Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

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Bosterson
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Joined: May 18th, 2009, 3:17 pm
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Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by Bosterson » September 30th, 2012, 9:12 pm

I wanted to give some reviews of gear I used on the JMT and recommend.

The #1 piece of gear that is now going to be indispensable for all hiking trips is Dirty Girl Gaiters. I didn't get a single pebble in my shoe for the whole JMT, and you can't do better than that. Around $20, handmade by an ultra trailrunner in the US of A.

I was also extremely impressed with my new Caldera Cone alcohol stove system. I took a 20oz juice bottle about 3/4 full of denatured alcohol and it was still about half full when I reached MTR. I bought 5oz of alcohol at MTR, bringing it to around 2/3 full, and boiled water for both breakfast and dinner most days in the second half of the trip, and my bottle was still at least 1/3 full by the end. I got my setup used off Geartrade and it came with the Caldera Cone and an MSR .85L titanium kettle. Boiling the kettle half or 3/4 full for dinner only took a couple of capfulls of alcohol, and it frequently would still burn for a few minutes after the water had boiled. The only downside is that I feel like its speed, if not efficiency, suffered at altitude, though digging little holes in the sand around the base seemed to let more air in and it'd burn a little faster. But overall, totally converted to this system. As long as you just need to boil water, this is the best and lightest I've ever used.

I got a new lightweight pack for the trip - a Granite Gear Crown VC 60. I took it to Eagle Cap in August as a trial run, and overall I've been very impressed with its functionality and comfort. Carrying it fully loaded around 30-35 lbs is pretty much its limit as it only has a plastic framesheet and no metal stays (hence its 2 lb weight), but the backpanel is extremely comfortable and it carried well. My only gripes are that there are no internal pockets, which I solved by organizing my misc items into various stuff sacks, and that though there's a loop to hang your hydration bladder, there isn't a sleeve like many packs have, so the bladder moves around and basically hangs there (as opposed to being stuck in place), which for my Camelbak bent the plastic hook out of shape. I solved this by tying a string to the loop, and then hooking the string around the carry handle for the Camelbak, distributing its weight around the whole plastic top part. There also isn't a retainer for the hose to keep it in place on your shoulder, but I just tucked it under the sternum strap and that worked fine. Otherwise, note that like most packs the regular size comes with a hipbelt sized for fat people - I was on the cusp of having no more tightening room when I started the trail and by the end of it I was way too skinny to get the hipbelt tight, so I need to buy a small one and swap it out.

Gear fails:

Cheap White Sierra brand convertible pants - the main button literally fell off the first day I wore them in Yosemite, before I started hiking. I sewed it back on with dental floss and it stayed put. I got them super closeout at a generic outdoor store for $20, so I can't really complain, and they were fine otherwise.

Light My Fire spork - after 3 years, it snapped in half in the middle at breakfast the morning I was leaving to start the trail. Rather than waste time detouring to Curry Village to buy a new one, I just used the spoon in tiny mode, which frequently dipped my fingers into my food, but at least I didn't starve. Probably ought to replace it with a titanium spork, though it turned out I never needed the fork part anyway.

Food

I'm not going to go a lot into the theory behind eating on the trail, since plenty of people have talked about that before. Breakfast was 1/2 cup of rolled oats, rye, and triticale with some flax and chia seeds, raisins, and walnuts. Lunch was a bag of snacks - a few handfulls of trail mix, some homemade tempeh jerky, dried mango, sesame spelt sticks, a homemade Big Moose energy bar (recipe below), and in the first half a tortilla, second half a Clif bar or something. This was a pretty meager lunch, but there just wasn't enough space in the canister for more. Dinners were boil-only affairs - some split pea soup mix, corn chowder mix with black bean flakes, some packaged ramen (organic ones from the food co-op, not MSG crap ones) with added TVP flakes, couscous with some home-dried vegetables or with apricots and pistachios. I brought a little bottle of olive oil for the couscous dishes and added it to the soups too for extra calories (in addition to just taking swigs from the bottle). I also brought a little bag of nutritional yeast and added it to all dinners. I forgot, unfortunately, to bring hot chile flakes and other additional condiments - so while I did a good job of planning out my meals and organizing them into individual ziplock bags (no need to partition on the trail, just pull a bag, boil, and dump it in), I did forget some of the small extra details that make life a little more flavorful. I found a bag of dried Asian mushrooms at MTR and grabbed a couple for my last ramen, which turned out great - I'll definitely bring dried mushrooms for things next time. Dessert was 2 squares of dark chocolate from one of those big "Pounder-Plus" bars they have at Trader Joe's - not super high quality (and unfortunately not organic or fair trade), but easy to divide and actually each square was a fair amount of chocolate. Next time I should bring more chocolate, since it's a great source of calories, in addition to being delicious.

