Compact Calories

[marienbad]

 

Ray Jardine’s PCT Hiker’s Handbook proclaims that the most important part of trail nourishment is the spiritual/psychological component (what’s appetizing), which is easy to agree with, but also makes some dubious fact-claims such as that that tomatoes have more energy than meat.

 

1. What do you think about the psychological vs calories question?

2. What are your favorite compact/lightweight sources of energy on the trail?

 

I’m a bean-freak at home and a voracious oatmeal-eater too. These both seem like good bets for the long-haul. Disagree?

[Julian]

For me, the most important thing is that it's something I'm willing to eat, or at least can stomach, even if I'm not feeling great. In that regard, some of my trail/climb staples are cashews, Mike & Ikes, PayDay bars, and peanut M&Ms.

[backclipped]

I'm a Babybel and kipper snack man.

 

[MJaso]

A new found favorite: Cinnabons. They pack a whopping 880 calories each and are quite the treat.

 

[johndavidjr]

For me, nothing beats a can of cold beans. Also, years ago, lobster guts (brown and salty spread) in a can at 35 cents each, were palatable. Don't know what this is called.....nor what it costs today, nor even if still available. In Europe, try (the pricey) Schmaltz..(refined pig fat)...in many delicious flavors

[marienbad]

Interesting things you all eat! Do you find yourself craving sugar and fat on the trail, or are these just your normal everyday eats?

[BigSky]

Psychological calories don't cut it for me personally. My favorites are sausage or salami, cheese, home-made granola, and Hammer Perpetuem if the situation is right.

[denalidave]

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!

 

I like to stop at a good pizza place before hitting the trail head and save half of the large sausage, mushroom & onion pizza for the trail. Just be careful in bear country.

 

A cold beer in the alpine is about as good as it gets for psychological calories. Especially if you are smart and devious enough to smuggle it in your partner(s) pack(s).

 

Pemican Bars pack a lot of calories and taste good too. Pemican Bars

 

Good cheeses, cured meats and small packages of sliced deli meats also always go down well with me.

[Le Piston]

Them's my kind of calories! My partner and I have a summit tradition...Ritter Sport chocolate bars. Nothing like a reward for all the hard work getting up and energy to help you get down.

[Teh Phuzzy]

Them's my kind of calories! My partner and I have a summit tradition...Ritter Sport chocolate bars.

 

Ritter is knight auf English; gallop down that mountain!

 

 

 

Big fan of the cheese, too- and I usually bring fresh garlic to go with it since keeping the skeeters away was a priority back home.

 

Nutella has got to be my favorite snack, the packaging sucks though...

 

Heavy, malty, dark beers are very nice at the fire too!

 

The only bars I go for are the Luna, Builder, or RAW ones. The first two might as well be a candy bar and the RAW bars actually taste like real food even if they don't quelm my stomach too long... maybe I can blame that on the spliff

[montypiton]

giant snickers - 560 calories - hard to beat. carried cases of these on Denali back in the early eighties... and substitute a bodybuilders "weight-gainer" for your normal hot-chocolate mix, and enjoy a 1000-calorie hot-drink!

Edited July 4, 2011 by montypiton

[denalidave]

giant snickers - 560 calories - hard to beat.

Or as I like to call em "poor man's power bars". Plus, Snickers Really Satisfies!

[chris54]

For me, nothing beats a can of cold beans. Also, years ago, lobster guts (brown and salty spread) in a can at 35 cents each, were palatable. Don't know what this is called.....nor what it costs today, nor even if still available. In Europe, try (the pricey) Schmaltz..(refined pig fat)...in many delicious flavors

 

 

Yuck! Your way more hardcore than me. Wwwwaaaaayyyy more.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

Summer sausage, gouda, and tortillas.

[John Frieh]

Optimum Sports Nutrition by Colgan is a good start

[genepires]

Optimum Sports Nutrition by Colgan is a good start

 

for those who don't know, that is a book not food.

[billcoe]

for those who don't know, that is a book not food.

Hurmp, I thought it tasted kind of strange, but what the hell, low calories things usually taste something like that....Thanks Gene, thought it was a low cal high fiber diet thing. Thanks for the recommendation John.

 

..anyone have any good methods for cleaning black printers ink off the tongue?

[billcoe]

BTW, I use to make my own gorp that was so tasty. Cashews, M and Ms and a few raisins. One time, my brother and I went up to climb Rainier in the winter figured we'd plan on about a week as the weather looked marginal and the snow super deep. So I made up a big batch of this stuff figuring that it's nice to treat yourself when you're suffering and there is no way we wouldn't burn through all those calories. Early on there was one of those 3 feet of snow days, but what we both noticed as we waited out the storm in the tent and went through almost a weeks worth of this cashew/sugar/raisin crap while lounging in the tent over gorging, is that it made us both very lethargic and neither of us wanted to climb afterwards. So we bailed.

