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PCT Food Review Part 2 – Mid Morning Snacks and Lunches

/ Andy, Laurie, Miles & Ani / 6 Comments

In our last post we reviewed our breakfast strategy and bars. In this post we dive into our mid-morning snacks, mid-morning drinks and lunch.

As a reminder, we actively sought out sponsors for our hike to help offset the higher cost of quality foods. Every company below with an * next to their name either gave us free food or a discount. While we remain grateful to these companies, their generosity has not influenced our comments.

Mid-morning snacks

Because 1 – 2 bars around 6am can only sustain a hiker for a little while, we usually stopped for a snack break around 10 am. Sometimes we ate cold oatmeal (soaked in advance to save time), other times we boiled water for hot oatmeal and once in a while we shoved handfuls of granola into our mouths.

GlutenFreeda instant oatsGlutenFreeda’s gluten free oatmeal* isn’t as sweet as most individually wrapped oatmeal packets on the market and were both hearty and flavorful. We appreciated the ease of individual servings which pack better into a bear can than a large ziplock filled with oatmeal.

Our favorite flavors were Apple Cinnamon with Flax, Banana Maple with Flax and Maple Raisin with Flax. GlutenFreeda instant oatmeal is especially good for people who are looking for certified gluten free oatmeal.

We had some bulk gluten free granola from Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco but most of our granola came from 18 Rabbits*. They have added more flavors to their lineup in recent months – all of which are all delicious! Our two favorites on trail were 1) Cherry, Chia and Vanilla and 2) Walnut, Flax and Cacao Nib.

18 Rabbits Granola18 Rabbits granola are not too sweet but sweet enough to make you want more. We discovered that while calorie rich and delicious, granola in general is very heavy. Often times we would eat this as a dessert the first night out of town to cut down on weight.

Mid-morning drinks

DoMatcha Matcha Green TeaWhen we didn’t have oatmeal but still wanted to stop and drink something warm, Laurie enjoyed hot chocolate and Andy drank DōMatcha Green Tea*.

Laurie LOVES hot chocolate almost as much as mac & cheese so this was always a nice treat for her. Sometimes she would make it a double and sit cooing about how wonderful life was.

Andy enjoyed his green tea, but not with the same enthusiasm as Laurie with her hot chocolate. He added coconut milk powder to his tea for extra flavor and calories. He enjoyed it very much until we encountered the heat of Northern California. The coconut milk fat leaked out of the little zip lock bags and covered his food bag and all its contents with grease. No Bueno.

Lunches

For lunch we had:

Luke's CrackersWe especially liked Luke’s Crackers* for their taste and crunch when having tuna, salami or cheese. They have the right amount of salt and taste more like a chip than a cracker.

We looked forward to and got very excited when we found these crackers in our resupply boxes even if they were all crumbs!

Prather ranchOur favorite meat products by a country mile were the Prather Ranch Landjager and Beef Candy. We absolutely LOVED them! No matter where we hike next, we will be taking them with us.

The Landjager is a delicious German style meat stick that comes in a pack of 3. Andy usually devoured them in less than a minute while Laurie (trail name Saver for the first 1,000 miles of our hike) would save at least one stick to have with dinner. And she says she has no self control..

Prather Ranch Beef CandyThe Beef Candy is moist, sweet (but not overly so), savory and very tender. Beef Candy was the hardest thing for us to share on the trail. We both loved them very much and knew the other loved them too. And since we love each other we did share them – some of the time.

Prather Ranch also makes a Hot Beef Candy if you prefer a spicier beef jerky. Andy liked it and found it to be mildly spicy. As he put it, “It had just the right amount of kick.”

TankaTanka Power Packs – Initially these were great. They are hearty 4oz servings of buffalo meat in a vacuumed sealed bag. We liked the Orange Peel flavor best. The Slow Smoked Original and Spicy Pepper flavors have wild rice in them which offer a rather odd crunch, not to mention that they gets stuck in your teeth. But these were minor details once we got used to them.  (You can only purchase these direct from their website here. Other Tanka products are available on amazon and other retailers.)

The wonderful thing about Tanka is that these power packs provided variety to our diet filled with sweet bars. Laurie appreciated their meaty taste up through the Sierra, at which time she got tired of them (and Andy got tired of them by Oregon). Again, this may have been due to the fact that we didn’t have enough variety and burned ourselves out too quickly. Having said that, in Washington Andy started liking them again – especially the Orange Peel flavor.

liverbitesEpic bars – Similar to Tanka bars, these provided a nice variety to our sweet bar selection. Due to our late order of these bars, we didn’t start getting them in our boxes until Oregon and by that time we were wildly excited for something new and different.

We appreciated the variety of flavors and found Wild Boar to be our favorite. The Venison and Pulled Pork were too salty. Andy loved their Beef Liver Jerky too but Laurie could only handle 1-2 pieces max.