The real winner from my food prep was these trail bars I made based on this Moose Goo stuff Radpotato told me he'd used on his Eagle Cap trip a few months ago. My bars were delicious and sweet and super high calorie compared to ones you can buy in a store, and I savored the one I had allotted for each day. They're heavy, but it's pretty worth it. Feel free to tweak and refine the recipe - the base is just the oats and PB/honey/other sweetener; I just added other things (dates, raisins, nuts) that I had lying around. You could definitely bulk them up with additional stuff, perhaps more nuts, or puffed rice, or more dried fruit. Go crazy!

Big Moose Bars
(adapted from info on Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo)

1 c peanut butter
1/2 c honey
1/2 c brown rice syrup
2 tbsp sunflower (or other) oil
4 c rolled oats, toasted
1/2 c chopped dates
1 c toasted almonds, chopped
1/2 c raisins
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp salt
a few dashes of cinnamon


1) toast the oats and almonds (separately) in the oven around 350º
2) add the oats to the other dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix around to evenly distribute everything
3) on the stove, over a low flame, heat the peanut butter, honey, brown rice syrup, and oil until warm and you can mix them together so they fully combine
4) pour the hot PB/honey/syrup/oil mixture over the dry ingredients in the bowl and stir around until everything is coated
5) press the mixture about 1/2" thick onto a lined baking sheet and stick in the fridge to set
6) after a few hours, take it out and cut it into bars

Recipe makes about 16 bars; NutritionData.com tells me that each bar should be about 413 calories (for reference, Clif bars are 240), with 18g fat, 56g carb, and 13g protein.
#pnw #bestlife #bitingflies #favoriteyellowcap #neverdispleased

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Crusak
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Joined: August 6th, 2009, 7:33 pm
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Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by Crusak » September 30th, 2012, 9:30 pm

Those gaiters look promising! And they come in some wild patterns, too. :) Did those gaiters cause your feet/ankles to sweat much?

One of my buddies has a titanium alcohol stove, and it seems to work very well. I'm considering a switch from the 'blow torch' MSR Pocket Rocket to an alcohol stove myself. Good to read your experience with your stove.

I've owned a folding titanium spork for about 12 yrs now, and it's worked well. Folds in half and nests in my cup, which nests inside my MSR .85L titanium pot. It looks something like this one:

Image
Jim's Hikes

Solvitur Ambulando

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mayhem
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Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by mayhem » December 3rd, 2012, 3:19 pm

Bosterson wrote:JMT

Food

I'm not going to go a lot into the theory behind eating on the trail, since plenty of people have talked about that before. Breakfast was 1/2 cup of rolled oats, rye, and triticale with some flax and chia seeds, raisins, and walnuts. Lunch was a bag of snacks - a few handfulls of trail mix, some homemade tempeh jerky, dried mango, sesame spelt sticks, a homemade Big Moose energy bar (recipe below)

The real winner from my food prep was these trail bars I made based on this Moose Goo stuff Radpotato told me he'd used on his Eagle Cap trip a few months ago. My bars were delicious and sweet and super high calorie compared to ones you can buy in a store, and I savored the one I had allotted for each day. They're heavy, but it's pretty worth it. Feel free to tweak and refine the recipe - the base is just the oats and PB/honey/other sweetener; I just added other things (dates, raisins, nuts) that I had lying around. You could definitely bulk them up with additional stuff, perhaps more nuts, or puffed rice, or more dried fruit. Go crazy!

Big Moose Bars
(adapted from info on Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo)

1 c peanut butter
1/2 c honey
1/2 c brown rice syrup
2 tbsp sunflower (or other) oil
4 c rolled oats, toasted
1/2 c chopped dates
1 c toasted almonds, chopped
1/2 c raisins
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp salt
a few dashes of cinnamon


1) toast the oats and almonds (separately) in the oven around 350º
2) add the oats to the other dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix around to evenly distribute everything
3) on the stove, over a low flame, heat the peanut butter, honey, brown rice syrup, and oil until warm and you can mix them together so they fully combine
4) pour the hot PB/honey/syrup/oil mixture over the dry ingredients in the bowl and stir around until everything is coated
5) press the mixture about 1/2" thick onto a lined baking sheet and stick in the fridge to set
6) after a few hours, take it out and cut it into bars

Recipe makes about 16 bars; NutritionData.com tells me that each bar should be about 413 calories (for reference, Clif bars are 240), with 18g fat, 56g carb, and 13g protein.
Thanks again for mentioning this on the Kings, Elk loop hike!
I need to start eating more when hiking.... I mean eating :). This is a winner that I somehow ignored!
Shoe Shine Boy Has Left The Building!

