Food Prep- FINAL

Here it is, the last post about food prep! WOOT!

After 4 stores and 8 or 9 hours out shopping, we filled the car!

I grossly underestimated the amount of time it was going to take to shop for, unpack, repackage and pack all of our backpacking food... I thought we could get it done if we spent Friday night and all day Saturday. I was WAY off. By 10:00 pm on Sunday night we accomplished packing ONE resupply bucket :) Now, granted we unpacked and repackaged everything, which were the most time consuming tasks, but still...!




Starting to unpack his food...

Halfway through unpacking

Here is a small example of the repackaging we did. In this picture I measured out and packed servings of granola with powdered soy milk. On the ziploc bag, I noted the flavor and how much water to add. I wish I would have taken a picture of all the bags of instant rice I made...there was a mountain of them!



16 bags of granola

So once we were ready to actually start packing up our resupply buckets, we started with our 8 day stretch between Muir Trail Ranch and our resupply at Mt Williamson Motel.  We knew that all the other resupplies, which are all 4-5 days, would be a breeze once we figured out our 8 day situation. Well, we could not fit 8 days of food in our bear cans. Not even with David's superb tetris skillz. We can't fit 7 either, but we're going with it. We exchanged several foods in David's can for either something that packed down smaller, like instant mashed potatoes or higher calorie foods like macadamia nuts and cashews. The majority of David's food for this 7 day stretch now consists of nuts, olive oil and instant mashed potatoes... To eliminate one additional day on the trail we rolled a short, half day of hiking (5 miles) into two other days. Which now brings our 8 day stretch to 7 days. We will have several long days in a row at 12+ miles per day, but hopefully by this point in the trip we'll be in good trail shape and it won't be a big deal.


We finished packing up our buckets on Thursday night! So much for getting it all done on Saturday, wishful thinking Kimburly! Turns out we needed to make a quick run to Walmart for a couple small items including camping toilet paper. After painstakingly  packing up the other resupplies, we unpacked them and calculated how many calories were in each bucket, then divided that number by how many days the food was to last. We hit our targets with every bucket except, not surprisingly, the Muir Trail Ranch/7 day bucket. Daveed is low on calories and so am I, but we'll have to make due.



All packed up! That's one of the bear cans on the right, with the black lid and red sticker on top, not very large considering the amount of food we wanted to fit in it!

Can see the floor again!

Took the Mt Williamson buckets (resupply #4) and Lone Pine post office box to my parent's house on Sunday, they will mail these out for us in mid-July. It's too soon to ship them before we leave for our trip. When we taped the buckets shut, Daveed said "Are we really doing this??! Should we check them one more time??". Well, it seemed we had our bucket game down, but I had to open and re-tape the Lone Pine post office box twice because I kept forgetting things... We will pick up the box at the Lone Pine post office when we finish the trail, so it's not really a "resupply" box as it only has a few items in it, including a jar of Speculoos cookie butter from Trader Joe's!!!!! Yummm. It also has a few toiletry items, $0.98 flip flops, and clean clothes.

Resupply #4- off to Mom and Dad's

Now all we have to do is take the other 6 buckets to the post office next week and ship em out! We have a ton of leftover food, which we will take with us on the trip and eat as we go! Although we wanted to fit everything we bought into our buckets, the reality was that pretty much nothing actually fit in our bear cans. We even have leftover candy bars! We really shouldn't need to do any grocery shopping, apart from fresh produce and meats, at all until we finish the JMT! That means we have enough leftover food for the first 2.5 weeks of our trip! :)

Our departure looms near...!!! Super excited! There are just a few things left to take care of before we leave! Cleaning the apt is one of those things, albeit one of the not so fun things. Assembling the trad gear and sorting the rest of our climbing gear is another thing that needs to be done. I also need to dig out my swimsuit...it's somewhere in the depths of my closet.

We hit the road in 8 days!!!!

Goodbye Big Red

Our first stop on our shopping extravaganza on Saturday was REI. Daveed needed to buy some freeze dried meals. I brought along Big Red to make sure she was fitted properly since my back has still been giving me grief... All the muscles of my mid and lower back were strained really bad 4 weeks ago on a hike that was only 6 miles... couldn't walk, couldn't sleep, was in major pain for a week+!

