A Long Carry

An Oregon man tries to hike the Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail(460 miles) without resupply. I think the most food I every carried was about 8 days, maybe 7 and a half.

Though traveling light from an equipment standpoint, Nicholson said his Kelty pack still weighed close to 80 pounds when a friend dropped him off near the Oregon-California border on Aug. 9.

He was looking ahead to nearly four weeks of eating cold, dry food, and a menu that varied little from one day to the next.

Nicholson’s diet on the trip consisted entirely of foods with a high calorie-to-weight ratio — peanut butter, cashews, macadamia nuts, raisins, marshmallows, maple syrup, energy bars, flaxseed cookies, cheese curls and summer sausage. He also took a bottle of multi-vitamins.

“I didn’t bring any ‘hiking food’ — I didn’t do any freeze dried or anything like that,” said Nicholson, who stocked his portable pantry at Winco.

I would have carried some dehydrated food and a stove. I think it would be lighter, plus I like the ritual of a cooked evening meal. Winco is an awesome place to shop for hiking. They sometimes even have freeze dried backpacking food. Not that I eat that stuff.

About halfway he stopped for a few days to rest a sore knee and infected ankle before walking out. I think hiking poles would have helped. But I could never have walked in the Crater Lake Lodge and not ordered food. The lodge is on the trail. It has really good food too!

It is well worth reading the entire article.