'finger' food for 3 days

“Well I got this 'tough' hike coming up in a month.. where we have to go nearly vertical for a mile.. (2000' climb).. and 10 stream crossings.. and its an un-maintained trail.. so I was thinking of how I could cut down weight/cubes... and considered leaving my STOVE at home.. which means I can also leave my gas cylinder, and maybe even my cooking stuff (pans, plates)..

SoOoo.. I was wondering.. could you survive 3 days on nothing but 'finger' food? There's trail mix.. and jerky.. but after that my mind goes blank.. I will be the first to admit, going on a backpacking trip without my stoves seems impossible.. BUT.. hMMmmmm..

What would you guys suggest for a three day itinerary of creative 'finger' food?”

“A block 'o cheeze
Crackers
Summer sausage
carnation instant breakfast
candy bars
fruit rollups
heck, just fruit

Cook on a fire.”

“Cheese is good and calorie-dense. Beefstick is not too bad either. The combination of the two means you probably won't have to take your trowel and TP as well, increasing the weight savings.

The little peanut butter and cracker packs are VERY calorie dense, and you can vary them so you don't get too bored. Also, Clif bars and Balance bars are also pretty calorie-dense and contain a lot of nutrients too. Clif even makes bars that have caffeine in them, so you can skip that morning coffee if you have to.

The milk and cereal bars are good, but not very calorie-dense. Pop-tarts are better for that, but they whang my blood sugar too hard. Hiking might help that though.”

“tortillas
pita
bagels
peanutbutter
jelly packs
neutella
hummous mix
salad in a bag w/dressing pack
hotdog to roast on abovementioned fire”

“I'll be hiking through the Smokies on the AT this month and I'm not planning on cooking. I've made a menu and it includes the following:

(I like peanut butter and jelly!)
(Don't forget fruit and vegies!)

Granola Bars
Dried Fruit & Vegies
Homemade Jerky
Cliff Bars
Homemade Gorp
Candy, Snacks
PB&J Tortillas
Summer Sausage
Crystal Light Drink Mix
Crackers
Can of Cheese Whiz (MMmmmmm!)


All packed into a Bearikade!”

“block of lard
loaf of hard black bread

make lard sandwiches, use crusts from black bread to make kvass, get drunk, forget you're hungry...”

“Some good ideas.. and I appreciate those thoughts.. I really have some concerns about this hike coming up.. and want to try to get my pack weight down to about 10# if I can.”

“MMMMM Cheez Whiz....

why does something sounds it's the urine output of something called a "Cheez" taste so good?”

“oh, EW! i have a friend who loves lard by the spoonful! no joke. she's from Vermont, for god's sake, and as skinny as a toothpick.

don't forget tuna packets! those things are the best invention ever. and Blueberry Harvest Bars!! if you can find them. they're a hot commodity, doncha know.”

“10#? YIKES!

Then again that's coming from a guy called humanpackmule. Go figure.

Have you thought about just using a pepsi can stove to heat water? The finger food thing is a good idea but the dried stuff seems like it would be lighter. You might get a bigger weight reduction if you looked that direction.”

“i just did an overnite with fingerfood. jerky, gorp, dried fruit, granola, clif bars. you could subsist for years on that stuff. however, i have to admit i cheated because someone (unbeknownest to me) met us at the shelter with a coleman stove and this guy was rolling burritos like cheech and chong roll bones! god bless that guy! he brought beer too.
you might want to try that pepsi can stove. it's pretty amazing for boiling water and weighs next to nothing.”

“I've got an Esbit stove that's great for that as well. It's my main stove. I have a Coleman one-burner-white-gas stove, but I've only taken it on one trip. Freeze-dried and the Esbit are the way to go!

But if you're really trying to cut weight by not carrying a stove, there are a LOT of options in the already-cooked arena, and would suffice for a short trip.”

“Can you dehydrate cheese? hmmmmm.....”

“Bitpusher, what the hell does "whang" mean? "whangs my blood sugar" LOL!

