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August 14th to 17th 2008: Desolation Wilderness and Granite Chief Wilderness

Gear

As usual, my pack was very light.  Even with a large bear canister (BearVault), rain jacket and pants (Porepro by 3M), insulating jacket (Montbell down sweater), 2 person tent (Tarptent Rainbow), inflatable pad and pillow (Montbell), and camera with mini tripod my pack probably weighed in around 12 pounds.  Add in 6 pounds of food and 2 liters of water and I was carrying no more than 20 pounds at the start of the trip.

Food

When I’m backpacking with others I enjoy a hot meal at the end of the day, but not nearly so much when by myself.  To these ends, two nights before leaving the Bay Area I went to Trader Joes to buy 2500 calories for each of my 4 days.  The repackaged food ended up weighing 1.5 pounds per day.  I also enjoy a single cup of coffee each morning, but didn’t want the hassle on the trail, nor the caffeine withdrawal headache.  My solution, which worked quite well, was 2 pieces of Jolt gum each morning.

Table made while shopping at Trader Joe's

Item

Servings x Calories/Serving

Cumulative Calories

16 Balance Bars

16 x 200 = 3200

3200

One 16 oz bag Dried Apricots

11 x 110 = 1210

4410

Six Babybelle Cheese pieces

6 x 40 = 420

4830

One 16 oz bag Trail Mix

15 x 150 = 2250

7080

Two 4 oz bags Beef Jerky

8 x 70 = 560

7640

One 7 oz box Licorice

5 x 130 = 650

8290

One box crackers

9 x 140 = 1260

9550

Gatorade*

6 x 200 = 1200

10750

* Enough powder to make six 1-liter drinks.

Except for the Gatorade which has been in a drawer for many years, this photo shows everything I bought at Trader Joe’s in it’s original packaging.

 

And this photo shows everything repackaged.  The trail mix, apricots and licorice were mixed together for my breakfast and lunch while the crackers, cheese and jerky were mixed to form my dinner.  The bars filled in the gaps while the Gatorade allowed me to drink much more than I would have had I been consuming water only.  Given the hot and dry conditions I was very glad to have the sugar / salt water.  This combination of food provided me all the energy I needed, tasted OK, and I was never hungry.  The Balance bars melted a bit and were hard to eat without a lot of water.  I would not bring the Almond Brownie (bar with purple stripe) flavor again.  The other bars, peanut butter, honey peanut, and chocolate peanut butter were better.

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