Food for 14 days

“I am just getting set up for a two week hike in the grand canyon, with no resupply. My wife has packed the food that we will be using... 3 meals a day for two people for a total of 15 days,plus 3 snacks a day..= 90 meals and 90 snacks!
I weighed the bags today and the total weight is 25 pounds.
We(royal we)dehydrate all our own food. But this is still just under a pound of dehydrated food for the whole trip.
Any thoughts on the amount of food.”

“Unless you need a lot less food than I do that isn't enough. I figure on 1.5 lbs. per person per day. That's all zero moisture food. At that by the end of a week long trip I'm usually ready for some heavy food in large quantities. I'm 6' tall and 150 lbs.”

“I plan 1.5-2lbs per day of food per person. I'm only 5'8" and 155, most of my food is dehydrated stuff, pasta, and some olive oil for that extra calorie count and flavor. a good rule of thumb is try to get foods that have about 100 calories (give or take) for every ounce you carry. Gotta love those nutrition lables that are now on everything.”

“Also may depend on how much walking you will be doing each day. We were on the move doing day hikes from base camp every day we were out and consumed alot of power bars/clif bars, but only really ate two meals (breakfast and evening meal). But with all the walking we did we were slammin' down the clif bars, dried fruit/nuts and water. I never would have guessed how much I could eat. Take plenty.”

“Dehydrated food (unless its quite fatty, and a lot of times fat is skimmed off in the dehydrating process) seldom has more than 100 calories an ounce. It often has less.

You've got less than 1 pound per person per day (which would be 28 pounds), which means less than 1,600 calories per day (more like 1,300). For backpacking, you are likely to consume more than 3,500 (possibly more than 5,000) calories a day.

If you can afford to lose weight, then you can take about 1 1/2 pounds of food per day - but I wouldn't bring less. I'd bring more if I didn't have some high fat stuff. Cheese for the first few days, hard salami, and nuts for the last week to 10 days.

I was 200 pounds and took my last 2 week trek. I had a bit over 2 pounds of food per day. Averaged about 11 miles and 2,000 feet of gross altitude gain per day. I lost almost apound per day. Anyway, you can probably carry less and lose a pound a day... if you are lighter and/or won't be doing as much moving.

Still, you risk serious undernutrition if you carry less than 1 1/2 pounds (21 pounds each for the trip) and may even be cutting it close at that point. Consider pre-positioning some food if you don't want all the weight.”

“Wedgy-- What is your route? Maybe I can figure out some way you can cache food--I know the canyon well. Mary”

“thanks all I'll let you know how or what we do.
MaryPhyl we are starting at the hermit trail heading down into the canyon then hiking east until we come up the tanner trail, we do pass by phantom ranch part way through the hike, last year we tried to arrange a drop off to the ranch but it could not work for us.(logistics) We don't have any time extra from when we land in Arizona until we make it to the canyon and start hiking. Any thoughts would help.”

“Two words?corn pasta. Ounce for ounce the best energy food I have ever found.”

“One word: Fat!!

Pure carbohydrates and pure protein (with no moisture, fiber or other non-nutrive material) have 4 calories per gram or about 115 calories per ounce. Fat has about twice that. Thus, even the highest energy foods can only come close to 115 calories per ounce and cannot exceed that without fat.

Vegetable and nut oils, and macadamia nuts are about as close as you can get to pure fat. They take you well over 200 calories per ounce. Some cheeses are in this range too. With these fatty foods, you can carry calories at 1/3 weight of rasins weight of raisins and less than 1/2 the weight of dry pasta. Other nuts can are high in fat, but I can't think of any that give macadamia nuts much competition.

Sgt. Rock is right, those nutrition labels on foods are a great health. Do the math and figure out how many calories you get per ounce of weight (you can do this to get an idea of your calories per ounce for things you freeeze dried, as well as for stuff you might buy at the market).”

“Wedgy - I recently came off a 2-week hike on the JMT, here in the Sierra's, and though I planned to find some of my menu in the lakes and streams along the way, I also packed nearly 14 days of food (majority FD) along with me. My food weight was about a pound per day.