So after a couple more light hikes with Big Red and my back still bothering me, I brought her in to get checked out. Our friend from the gym, Tim the Englishman, was working in the gear section when we went in and he spent almost 2 hours working with me to get fitted with the right pack. He was super patient and let me do and pack whatever I wanted to test out the fit and feel of the packs. Bless his heart. At the end of our 2 hour session and 4 packs later, I returned Big Red and walked out with the Osprey Aura 65L pack in a pretty green color. The Aura is the "ultra light" version of Big Red (Ariel 65L). The Aura weighs about 1 lb 4 oz less than Big Red! Which is HUGE! The main difference in the fit for me is the back part of the Aura. It's all mesh, no lumbar bump- which is what was killing my back on Big Red. The frame is also different. It curves around my torso for an awesome fit and feel. If you had wide hips it probably wouldn't feel good, so lucky for me I have boyish hips and a sort of narrow torso, so it wraps around me and fits great!

The Aura has a lighter duty suspension and hip belt, which in part is what makes it weigh less. Consequently, it also means that it can only handle a load of 30-35 lbs (hence its "ultra light" status). Big Red's beefy suspension and back structure allowed for a load of 50+ lbs. My goal for my pack weight has always been under 30, with my ultimate goal, fully loaded, being 28 lbs (or less!!). I think I can achieve it especially with the 1 lb+ weight savings of the pack in and of itself...

So, in this post, I say goodbye to Big Red. It's been a good ride although you rubbed me the wrong way towards the end...literally. And I welcome and introduce Verde to the family of backpacks. Lets go on some adventures and get to know each other.

Food Prep (and so it begins...)

Food prep post one of only two, I promise! I can't wait until we get out on the road so I can start posting pictures and other stories about things besides food and clothes!

But! The prep is all part of it. The food prep has been interesting and at times, has made me laugh. The sheer amount of food that gets all stacked up is amusing to me for some reason. I guess it just seems so ridiculous. We are prepping 28 days worth of food and about tripling the calories we would normally consume in a day. It ends up being a lot of food!



I found many gluten free items on Amazon for a cheaper price than I've found at Woodman's. I was able to sign up for Amazon Prime for free and get free shipping on pretty much everything! Those orange boxes (6 in total) are 72 bags of gluten free "ramen noodle" type soups!

Gluten Free Noms, All Ordered on Amazon!

REI was having their annual sale over Memorial Day weekend, which included a discount savings on Clif Bars, I ordered 30!!

Clif Bars, Gluten Free Bars and Drink Mix Packets

I think I kind of over did it on purchasing drink mix packets...I was thinking I'd want a few packets per day since I'm not sure how the water will taste on the trail, but they take up too much space and add too much weight. Instead of having 3 or 4 per day, I'm bringing 1 per day.

This weekend David and I will be buying the rest of the food we need and repackaging it, then sorting and packing it into our resupply buckets. Pictures and last post about food to follow!


Other things we've been doing to prep for the trip include training at the gym! I think I might do a whole post on training... We started working with Jim from the gym last week. He's helping to get us strong and fit for our trip. Using a combination of strength and VO2 max work, Jim's plan will have us strong and our muscles using and storing oxygen efficiently. Sorry Jim, I probably said that backwards or something, but I think that's what increasing your VO2 max is...? I forgot what you told us :)  The workouts have been super intense- neither of us has ever actually "trained" like this before- but they have been awesome. We make a lot of try hard noises during the workouts and we're sore for several days afterwards, but we're feeling strong! More to come on this in a later post. Maybe I'll even post a video of us working out on Instagram (ksuesbackpacks), if I can figure out how to do a video.

We've been continuing to do training hikes as well as going to the Red. They all contribute to our base fitness and have helped with continued test driving of our gear. At this point, we're all set! I even got to try out my rain pants a couple weeks ago when we got rained on at Lapham Peak! They were great!



Other things we're continuing to do to prep- reading! Blogs and backpacking articles and a big thank you to Grant from my work for lending me these books for Montana and Wyoming! Can't wait to dig in and read them...just need to find the time!

Clothing Layers

After some research and thought, I've finalized the clothes that I'll bring with me on the trail. David and I have both based our "clothing system" on Eric the Black's. The layering system he uses made us both think differently about what we really "needed" on the trail and how to creatively layer so we could bring less.

The only item I am still minorly in flux about is my base layer top. Right now, and in the picture below, I have the SmartWool  mid-weight top. I'm about 85% sure that's what I'll bring with me but am considering bringing my SmartWool heavy weight funnel neck top. The heavier weight will of course provide more warmth and added features include thumb holes to keep the draft out at my wrists and also keep my wrists/tops of my hands warmer. It also has a zip up funnel neck. I like to have my neck covered when I'm cold and I'm not going to bring a scarf with me on the trail! The downside of course is that this shirt weighs a bit more...so we'll see. My plan right now is to test drive these tops while we're in Glacier NP and to gage what I think my body will need while we're hiking there. The environment/weather/temperature should be sort of comparable to the Sierras, so it will give me a better idea of what my warmth needs will be. I'll make the final, final decision of course the night before we hit the JMT!