That’s it for this post, the next post will cover dinner and snacks. Stay tuned!

Affiliate Disclosure
This website contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in this article. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support our ongoing efforts to bring you honest, no holds barred trip reports and advice. Thanks for your support!

PCT Food Review Part 1 – Breakfast

/ Andy, Laurie, Miles & Ani / 9 Comments

Generally speaking, thru hikers think about food more than anything else – including the next water source! It’s on our minds every minute of every day. Our thoughts are consumed by our hunger and our cravings. No matter who you hike with or how amazing the scenery, the conversation will always come back to food.

“What will I eat in town?

What will I buy for the next section?

What awaits in the box I sent myself?”

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What goodies do we have in here?

In the this series of posts we hold nothing back as we review everything we ate on the trail. We are going to break down our reviews into 4 separate posts. In this post, we will cover breakfast. The following posts will include mid morning snacks and lunches, dinner and bars.

Before we get started, there are a few things you should know.

1) Laurie is gluten intolerant and Andy reads the nutrition labels of everything he eats. This meant we packed all our food in advance and Andy’s dad graciously shipped all our resupply boxes to us along the trail. We only bought fresh foods in towns or whatever packaged foods we were craving, but never fully resupplied in town.

2) We actively sought out sponsors for our hike to help offset the higher cost of quality foods. Every company below with an * next to their name either gave us free food or a discount. While we remain grateful to these companies, their generosity has not influenced our comments.

3) We love to eat. We care about the quality of food we ingest and put a lot of time and money into making sure we ate real food rather than junk. Most hikers expend anywhere from 4000-6000 calories/day (depending on speed, terrain and distance walked). The typical thru hiker diet consists of Idahoans, ramen, snicker bars, pop tarts, trail mix and Clif bars. We wanted real food.  We carried at least 10 – 25% more food than most other thru hikers. Our packs were heavier but we never went hungry.

We strongly believe our eating habits allowed us to complete the hike without any major sickness or injury. Our bodies changed but neither of us lost more than 10 lbs. Our food plan provided our bodies with adequate nutrition to build muscle mass rather than destroy and waste away with the long days and constant pounding. Nutritious food allowed us to stay healthy to enjoy each section of the trail.

Breakfast

We usually had a bar for breakfast once we hit the trail. Some mornings we ate in our sleeping bags before braving the cold of the morning, but most days we ate on the go. We rarely made hot breakfasts.

Initially we had a 3 box rotation of bars, oatmeal and granola but quickly learned that eating a bar on the go was most efficient. For 90% of the trail we rotated between 3 types of bars: Amazing Grass*, ProBar* and Think Thin. Chocolate melts and becomes much more arduous to eat while walking later in the day so our breakfast bars ended up being the most chocolatey ones.

amazing grass barsAmazing Grass* – We both loved these bars before, during and after the trail. Unfortunately, while we were gone Amazing Grass revamped their lineup and the bars we loved are no longer available. Gone are the days when the first two ingredients of their bars were dates and almond butter.

Now the first ingredient is brown rice syrup. And the new bars have crispy brown rice in them for some crunch. This must be what people want but Andy is disappointed because he doesn’t like bars with unnecessary fillers.

Having said all that, we have since purchased their new flavors and tried them. We both like the Chocolate Almond Butter bars. They have good ingredients and taste green (but a palatable green) with a sweet aftertaste.

Only Andy enjoys the Chocolate Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate + Sea Salt bars. Laurie is still not ready to eat Peanut Butter and has an aversion to anything resembling trail mix. So essentially, the bars may be good but Laurie’s palate hasn’t fully recovered.

ProBarAndy loved ProBars* for breakfast! His eyes lit up each time he saw the orange packaging in a resupply box. Despite being very sweet, Andy savored each one – particularly the Koka Moka, Superfood Slam and Wholeberry Blast flavors. The coffee flavor and chocolate chips in the Koka Moka bars, the chunks of fruit and nuts in the Superfood Slam and Wholeberry blast bars are things that he really enjoyed.

He looked forward to these bars every morning he had them and never grew tired of them. In fact, when he found them in a Grocery Outlet a few weeks ago at steep discount, he bought a box! He may seem like a hypocrite for criticizing Amazing Grass for using ingredients that ProBar uses, but this was his treat. And the difference with ProBar and Amazing Grass was that Amazing Grass used to be different.

think thin barsThink Thin – Prior to hiking the PCT Laurie enjoyed these bars, particularly the Chocolate Brownie because they taste more like a brownie than a protein bar. They are loaded with protein but contain fillers and sugar alcohol. By Oregon, Laurie no longer got excited when she saw these in her box because of their chalky consistency and artificial taste. She continued to eat them since she knew Andy didn’t like them and wouldn’t trade with her. Once in a while they are decent but as an every morning bar, they got old really quickly.

