Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board How often/what do you eat on your hike

Figured this might spark some conversation.

I was going with homemade trail mix - dried cherries, blueberries, cranberries, granola & honey seasme almonds, bars (2), rice crispy treats (2), gels (2) and electrolyte spiked water. This is for a 4 hour hike.

How often & what do you eat?

controversy or conversation?

only 4 hrs? heck, you store enough carbs in muscle and liver to last that long.

We did a 10 day stretch in mid-JMT this year. no real meals, just "grazing" on snacks every 2-3 hrs from 6 am to 6 pm.

others seem to want mega- meals.

Harvey

On our Whitney hike Mom and I had stuff like jerky, crackers, almonds, snickers (yummy), and powdered gatoraide. We used the hour beep on my digital watch to remind us to stop and snack if we hadn't had something recently...

On short hikes, I rarely eat anything unless the hike overlaps a normal meal time -- I am not big on missing meals.

For a 4 hour hike I typically eat nothing. A 6-8 hour hike is likely to overlap lunch and I bring a sandwich or something. For longer hikes, or particularly high exertion ones, I take GU and electrolyte replacement drinks. Gorp works too. If I am pushing things and don't want to take time for lunch, I will substitute something like gorp. I have gone up and down Whitney before lunch and just eaten a bit of gorp on the summit.

Its the calories you get in you, not necessarily what they are. Except the more per pound the easier it is to lug them along with you on extended hikes. Variation is more palatable

With a pack and a moderate trail you can easily burn 500Kcal an hour. If you look at the calorie count in pre-packaged freeze dried meals, it might be difficult to stuff 5,000Kcal into you if you are planning one good meal at end of day -- which many do.

Hence the 'eat lots - all the time' suggestions of many.

If you are just out for a day hike, take a few convenient snacks like a Snickers bar, or some munchable trail mix and a light lunch that won't bog you down when you continue the exercise afterward. On a day hike, the food is mostly entertainment and not necessary if there is a greasy spoon restaurant convenient to the trail head. Well, that is, unless you end up spending an unplanned night in the hills waiting for somebody to find you. Most people are not going to starve to death in a few days anyway.

On longer hikes, olive and Mazola oil pack a good calorie punch if drizzled on cooked or prepared foods. High fat nuts for when you can't.

It takes a lot of energy to backpack in the Sierra. If you run a calorie deficit, you might loose weight, but being really tired all the time takes a lot of the fun out of it.

Don't worry about a balanced diet. You will not get scurvy even in a month of backpacking.

I think the comment about "food as entertainment" is a good one. I'm a thin guy, not terribly experienced as a hiker, but I do find snacking a lot keeps the energy up. I snowboard a lot and found marshmellow treats to be an amazing quick pick me up. A friend of mine worked for Adidas and told me U of Nebraska eats them at halftime.

But once an hour is a good suggestion. We're going wimpy on this hike, taking our time to summit, so I want to have enough food for 3 days of hiking (though only one real full day).

Careful... if one person is carrying all the food you're going to be amazed by how much "three days worth" weighs!!!

I know - and I had to open my mouth and rent the bear cansiter! I assume we'll do every man for himself or redistribute loads.

Yup... I'm pretty convinced that the bear canisters are lead lined. At least if you guys are just day hiking then you're not carrying tents and such and have the ability to do a little weight distribution with the food... just remember that it all needs to go into the canister if/when you guys stop. (Which is a whole new type of interesting... " What do you mean that has to go in there too?")

We aren't day hiking. Doing a three day Whitney thing. But we've got one lightweight 4 person tent.

I've packed a week's worth of food (for one person) into a bear cannister. That's pretty standard. It does require preparation, including repackaging of most items. Getting three days' worth of food for more than two people into a single cannister could be a challenge. On the other hand, your friends will be needing something to carry.

The fact that bear cannisters are lead-lined helps protect you from nosy people with x-ray vision.

I've always been a grazer, and it's enhanced even more by appetite loss at high altitudes. I carry jerky, dried fruit and nut trail mix, (esp almonds and walnuts) and m&ms (how do y'all keep snickers from melting?); plus Zipfizz to add to my water (I'm hypoglycemic; most sports drinks like Gatorade will slam me into reactive hypergylcemia or puking nausea). Sometimes I make the bottle of water one of the electrolyte-enhanced ones from Trader Joe's (no glucose et al). Sometimes I throw in peanut-granola type bars for breakfasts.

Although I stop and eat some very frequently (not quite every hour but close), I eat so little TOTAL out there, I ALWAYS come back with food. And yet I eat (and even more imptly, hydrate) often enough that I don't get the drop in energy.

