What are some of the highest calorie trail foods? I know about sunflower seeds, snickers bars, olive oil, peanut butter, corn nuts or fritos, powdered whole milk, shredded coconut,etc. I’m thinking in terms of non-cook and likely to be found in a small grocery store.
bowlegs
I went no-cook half way through 2008. So I have eaten somewhere in the neighborhood of 50+ no cook meals dinners
I generally shipped a lot of stuff to myself. Dinners are inherently low calorie, no matter how you make them. I added stuff like sunflower seeds, chips, and olive oil (I see that in your list) to my couscous or refried beans. That bumped up the calorie content. Couscous and dehydrated beans are available in most small stores and though not over 100 calories per oz, I found they did give me some pretty good energy. Going cold, I would hydrate some couscous or rice and beans int he morning, and eat it for lunch, the carbo load got me running’ trough the potentially hotter part of the day. Then some higher fat stuff in the evening, nuts. I make some sacrifices, eating dinners and dried fruit. They are lower calorie but dinners give me energy, and fruit has fiber and is tasty, especially if sugar intake is low. Of course I did bring an apple to Forester Pass and an Orange to Muir Pass… hmm
I try to stay away from sugar as processed 4 calorie per gram white sugar doesn’t do anything for me. I had high % dark chocolate and nuts instead of snickers. I like being able to control the amount of sugar, salt I intake instead of it already being in my food. And I like to get my carbs from grains instead of sugar.
I eat my peanut butter on tortillas or crackers. Tortillas are admittedly heavy, but right near 100 c/oz Crackers with seeds on them can be a little more dense.
list of my favorite high calorie trail food:
shredded unsweetened coconut 3000+c/lb
unsweetened peanut butter ~2900c/lb
nuts, a variety from raw to heavily salted, higher salt for higher temperatures… 2700-3000c/lb
dry edemame (high protein)
wasabi peas
corn chips 2400+c/lb
dense chocolate, at least 85% sometimes even baking chocolate.
Just look at packages and calculate
Anything over 120c/oz is good 150c/oz is outstanding.
San Gabe
150! 150 no cook meals. Probably more.
my list looks a little funky, sorry it was nicely outlined with returns and spaces, dunno what happened.
San Gabe
Outside Magazine did an article on the top ten energy trail foods last year. Four of the ten combinations of food included pretzels. Last year on the AT I would buy Sourdough hard pretzels with salt. I found that pretzels are like rocket fuel on the trail. I munched on them all day and before dinner which was cold food. Salt helped replace sodium lost from all the sweating during the summer. I found eating pretzels without salt caused more leg cramps to occur.
NedtheFed
I eat pretzels like crazy at home but never think of them as high calorie. The bag in front of me is barely 100 calories per ounce. Tons of carbs and salt though. I’ve heard of hikers carrying bottles of ranch dressing for chugging. On the AZT I ate lots of “made in Mexico” tortillas (made with lard) smeared with PB. Wasabi edeamame sounds good.
bowlegs
Macademia nuts and coconut. If you can find it, macadmia nut butter.
My (now) wife sent me a care package from Hawaii on my thru, and reading the packaging i was impressed that the macademia nut carmel corn weighed in at 190 calories per ounce. Someone on PCT-L once posted that if you filled a bear can with nothing but macademia nut butter, you could eat for a month and keep your calorie intake sufficient.
markv
Probably not to everyone’s taste but you can slather a loaf of bread with a half pint of sour cream and a stick of butter, compress it into a ziplock and eat it out of the bag with a spoon.
Amoeba
All of the above sounds good, calorie to ounce ratio of 100-150 sounds like a good target.
I want to hear from people who have hiked the PCT previously that bought food along the way resupplying with what they could find in trail towns and convenience stores. I’m have no major food preferences and love to eat pretty much what ever is in front of me, it’s all good! I do have beer preferences however :cheers
Brett
I do as few mail drops as possible, and I’m also stoveless. I hiked the AT with zero food drops. I hiked the PNT last year with only one, at Ross Lake. The PCT was my first long hike and I hadn’t learned enough yet to do it without drops.
In addition to what’s been mentioned above, I like to make my own muesli from oats, nuts, raisins, and powdered milk if I can find it. I’ll have three cups or more a day, mixed with cold water, at any time throughout the day. I also cannot eat processed sugar and need to eat lots of complex carbs, preferably whole grain, and the oats work perfectly for me. Some can’t handle that much fiber. Depending on quantity of nuts, calories per ounce is probably about 120. I’m going to start adding coconut thanks to San Gabe and that’ll bring the count up more.
If it’s not too hot, I’ll bring cheese. If it is hot, cheese for a day or two then peanut butter. Tortillas are the vehicle of choice for my fat, because I’ve found they’ll pack for up to a week and the fat in them keeps them from going too stale. You can buy tortillas almost everywhere.