Can you share a stove, fuel, cooking gear w/ someone? That would lighten loads and allow you some variety of the menu.”

“If you buy bagels on the day of your start, they're usually good for at least 3 days.”

“lyra, my wife was the favorite child of one of her older great-aunts. Once, on a trip to see her brother in Indiana, we asked her what her favorite meal was.

She sat back for a minute, thought about it, and said, "Well, if you breaded up a piece of fatback (imagine bacon with no lean in it), and fried that in the skillet...I guess that's the best thing I've ever put in my mouth."

Fried fat. Wow.”

“A friend of mine no longer carries any stove on solo trips – just cooks on a small fire. He can do it so quickly. We did this to make soup for lunch and I think it was quicker than breaking out the stove, setting it up, breaking it down and putting it away.

I know a lot of people will say it’s not environmentally sound but you can make do with very little fuel and really leave no trace if you’re careful.

He shared a site with a thru-hiker who thought he was about the lowest form of scum for this practice – as if his fuel of choice didn’t necessitate building roads into wild areas and tearing them up. My friend told him how he really didn’t believe in burning petrochemicals unnecessarily – he lives in a city and walks or bikes a lot. The guy wouldn’t even talk to him and refused the food cooked on wood.”

“oh, yummy, bitpusher! all you'd need is a stick of butter and a glass of liquid bacon grease on the side. part of a complete breakfast!”

“gack!!!”

“all slathered in mayonnaise!!!

:-D”

“I have yet to make biscuits with lard. I understand that lard is the best fat to make biscuits with.
Some people do put a spoonfull or two of bacon grease in their biscuit dough for flavor.

I might have to stop and get some lard today...mmmmmm....laaaarrrrrrdddddd.”

“We've often made humas at home and then put it in a squeeze tube then put it on crackers. Not necessarily light weight but mmmmmm-good. Also the garlic tends to fend off the skeeters.”

“Bit, biscuits, pie crust, croissants, etc. are all better made w/ lard. Flakier.

Also, I have a friend who adores bacon and mayo and cheese. He eats them together as a meal, regularly. He's almost as thin as I am and sprinter for a college track team. He often says, "Mmmmmmm, Baaaaaacon."”

“Mmmm....flakier...goes with my personality....”

“From Pulp Fiction

"Yeah, but bacon tastest good, porkchops taste good"
"Sewer Rat could taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know cause I wouldn't eat the filty MF"”

“So, anyway, Bit, back to the "whang" thing?”

“Pop-tarts whang my blood sugar. They make it go really high, then it plunges really low because of all the extra insulin my body made to take care of the sugar rush from the Pop-tart.


I could have done so much more with this...”

“NG - That's a Southern thing. When something tastes funny, it has a whang to it. I haven't heard it in the context bit used it.”

“I am inventing terminology again.

I am good at it.”

“The South . . . the more I try to get it, the more mysterious it becomes.

Anyway, I like the term and I am going to try to use as much as possible for the next couple days.”

“At least you spelled it correctly, ng. Just picture your hometown, 90* and 80% humidity year round and everything moves and talks sloooow, with a banjo on my knee.”

“LOL! I shouldn't talk really. You guys should check out smalltown, eastern MT. Skeery.”

“So, now that we have destroyed TD's thread . . .”

“that's no joke. i stopped off in some weird places in montana. in missoula I ate in what looked like a diner. they had brains on the menu. brains and eggs, brains and this, brains and that. I've never even seen that in ny. there was some guy reading off numbers to what appeared to be some type of bingo-like game and he was in a cage. in the back were one armed bandits and a stage for what appeared to be for strippers.(it was morning when I was there). you gotta love it when you are driving and you see signs that say "otisville - pop. 4" and you see one house. don't get me wrong i love stuff like that and montana was beautiful.”