Now, recognizing the validity of the posts above (1.5-2#/day), it occurred to me that some compromise would be necessary in order to keep weight to a minimum, and still be able to fuel with sufficient nutrients, calories, fat and the like. There were no resupply points along MY route, either, and THAT meant I'd have to CARRY every bit of my food, shy of whatever trout I might fill in the gaps with. I was pretty confident that wouldn't be a problem - in terms of availability, anyway - and if I had a reasonable amount of luck, I could catch enough fish along the way to supplement my diet, and fill the body's need for additional calories, fat, nutrients, and, of course, to provide some much appreciated variety for the palate.

I also accepted the fact that I would burn a little weight along the way, say a daily pound, perhaps, and I could live with that, no doubt about it. I've read that a rigorous hike, such as the one I undertook, can burn 6,000 calories a day, and replenishing THAT would surely require more food weight than I want to carry. More weight = more food (apologies Ray's Way).

In summary, Wedgy, I believed I ended up with an acceptable compromise between weight, caloric content, energy-producing nutrients, and taste. I should note, here, that I also used a vacuum sealer to repackage all those FD meals (THEIR packaging takes up a lot of usable space), and I was also using a Garcia bearcan. My pack weighed in at 53 pounds, but, would have been closer to 67 pounds with traditionally suggested food weights per day mentioned above.

In the end, when planning a long hike with no resupply, you just can't have everything... If you wanna DO it, you have to compromise, keeping safety and health firmly in mind. Sharing the burden, too, with a companion or two, will give you much more latitude, too. They can share in carrying the weight, the volume, and variety. If it can be done, it will be so because of good planning, and the right psyche to complete the task. Remember, you can eat like a King as reward when you complete your hike.

Good Luck!”

“The best I've ever done, for a 2 week trip, was 1 1/4 lb/day, and I lost 1/2 lb a day. Not too little, not too much.”

“Shameless self promotion:

Dehydrating food?
How much to eat?
How much to carry?

Buy my book.

www.qnet.com/~sierramel/”

“Three meals a day?!
Plus THREE SNACKS!!??

Oh dog! I only eat one meal per day amd mebbe two snacks. If y'all can't get by on what you got listed
, you might wanna make a deal with a backcountry caterer!
BOL!”

“Take a dog. It can carry what food you need and when the food's gone you can eat the dog.”

“Leave the china at home -
bring a dog dish.”

“Sarabelle-watch out for Chinachas. If he's hungry you're dinner.”

“Belle has ten teats if'n anyone is reeeally hungry...
CC?

I did a trip with The Friendly Ranger this summer. She spends dozens and dozens of nights on the trail from June-October. Not only does she walk, she works - she expends tons of energy. Natch, the conversation eventually came around to nutrition. She doesn't eat a whole lot on the trail - neither do I (except for occasional fits of ravenousness). Heck, if you can get by on 2000 calories, then
good for you!

"Hike yer own hike"”

“I'm not a nutrition expert so this is as much a question as it is a telling of what I do.

From a nutrition stand point I tend to eat like crap on the trail anyway. MH food is awful (thanx Nomad) but does keep the fire burning. My concern is getting enough carbs and fat to ensure I can keep up with the physical demands. I tend to carry about 1.5 lbs per day. Mostly nuts, dehydrated foods, salami and cheese (in the early going, crackers, bagels and some sweets. Not much variety but after watching Strider cook, I'm gonna change all that. At least for the short trips. :)

The longest I have ever been without a resupply is 10 days. I don't imagine malnutrition is too big a concern as long as you are eating something. Just look at the diet of your average teenager.

Oh, and 10 teets! Wow, nothing like a good glass of milk with that roast of K9.”

“Wedgy-- You are taking a lot of days for your trip which could easily be done in 7 to 9 days. I assume you will have layover days. Depending on how you have your time scheduled for each use area you should be able to cache food on the rim at the top of Grandview or New Hance. Phantom Ranch is too close to the start of your trip to do any good. If the dates are right I would be willing to bring things down to Horseshoe Mesa for you. Let me know. MaryPhyl2@aol.com”

“MaryPhyl, thanks for the offer! Yes we will have a couple of very short days and two nights at phantom ranch.
It makes me feel better already knowing that the trip could be done in a shorter time.
I will email you with more info to see what pearls of wisdom you are willing to share.
THANKS AGAIN”

“Did you read my note about mailing food to Phantom Ranch??”

“No.”

“try
http://www.geocities.com/lighttrailfood/”