In this two-part series Hyperlite Mountain Gear CEO and avid adventurer Mike St. Pierre provides tips and techniques on how to plan your gear and food for expedition-style thru hikes. He utilized a decade of experience in ultralight backcountry travel, and succeeded in section hiking the first two parts of one of the hardest thru hikes in the world—a 700+-mile below the rim traverse of the Grand Canyon. This extreme adventure incorporates long-distance hiking, rock climbing, canyoneering and serious map and compass skills. Water is scarce, established trails are nonexistent and the terrain is steep and difficult to navigate. It’s a trip that fewer than three-dozen people have done (consider that 40 people summited Mt. Everest in one day in May 2016). St. Pierre plans to be one of only a few dozen to complete it. In Part I of this series, he detailed the food planning and prep for his trips; in this blog post, Part II, he describes the process he used to choose gear and the final gear list he ended up with.
Planning and preparing food for big, ultralight backcountry adventures takes incredible time and effort, but you can get a head start by considering a few key things before you dive in. The most important considerations for me were the distance between resupply points (caches in the case of the Grand Canyon) and the calories I needed to maintain the energy levels required to achieve that mileages.
In terms of my section hike below the rim, it was actually difficult to determine the distance between caches. The thru hike is quite long, few people have done it, and the people who have done it have taken various routes because there’s no established path. I learned from Grand Canyon expert Rich Rudow that one specific area included a full day of “bushwhacking” (tiptoeing) through cacti, so we planned to bypass that section. And in some places we knew two Grand Canyon Park Rangers had bypassed some challenging rappels that my hiking partner, Clay Wadman, and I wanted to check out. So while there were a lot of areas that have only one way to go; others had options. With all that in mind, I predicted we’d hike anywhere between six and 12 miles per day.
I then considered the calories I needed to maintain energy levels to achieve that mileage. For this trip, I knew I had to ramp up my calories over the course of the three weeks as I would become hungrier further into the trip. Thus, our first cache was 14.5 pounds; the second and third were 15.5 and 17 pounds. As well, I planned to gorge toward the end of each leg at caches, and eat more snack foods along the way. And, just to be on the safe side in regards to knowing exactly how much I need to consume each day, I labeled each meal with the amount of calories and the total weight of the meal. This allowed me to make decisions about eating the heavier meals in the beginning of each leg to help reduce overall pack weight or save the heavier, more calorie-dense meals for some of the harder days to come.
I planned well and wasn’t hungry on my first section hike of the Grand, but I still lost 15 lbs. because of the extreme temps. I brought more food on this second trip, and I cached three extra days of food just in case, which we ended up needing.
Travel Food Light
I travel light on all my adventures, but I had had to totally rethink my backcountry food practices for this adventure. I carried seven to nine days of food at a time, averaging 1.5.lbs. of food per day; and I needed additional supplies later for both trips because of the energy I expended over some of the gnarliest terrain I’ve ever traversed. So, I brought super light, compact food that was easy to carry, could be prepped by just adding water and was rich in nutrients. To maintain my current body weight (I’m 5’8” and 145lbs.), I ate roughly 2600 calories per day the first week and 3000-4000 the second week. My goal was to carry a pack that weighed around 30 pounds when all was said and done—10.5lbs. of food, 15lbs. of gear and camera equipment and 6.6lbs. for three liters of water.
Cooking & Dining Methods
On most trips I don’t stop for lunch; I eat just two meals and then I graze throughout the day. But my adventure partner, Clay Wadman, and I did things differently on this trip. Because we worked so hard, we stopped to eat three full meals per day to ensure we got sufficient calories, and we grazed between meals.
We shared a Jetboil stove, in which we boiled water for three meals per day, though I brought a few meals that didn’t need boiling water to rehydrate; I wanted these for scorching days when hot meals don’t sound so appealing. My mentor, friend and Hyperlite Mountain Gear Ambassador Rich Rudow, one of the two dozen to thru hike below the rim in a single push, had already figured out that he could get 25 10oz. boils of water out of a small fuel canister and 50 out of a large one. Knowing this, we could calculate the fuel consumption for the trips.
Finally, we rehydrated all our foods in a Lipton Ziplock cup insulated with an pot cozy I developed in the shop, which weighs less than 2oz. and traps the heat in so food continues to cook after you’ve poured in boiling water. We cut our vacuum-sealed meals open, poured water in the bag, stuck the whole thing in the cup and then kept hiking for a couple miles until the food was ready to eat. When ready we just opened the cup and chowed down. All we had to deal with was the plastic bag waste.
Food I Brought
I chose my foods based on this cooking method and by the amount of calories I needed. I was shocked to discover that the average prepackaged backpacker meals typically have only 300 to 600 calories. On the high end, that’s only 900 to 1800 calories per day. So, in order to beef up both the nutritional value and calories of my meals, I bought a variety of dried vegetables, powdered whole fat milk and cheese, powdered butter, pine nuts and olive oil (which are calorie and fat rich). My goal was to have foods with at least 125 calories per ounce.
Food Prep & Repackaging
I planned carefully and strategically. I didn’t want to go hungry or slow the team down by not eating enough or by having an overly heavy pack. Step by step, here is my process:
I compiled a spreadsheet with the numbers of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks that I needed;
I ordered plenty of dehydrated and freeze dried meals that were as healthy and as natural stuff as possible. I like to know what the ingredients are in the meals I eat! Good-To-Go is a great Maine company that uses real ingredients.
I made piles of all the breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks;
In order to get sufficient calories, I put together individual meals, at times repackaging two meals into one;
I supplemented meals with insufficient calories with powdered butter, cheese, and foil packages of salmon (that weigh just 3 oz.!);
I identified each meal by writing on the bag, including the breakdown of fats, carbs, protein, calories and how much water will be needed for rehydration.
I repackaged everything in vacuum-sealed bags;
Once all my meals were packaged, I mixed and matched each day’s worth of food based on my calorie needs and to give myself some variety.
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