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vibramhead
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Joined: November 15th, 2009, 10:52 am
Location: SW Portland

Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by vibramhead » December 4th, 2012, 3:26 pm

Bosterson wrote:
Big Moose Bars
(adapted from info on Ultralight Joe's Moose Goo)

1 c peanut butter
1/2 c honey
1/2 c brown rice syrup
2 tbsp sunflower (or other) oil
4 c rolled oats, toasted
1/2 c chopped dates
1 c toasted almonds, chopped
1/2 c raisins
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp salt
a few dashes of cinnamon
Bosterson: Thanks for that excellent recipe! I tried it out, and am very happy with the result. I did modify it a bit, by adding 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips, 1/2 c. shredded coconut, and substituted dried cherries for the raisins. With these, I think I'll stop mail ordering Big Sur Bars.
Time spent hiking will not be deducted from your life.

GPS tracks on Wikiloc.

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roadtripmom
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Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by roadtripmom » December 5th, 2012, 3:43 pm

This is the power bar recipe I use.


1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup slivered almonds
2/3 cup (unsweetened) shredded coconut
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups unsweetened crisp brown rice cereal


1 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 cup natural cane sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


or I replace the cranberries with dried cherries and add a cup of chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking pan with the coconut oil. If you like thick power bars, opt for an 8 by 8-inch pan; for thinner bars, use a 9 by 13-inch pan.

On a rimmed baking sheet toast the pecans, almonds, and coconut for about 7 minutes, or until the coconut is deeply golden. Toss once or twice along the way. Mix the oats, toasted nuts, coconut,cranberries, cinnamon and the cereal, together in a large bowl and set aside.

Combine the rice syrup, sugar, salt and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly as it comes to a boil and thickens just a bit, about 4 minutes. Pour the syrup over the oat mixture and stir until it is evenly incorporated.

Spread into the prepared pan and cool to room temperature before cutting into whatever size bars you desire.

Makes 16 to 24 bars.
Filling my bucket, one hike at a time.
Amanda

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Grannyhiker
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Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by Grannyhiker » December 5th, 2012, 4:02 pm

How well do those Big Moose bars keep? For instance, will they still be edible if I do three back-to-back 7-8 day trips and store food (including the Big Moose bars) for the second and third trips in my car? I suppose I could make a batch and store them in a kitchen cupboard for a month to see what happens, but the problem is to avoid eating them in the meantime! :lol: They do sound yummy!

Yes, my stored food will be in hard-sided containers--I've had rodents get into my car at trailheads! I don't know how they get in, but they do. I also will not be in an area like the Sierra where bears break into cars that have food inside.

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vibramhead
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Location: SW Portland

Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by vibramhead » December 6th, 2012, 4:14 pm

Grannyhiker wrote:How well do those Big Moose bars keep?
Maybe Bosterson knows, but I don't, since I've just been keeping them in my freezer and taking them out for day hikes. But they seem pretty robust. I imagine their fate in a parked car would depend a lot on how hot it gets. The big challenge for me is to resist munching on them at home.
Time spent hiking will not be deducted from your life.

GPS tracks on Wikiloc.

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Bosterson
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Re: Food and gear from the John Muir Trail

Post by Bosterson » December 7th, 2012, 3:25 pm

vibramhead wrote:I tried it out, and am very happy with the result.
That's great that you made them! Yeah, I figure you can swap in and out most of the added fruits and nuts and stuff, depending on what you have lying around. I just made my second batch a few days ago and froze them for use on hikes over the winter. I like the balance of fats (this batch has both almonds and walnuts) but am trying to figure out how to add more protein without resorting to processed soy.
Grannyhiker wrote:How well do those Big Moose bars keep?
The JMT batch lasted two weeks at room temperature without any signs of spoiling. (Obviously at night they were a bit "refrigerated" by that nice Sierra air! ;) ) Half of them were in my food canister for the first week while the other half were in a bucket at MTR, and there was no difference between the two when I resupplied. I had each half packed in a ziplock bag.

I should think they'd keep just fine for three weeks, unless the car got really hot in the sun. (Not sure what time of year we're talking about here. It still might not matter, except that they could melt and become one big Moose Glob.) There really isn't any water in the bars to allow them to mold - peanut butter and oils and dried fruit and all that stuff would just go rancid, but not that quickly. You're probably also effectively sterilizing them from the toasting/heating of the ingredients.
#pnw #bestlife #bitingflies #favoriteyellowcap #neverdispleased

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