 

Thus is knowledge slowly gained:-)

 

 

[fern]

 

The International Sausage House in Burnaby gives away free schmalz, and also you get a free kielbasa with every 25$ purchase(double). I havent found a local source for speck (smoked raw bacon fat) which is the best climbing calorie punch I ever ate, and favourite powah food of russian climbahs.

[123tom]

I think the best approach to meals for climbing is to mimic what you eat something you would eat at home and add some things with higher calorie content. Peter Croft talks about this in his book lightweight alpine climbing.

[Buckaroo]

It differs by time and distance.

 

On anything that involves hard hiking/climbing the only thing I eat all day is energy blocks and water. Then for dinner I'll have instant soup or a freeze dried meal with bread and plenty of olive oil, sometimes instant potatos. For longer trips I'll include canned sardines or something like that. Also plenty of vitamins, C, multi B, or something like EmergenC.

 

I did the Ptarmigan traverse with 6 people in 9 days. We had a guy that was 76 yo. He brought a bunch of sardines and a pound of butter. We all laughed at the pound of butter but near the end of the trip we were asking for some.

[pcg]

BTW, I use to make my own gorp that was so tasty. Cashews, M and Ms and a few raisins. One time, my brother and I went up to climb Rainier in the winter figured we'd plan on about a week as the weather looked marginal and the snow super deep. So I made up a big batch of this stuff figuring that it's nice to treat yourself when you're suffering and there is no way we wouldn't burn through all those calories. Early on there was one of those 3 feet of snow days, but what we both noticed as we waited out the storm in the tent and went through almost a weeks worth of this cashew/sugar/raisin crap while lounging in the tent over gorging, is that it made us both very lethargic and neither of us wanted to climb afterwards. So we bailed.

Thus is knowledge slowly gained:-)

Years ago I and three other newbs decided to climb Long's Peak over spring break in mid-March. We assigned group food to one individual. We made camp at Chasm Lake just in time for a five day storm to blow in. Two tents shredded within about 30 minutes and we headed to Chasm Lake shelter cabin. Once we got inside and realized we would be safe we looked forward to finding out what kinds of tasty meals we had in store. Turns out this fellow thought granola was pretty nutritional so he brought one huge sack of it, and that was all. Oh, except for one more thing. On top of the bag he had packed a canister of white gas, which leaked and completely saturated the granola. We were faced with the inevitable and so we spread the granola out on the freezing concrete floor and waited for it to dry, leaving the door partially open so we wouldn't get sick from the fumes. The next day we were hungry enough to start eating and eat we did. I spent four days dreading every time I had to burp, which was often, because when I did it tasted like gasoline. The story gets worse, but I'll spare the details because it's almost dinnertime. After the storm let up we were worse than lethargic. We couldn't bear not to summit so we opted to post-hole back and over to the keyhole before turning back, completely exhausted.

Yes, knowledge slowly gained...

 

[pcg]

2. What are your favorite compact/lightweight sources of energy on the trail?

For a one-day hard push if I want to go light I will take 3L of electrolyte mix (I use Accelerade) in a bladder and packets of non-caffeinated energy gels (strawberry banana GU and vanilla Power Bar are non-caffein). It doesn't taste great but it's tolerable, I can eat/drink while climbing, it saves lots of time, and it's all I need for up to a 6,000 ft. push. I reward myself at the top with a couple Snickers bars. Back at camp or at the car I have something salty like some cold KFC and hot Raman.

Years ago when I didn't think about how much weight was on my back I used to pack in a gallon of milk and a roast. There is nothing like real food when you are tired.

[JoshK]

Snickers hold up well in the heat...because they use hydrogenated oils. Even when you are in the backcountry burning tons of calories, this stuff is just plain bad for you. It's amazing to me they can even put it in food legally; Europe has banned its use for good reason. I like bringing lots of chocolates and sweets (I have a bad sweet tooth) but avoid anything with hydrogenated oils. I do plenty of stuff that isn't good for me, so I figure staying away from that is one sacrifice I can make.

 

For energy density, Halvah bars are quite dense. I'm sure sources like "optimum sports nutrition" offer good advice if you are trying to set PRs or push yourself to the absolute max but on the vast majority of trips I'd rather be eating stuff that I enjoy and find work for me, personally. Some people seem to think that eating is only the means to an end, I'd like to think it as a life-affirming and enjoyable experience, and that extends to the mountains.

 

Good story about the white gas in the granola, that must have been awful. This is why I "just say no" to somebody else packing my or group food; I'd rather be the one responsible for making myself sick.

[G-spotter]

Kendal Mint Cake.