“Missoula is western MT, wolfman's bro. Eastern MT is entirely different and much, much more scary. NYC, is so, so far removed, so, so different from out here. It is not even the same country. We're talking prairie, drought, no real speed limit, gigantic pick-ups that can haul 2 tons of hay on a goose neck trailer, people who teach their very young children to shoot for fun, businesses that have signs that read "This business supported by BEEF dollars," people that live so far out in the country that their kids have to drive old farm trucks (yes, kids, 7 or 8 yrs. old)to the main road to catch the school bus & then ride for 2 hrs. to get to school, etc.

BTW, I'm not kidding about the kids driving. I used to nanny some kids and the 7 yr. old son drove a pick-up to the bus stop every school day. He drove well. I would have go on a highway trip w/ him.”

“When my mom was nine, she helped out on her family's farm by DRIVING THE TRACTOR. AT NINE.

Sheesh. I worry about my kids putting on a pair of roller skates.”

“Violin - given the extreme drought over most of the country right now, I'd hesitate to do a fire at all. Even using a stove we need to be extra careful to put it on rocks or sand.

I started out backpacking using fires, then discovered how nice it is to be able to cook in bed, in all weathers, and in 5 minutes -- none of which is possible with a fire.

As to stoveless hiking - as some have said, some 'cold' foods are heavier (i.e. nuts) - and some can do a number on your stomach (nuts and sausage and dried fruit.) However, if you know you tolerate that kind of food, why not? You may get bored of peanut butter for lunch and cheese for dinner - but not much more than I get with my oatmeal and liptons.

I'd go cold more often, except I can't live without my coffee and hot chocolate. Viva caffeine!”

“get yourself an ounce of cocaine...and you won't be needing any food.

My other suggestion is to loose some body weight and take as much food as you want.

It is not necessarily a smart idea not to take food with you...unless you have aero with you to save your sorry a$$ when you get sick and die.

and you better not be doing that...oh leader of the TC2 trip.

Be safe...not sorry...none of us want to hear or read a trip report that involves you traveling to the morgue or hospital...hiking is supposed to be fun...why torture yourself? Its not like we're getting paid or anything like that.”

“How about watermelon?”

“Try some of the Gel type fuel products like "Goo" and CytoMax I think is the name. Climbers doing multi-day climbs use them as well as Tri-Atheletes, and endurance racers.”

“Although I am an admitted cannibal, I just can't stomach the fingers. Who knows where they have been?”

“didjfan, I used to have a product called "fire ribbon". don't know if they make it any more...you could light wet wood with it.”

“1 cup butter, softened”

“are those butter-flavored powerbars?”

“homemade power bars

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
9 1/2 cups rolled oats, finely ground
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 apple, chopped

cream butter, sugar, syrup, honey and vanilla together in x-large bowl. slowly stir in cinnamon, oats, almonds and apple. press mixture firmly into 9x13 baking pan. bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes (don't overbake or it will crumble). press again after baking. cut into squares/rectangles immediately. let it cool completely in the pan. no need to refrigerate.”

“If it was me:

Homemade oatmeal cookies with lots of nuts and raisens--these are for breakfast. Bacon is good with this.

Tea bags to make sun tea--breakfast

Wasa bread with cream cheese and pre cooked bacon.

Big scoop Fritos with orange cheese or summer sausage

Candy--something that does not melt

Peanuts

Dried peaches

Crystal light lemonade”

“I'm afraid I have to agree with Gear Slut on this one. The fingers and the liver are physiological toxic waste dumps. Avoid them at all costs.


pita bread
foil-pack chicken
Arby's horsey sauce packets

mmmmmmmmm...”

“Ya, oatmeal cookies are great for breakfast. Did that one trip myself.
Tuna in those new foil envelopes are also good.
Check out some stories on Big Wall climbers. May find some ideas there.”

“heh.. well u guyz know me.. I was considering taking a bucket of KFC and just eating that for three days.. :)”

“You're not thinking. For a low carrying charge I could haul some of your victuals (vittles)to Ice Water Spring Shelter from Newfound Gap.”