I went with merino wool for my socks and my shirts. Merino wool is awesome. My shorts are made of some sort of light weight, thin, fast drying material and provide UPF 50+ sun protection. I decided to bring a heavier weight base layer for my pants, which adds some weight and bulk to my gear... I just don't think the light and mid weight base layers I have are enough to keep my legs warm. The temps will likely be in the 30's (maybe even the 20's) overnight and in the morning when we're at elevation (which will be the majority of days we're on the trail), so I'm going with the extra warmth.

In the end, the hesitation about my base layers comes down to this: if I have all my layers on and I'm still cold, it's time to set up camp and get in my sleeping bag :)


Here's what my layers consist of:

-Outdoor Research bucket hat (or a lightweight mesh running cap)

-North Face fleece warm hat
-Windproof/water resistant gloves

-SmartWool superlight t-shirt, I also have an IceBreaker super light t-shirt that I might mail myself in my first resupply (day 7) to alternate
-Some cheap-o sports bra I picked up at WalMart, I intend to throw it out at the end of the trail
-SmartWool base layer top, mid-weight
-Patagonia nano puff insulating jacket
-Mountain Hardwear Dry Q-10 rain jacket

-North Face Almatta shorts
-North Face expedition weight base layer tights
-Marmot Precip rain pants

-Darn Tough merino wool ankle hiking socks

All packed up, my extra layers fit in this stuff sack and it weighs 3 lbs 2 ounces. If I decide to bring the heavy weight SmartWool base layer top, it will add about 2 ounces.

Test Drive Numero Dos

Lunch Break

We went to the lake on Saturday for our second test drive hike. In a word, it was successful!

We both noted that we weren't nearly as winded/tired/worn out as our first hike-- SUCCESS! We were pleased to have noticed progress even though we haven't hiked at the lake in over a month. We thought the 5 trips to the Red in the past month or so definitely helped with our fitness. We also took a couple long breaks, which allowed us to rest and recharge.

I made the adjustments that I noted from our first hike:

1. Adjusted the torso length of my pack to be an inch or 2 shorter. My pack stayed where I wanted it to on my back and the hip belt fit better. My hips were still sore at the end of the day, but not nearly as bad as last time.

2. I wore a different pair of boots. I wore a more heavy duty hiking boot (Asolo) and as predicted, my feet held up better. The SuperFeet insoles still felt great.

Daveed didn't make many adjustments except for removing the insoles from his shoes. He thought that the insoles were good/comfortable for everything except the ascents/uphill. He noticed that his feet were more fatigued without the insoles. He wants to shave down his insoles to fit better, hoping that will eliminated the less than perfect fit and feel of his shoes on the uphills.

Our pack weights were about the same as our first hike, mine was about 32-34 pounds, Daveed's was about 41. We were carrying extra water for the extra training weight, so we are both confident that we'll be able to get my pack weight to 30 pounds or less and Daveed's to 40 or less.

We packed food for "one day on the trail". Daveed's pile is on the left and is about 4000 calories. This is about the minimum amount of calories he would need to consume on the JMT, and ideally, he'll consume another 1000+ calories per day. My pile is on the right and is about 1650. I would need about 1200+ more calories on the JMT per day. Shouldn't be a problem to get our calorie counts up as we can easily add some candy bars and olive oil and arrive at 1000 extra calories. (Note: we each ate about half of what we packed. If we would have eaten dinner on the trail instead of going to a restaurant, we would have eaten everything)

We had a great day hiking and enjoying the beautiful weather. It was great to be outside all day! We bumped into several friends throughout the day and even managed to end the day with dinner at The Barn with Jim, Nicole, Stew and Derrick.

Our plan going forward is to hike after work two nights a week at Lapham Peak and fit in as much hiking as we can on the weekends. We've got stuff going on every weekend until we leave for our trip, so fitting in all-day training sessions is a bit of a challenge! We plan to do laps on the stairs of the lookout tower at Lapham Peak- should get our legs strong! We're also planning to do a bit of weight training while we're at the climbing gym, squats and lunges to continue building our leg strength.