I get salt from Wheat Thins, my favorite cracker. Expensive, though. Fig Newtons, also expensive, is a favorite, too. I carry extra salted cashews and extra raisins for snacks.
Once I had to hike for a couple of days on hotdog buns and peanut butter from a C-store. You never know what your food bag is going to look like when you leave town, and that can be fun.
Garlic
I did the math like Markv said. You could get almost 17 pounds of regular peanut butter into my bear cannister. That’s close to 50,000 calories. No way I’m gonna do it.
Admit it, we’ve all eaten an uncooked “Ramen Ration” at one time or another. 340Calories IIRR.
bowlegs
I’m a huge fan of chips. Especially plain (salted) lays potato chips. For awhile there I would carry a 2 pound block of sharp cheddar and a bag of lays. My snack would be taking a big bite from the block of cheese and then simultaneously a mouthful of chips and chew them together. For some reason the taste was amazing.
My dinners are usually around 500 calories, except in the sierra when I splurge and get the expensive stuff (dried tortellini, at 800 calories per meal, with cream cheese and a pesto packet with olive oil, for a total of something like 1400 calories). I’ll eat almost any rice side. Advanced trail cooking lets you realize that ramen noodles and plain rice are an excellent canvas to paint a culinary masterpiece on. If you know anything about how to make a sauce, you can just add rice to it to make a dinner. I recommend a garlic, olive oil, peanut butter, milk (dry, rehydrated) sauce! Tastes pretty good on ramen.
Lately I’ve also come to recognize the superiority of protein. My breakfasts and lunches have become a protein shake (protein powder, dry milk–preferably whole but skim if that’s all I’ve got, nesquick powder mixed in a ziplock and then added to water for a meal). You can also pick up protein powder simply to add to your various meals. A lipton rice side with a couple spoons of protein powder is much more satisfying, at least to me. Try and get the protein powder that is just protein, not flavored or sweetened. I like the MLO “super high protein powder” – you can always add chocolate milk powder or raw sugar or something to it if you don’t like the taste, but then it gives you control over the flavor so you can add it to dinners.
As for what’s available at small groceries and convenience-type stores on the PCT, I’d push hard on the chips and almonds and such. Remember to think outside the box – if it can sit in your cupboard at home then it can sit in your backpack usually. At least for 2 or 3 days. Avocados, pasta sauce (hydrated and heavy, sure, but delicious), frozen burritos, etc. etc. And canned food can always be repackaged into a ziplock. It’s worth it for some things (refried beans) that you can’t easily find dried. Avocados are actually pretty good calories per ounce for produce, too. Something like 60 calories per ounce? Cold pizza too, mmm.
The smart hikers hike fast so you can get further before you have to eat conventional backpacking food. If you can do 35s you can get between most towns on the PCT before produce will spoil!
Joker
I found out my fuel food on the trail was burritos. Whenever I had one of those burritos from a convenience store, I would then hike like a bat out of hell (for me). So I started making burritos on the trail. I would buy some tortillas, canned cheese, a big can of bean dip, and some salsa (minimus.biz) packets. Put it together for lunch and off to the races. Sounds heavy, but I could make at least three lunches with it before it was gone, so very economical too.
Robocop
I hiked the entire PCT in 2005. Every night for dinner, I ate two or three cold-prep burritos (or pitas/hogies/bagels/sandwiches). In town grocery stores, I would buy a new flavor package of tortillas (or pitas/sandwich rolls/etc.), a new flavor tub of hummus (or salsa/guacamole/tahini/etc. Sometimes I'd cook lentils, pasta or couscous in town and bring them along instead), a new diceable vegetable, a new flavor block of cheese, and several new packets of cooked meat (tuna, salmon, shrimp, clams, crab, turkey, chicken, beef, cold cuts, etc.). All four main ingredients would go into the tortilla. After that I would eat a ton of movie theater style candy.
All in all, the meals were tasty, never repetative, and gave me great energy with minimal prep work and nothing to clean except a spork and a pocket knife. They were also heavy in water weight (the hummus and veggies), but if you planned your meals wisely, then your pack would be pretty light coming back into town. Also in town, you would be craving hot meals (not Subway as much) like crazy!
I'm going to try a thruhike on the CDT in 2011, and I'll use the same cold cook burrito menu for sure.
space monkey
I’ve been reading the labels on all my kitchen food at home for mega-calorie champs. The current winner is sesame seed oil topping in at 263 calories per ounce, weight not volume. It’s expensive compared to olive oil which is in second place at 250 calories per ounce, again weight not volume. Sesame seeds would probably be a good choice for adding to muesli or trail mix.
bowlegs
It’s great to have something different for each meal… but on trail you are so hungry for calories that I often had the same dinner for weeks & the same lunch for weeks & etc,brkfst several different things at each meal of course… don’t do what I did one bike trip when I was dead broke in college times & cook up one kind of gorpy cake for every meal!!! Eat ur fave foods, but eat healthy as much as possible!
gingerbreadman