, then flipped south-to-north. In all about 2 days were used for car logistics/shuttling. My husband joined me on the middle section and we made it a specific fishing trip - slowed down averaging only about 4 miles each day. So it would have been about 25 days had I simply gone straight thorough. I think 25 days is an ideal plan; it gives you enough time to stop and camp at some really fine places that you would have to pass by if trying to do it in 20 days or less. Good luck on your trip!

Don't get me wrong. I've done my share of home-dehydrating. However, I generally found it to be full of problems. The last thing that I want to do is to carry some home-sealed food packages for a hundred miles of trail and then discover that they went bad.

The more foolproof method for me now is to purchase Epic brand meat bars. My favorite is Epic Bison, but the others are good. One is fish, but it needs some spicy mustard. Since they are commercially packaged and sealed, they do not go bad. I've even eaten some that were a long time past the "use-by" date, and they were fine. Epic has several meat types, but the only one that I find missing is yak meat (yes, I ate that in Nepal).

I started dehydrating when I prepped for the Muir Trail in '18. I'm a picky eater, so making food to my own liking gets more calories into my system. I dehydrate all my dinners, some of my breakfasts, none of my lunch stuff. I've had no complications at all. The only time I had something go off was with dried Italian sausage (greasy!) left in a baggie at room temperature for several months.