I thought your list was reasonable except you seem to have omitted the meat protein (jerky) that I feel is essential to me out there. (I could go with JUST jerky and water and be fine; my type blood requires more protein and less carbos.) So I would suggest you had some jerky to your list.

Although I have to follow fairly strict nutrition things due to the cancer, I don't bother to carry fresh fruits and veggies out there because they are too heavy (know plenty of people who do carry them). But if we are just TRULY dayhiking or mtn biking for a few hours (no sleeping bag etc needed), I've been known to shove a caesar salad in my pack and an apple for my lunchbreak/picnic.

I also don't pack much food when I'm camping in the Sierras by rivers or lakes, as I have NEVER failed to catch fresh trout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Just my .02.

Is that the secret? Well then.. I guess I won't fuss anymore about it!


I had no problem keeping the snickers from melting so long as they were deep inside my pack (which of course means really having to work for one when I wanted it.. digging into the pack... dragging out the bear canister... putting it all back)... we also had choco raisins and choco pomegranate seeds (YUMMY)... but those (along with one of the snickers) were carried on the outside of one of the packs and were more of a drink by the time they were asked to join our party. So... am thinking the chocolate is really an inside the pack kinda snackie...

Oil packed tuna in single foil packets are delicious if you like fish -- as are the little cans of tuna. They make great snack items and provide that little kick you need at times. I have been burned out on jerky. Associated with that is there is some always left over and it is like eating wood if not fresh the next trip. I guess I got jaded from the no longer wonderful stuff right from the mom and pop Seattle store of Oberto's. Sheets of tender almost melt in your mouth slabs the size of writing tablets. There are a lot of exotic things to eat in the many Chinese food stores in eastern Los Angeles. Don't ask, don't wonder.

On longer trips we eat tons of rice, preferring the extra weight in fuel for the cooking as opposed to 'instant'. The packets of prepared Indian food from Trader Joes are good for early on as they are heat and eat and are heavy. The packaged brown gravy sauces help get pasta and rice down as well.

How do you keep Snickers from melting? Ya eat 'em of course Another method is to waterproof wrap them and let them (and other chocolate delights) share your full wide mouth water bottle that had 1/4 of it filled and frozen over night before leaving.

Myoplex Protein bar (chocolate chip flavor - sorta) has 30 grams of protein, glutamine and glutamine peptides. Not sure what all the chemicals do, but if they list them they gotta be good. . On ebay you can get a barrel of them for around $1.50 each.

I packed a quart+ of tabbouleh in for a resupply to friends. Insulated in center of pack with ice it was a hit after their being about 30 days on the trail. I take a cup of it with me on some day hikes. Nice change of pace. I like a big carrot to munch on while hiking.

Smoked salmon, capers, sliced onions and cream cheese on bagels is really really messy and smelly for lunch. As you eat it, you have an instinctive reason to furtively look around to see if any bears have piqued interest.

How did I know food would get the most people talking...?

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
in The Boardman Tasker Omnibus, page 158

A few years back two of us convinced an active group of co-workers to go on an overnight up a local big hill. Scattered among the preparations, we had of course suggested a Spartan meal alternative that would be healthy and very light weight also not that tasty or well presented with the glop made of hot water served in the plastic container it came in. Having to be dug out with a short spoon, it always left dirty food covered knuckles that camouflaged the grime of the day.

So while they miserably huddled around their small stoves trying the impossible task of balancing a meal and a drink with no flat place to sit upon, my friend and I set up a banquet on a log, a short distance away, that had a flat stump adjoining.

Our meal included us being dressed in tux, with white table cloth, napkin, real silver with multiple forks, glass goblets for water (and ice) and wine glasses, fold up golf seats (this was our only disappointment) and a candelabra. The crowning glory was we were being 'served' by a butler (in period garb) who was another friend of mine, unknown to the others, who appeared, just like in a real restaurant, from seemingly no where, to attend us.

Our looks returned to those staring at us were also of similar disbelief that THEY would be so plebeian to eat like that. We of course disallowed any comments that that is what we told them to bring. It was, of course, all a misunderstanding on their part.

The only thing that really saved us is that we had brought along, at great expense in effort and sweat, a very nice desert and after treats -- that included half a watermelon.

Everybody felt better about going to the top of San Gorgonio the next day.

Thats onery... hilarious.. but onery

Am eating while I read this and almost choked from laughing so hard at the visual.That is hilarious.

when we start the hike, it's mostly carbs. on the way down we switch to mostly protein. peanut butter sticks, jerky, and cheese are more palatable after all the carbs.