In our next post we will cover mid-morning snacks and lunches. Stay tuned!

Affiliate Disclosure
This website contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in this article. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support our ongoing efforts to bring you honest, no holds barred trip reports and advice. Thanks for your support!

Grand Tetons Part 1: Death Canyon – Alaska Basin Loop

/ Andy, Laurie, Miles & Ani / Leave a comment

Trip dates: Tuesday, July 28 – Thursday, July 30, 2015

Trip Details: 
Death Canyon – Alaska Basin Loop: 3 days, 26 miles
Seven am on a nippy Tuesday morning found Laurie asleep in the car as I scoped out to the Grand Teton National Park Visitor Center. Only a handful of others were there, eagerly waiting for the Visitor Center to open. All of us had different itineraries. This put me at ease, slightly. 
We had no reservations but hoped to acquire permits for an overnight trip looping from Cascade Canyon to Paintbrush Canyon. Unfortunately those permits were all reserved, but we were able to get permits to enter from Death Canyon, camp in Alaska Basin – which is outside Grand Teton National Park – and exit Death Canyon via Death Canyon Shelf.
We drove the length of the bumpy dirt road to the trail head at Death Canyon. After a short 1.7 mile uphill walk, we enjoyed fantastic views of Phelps Lake. 
We chose to do this loop counter clockwise in order to do most of the climbing on our first day. Most backpackers may want to hike it clockwise but we enjoy big climbs right out of the gate. We can do this because fortunately we don’t require much acclimatization.
Day hiking Death Canyon to Buck mountain at 11,938 ft was quite popular. Many hiker were descending as we climbed higher and further into the majestic mountains. 
The weather couldn’t have been better either. We had partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the 60s to 70s. 

And the wildflowers. Oh my, the wildflowers. We were hiking through peak bloom! 

 
The hike up to Static Peak Divide was a long but gentle climb mostly shaded by trees.  We stopped for lunch near the Divide and enjoyed the jaw-dropping views. 

The wind had picked up and we were tired from a 12 hour, 800+ mile drive the day before, so we chose to forgo bagging Buck Mountain and descended toward Alaska Basin. The views on the other side of Static Peak Divide were equally magnificent. 
Camp for the night was near Mirror Lake. There are at least 4 designated campsites near the lake. About half a mile after the junction, there are more campsites near smaller bodies of water and streams. We set up camp in the trees, ate dinner by the lake soaking up the sunshine and went to bed before nightfall.

The next morning was a lazy one. Having to cover only 7 miles for the day, we enjoyed a long breakfast while allowing our tent to dry under the warm morning sunshine. Today promised big blue skies and warmer temperatures.
Around 10am we became stir crazy and were ready to get moving. We realized we had chosen a great camp spot after passing many backpackers on the other side of the lake. But the number of hikers didn’t matter because Alaska Basin is absolutely gorgeous. Thousands of wildflowers greeting us at every turn. 

The climb to Meek Pass was gentle and included many false summits along the way. This didn’t bother us much because Laurie and I agreed this was one of the most beautiful trails we have ever walked upon. The wildflowers, the gentle rolling trail and scenery were hard to beat. 

The miles came easy as we made our way down Death Canyon Shelf toward Fox Pass. The vistas  were tremendous. 

We dropped down into a bowl, escorted by wildflowers. Eventually we made our way into Death Canyon. Here one has to camp at designated and established campsites. We had our sights set on one such campsite near the eastern end perched high on flat boulders away from the trail. The campsites on the northern end had better views and less mosquitos but we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow and chose to make the following day as short as possible. 
We were glad with our decision because had we camped west of the group campsite, we would have had to hike through the overgrown trail the next morning. And odds are we would have been very wet from the brush.

Before entering Death Canyon we were warned by other hikers (but not rangers) of aggressive porcupines in the area that are attracted to salt. Flip flops and trekking pole handles were chew toys for these pesky critters. Although we didn’t see any, we were kept up most of the night by one making strange noises in the tree next to our tent. 
The next morning we felt groggy. Nevertheless we were up early and on the move before 7am. We had to hike back to Death Canyon Trailhead 5 miles away, get in our cars and drive to Jenny Lake Trailhead, where we would start our overnight loop through Cascade and Paintbrush Canyons.
The 5 mile hike to the trailhead from our campsite was easy, consisting of only one climb back up to Phelps Lake. There were more areas of the trail that were overgrown, but nothing that hampered our progress. We were hiking fast and on a mission to get to our car by 9am. At exactly 8:25am we reached the parking lot. Go us!
Tips for backpacking in the Tetons
  • Storing food in the car is considered proper bear storage. Bears don’t break into cars in the Tetons. 
  • There are no bear boxes at trailheads.
  • Designated camping only in established areas. The sites are well marked with signs and maps of the camping zones are available at the ranger station.
  • Peak season is last week of July.