Resupply Prep, Post 1- Non-Food Stuffs

 

Last week, I took advantage of one of our last free weekends until we leave and started prepping our resupplies. I spent an entire Sunday running to 3 or 4 stores, organizing, dividing, packing and prepping pretty much all of our non-food stuffs. I bought out WalMart’s entire supply of travel sized wet wipe and baby wipe packages and Woodman’s entire supply of travel sized sunscreen :)

It was a bit overwhelming at first to dump out the shopping bags and look at all of the items...where to begin? But after sorting them it wasn’t so bad, I had a rough idea of what was needed for each individual bucket, so I basically grabbed one of everything and put it in a ziplock bag.

 

David and I bought our resupply buckets from Menards along with jumbo boxes of candy bars!! Who would have thought Mendards would have jumbo boxes of candy bars at a super discounted price PLUS a mail-in rebate?! Sweet!

 

After sorting everything, I put our supplies into ziplock bags and dropped them into the bottom of our respective buckets. Now all we have to do is finish planning, buying, prepping and packing all of our food! We’ll wait another month or so to do that . In the meantime, we’ve been picking up a few things here and there that will keep, like beef jerky that’s on sale, large bags of M&M’s that we had coupons for.

 

The picture below is a slightly more organized version of our resupply piles...

 

First Test Drive Hike

We went on our first hike of the year on Sunday! The weather is finally above freezing in Wisconsin, so we took advantage of the sort of warmish weather and hiked all day at Devils Lake! Although we've technically been "hiking" in the Red already this year, it's different because we have to hike to get to the crag to climb, we're not hiking to hike, and we aren't carrying the same weight or even using the same packs/gear.

We packed our packs as if we were on the trail. We brought all of the gear we'll have on the trail, including bear canisters for our food, stoves, water filter, sleeping bags etc. My pack weighed in around 31-32 lbs, David's was about 40.

We test drove the new insoles we got for our hiking boots. Mine were great and very comfortable, David's need some adjustment. I also had the opportunity to try my new trekking poles, which were helpful for the descents.

We made trail food for lunch with our stoves and even with 30+ mph wind, using our bodies as wind breaks, everything worked great! We got to try out our food pouch cozy prototypes, which worked great! We made them out of insulating bubble wrap type stuff, which David picked up at Lowe's in Lexington. We basically just cut a long strip of it wide enough to accommodate a quart sized ziplock bag, folded it in half to create a "pouch", and left enough extra to fold over a flap at the top. We taped the sides with a piece of duct tape. I plan to make a few adjustments for my final product, but overall the super basic design worked just fine. We had tasty, warm food for lunch!

David made a couple of on-trail adjustments, including moving his bear canister from the bottom of his pack to the middle. It was bumping against his tail bone causing pain and leaving an irritated bump. He put something softer, the tent and clothes bag, in the bottom compartment and was good to go. He also adjusted a sock and shoe when he felt a "hot spot". We have an agreement that anytime a hot spot is felt, we stop and make adjustments immediately in an effort to avoid blisters. After all, our feets are our only mode of transportation on the trail and we need to take good care of them!

At the end of our hike, which was around 6-8 miles and took about 5-6 hours, we determined that our pack loads need to be lightened if at all possible. My feet hurt and my legs were really tired. David's back hurt and his knee was in some pain. We talked about what we could possibly reduce to save weight... but beyond eliminating a long sleeve base layer, we really only had what we needed in our packs. Nothing "extra". Maybe we could reduce the amount of water we carry at any given time, stopping more frequently for water rather than carrying more than what we need in between water sources. Hopefully as we continue to train and get in shape, we won't have as many aches and pains.

The next morning we were both sore, but as the day went on, felt fine. My hips were, and still are a bit tender and sore from the hip belt. We ate a lot of calories and got a really good, full night's sleep, so the recovery definitely helped and will be key while on trail. We both thought that, yes, if we were on trail and needed to repeat yesterday's hike again today (and for the next 20 some odd days) we could do it.

For our next hike, I'll be trying a second pair of hiking boots that are more heavy duty. Carrying a heavy load on a more heavy duty pair of boots should help my feet. I'll also adjust the torso length of my pack in hopes the hip belt fits better and doesn't cause so much discomfort and pressure. David is going to try shaving down his insoles or somehow adjusting them to be more comfortable.

Overall our first test drive hike went great! It served its purpose for exactly what we wanted, to test out our gear and systems and then make adjustments accordingly. Maybe 1 or 2 more hikes and we should have it down. We also had the pleasure of taking in some pretty views of the lake! I've never seen the lake only covered in ice, I've seen it covered in a few feet of snow or in the heat of summer. The ice made it look very different and very beautiful!