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Thread: Food question

  1. #1
    Melt-N-Metal GeneralLee10's Avatar
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    Default Food question

    Have any of you that did a thru or a long distance hike on the AT ever miss plan your food and run out? If so did you beg for food or just man up and hike out? How many days were you off on your calculations was it 1,2,3 days that you were out of food?
    I don't know

  2. #2

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    When you're on the trail, generally it becomes fairly obvious after a couple of days whether you'll be running low on food in a section or not. So you eat less (count cookies) or take a side road into town, or hike more miles to get into town earlier. After the Smokies I remember deciding to do two big days rather than three shorter ones because I knew I was running low on snack food. It isn't that difficult to adjust your mileage to make it into town sooner.

    I generally overestimate how long a section will take. i.e. on the AT I would assume 13 miles a day and then hike it in 15+ mpd. So generally I end up carrying more food than I actually need. We will eat all the snacks and cookies, but sometimes I'll come into town with an extra dinner, or we'll treat ourselves to double dinner. On occasion I've given that extra meal to somebody who was running low. Usually it just becomes part of my next week's food supply.

    The only time I've been seriously likely to run out of food was during a blizzard in Colorado. It happened the day before we were supposed to go to town, so we didn't have a lot of extra food. We ended up tentbound, waiting out the storm. The next day we woke up and it was still snowing above us, so we turned around and bailed at a side road.

    After reading a lot of CDT journals where people did run out of food because they underestimated the difficulty of the trail, I have finally decided that it isn't that big a deal to miss a meal or two. So I don't generally carry extra food - but I'm also pretty good at planning mileage.

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    I haven't thru-hiked but I rare out on a winter hike after getting snowed in and making a wrong right turn. I had no choice but to man up and hike out on an empty stomach. It was only the last day, no breakfast and 8 hours on an empty stomach. I wasn't all that hungry, but it was harder and slower going and colder than it would have been otherwise. Fortunately, I had enough clothing for a slow trudge, and it didn't g

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    oops

    ... and it didn't get colder than say 15-20F.

  5. #5

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    I usually plan to have one emergency dinner left over when I reach my next resupply, as well as extra olive oil and some snacks. On the AT in Georgia, I was running low on food after 5 days and 30 some miles of marching through snow, and still 3 days from my next planned resupply. However, I was able to hitch into a town to resupply. If you don't plan on stopping at every possible resupply point, the other places will still be there if you need them, regardless of how inconvenient they may be.

    But the biggest problem isn't snow, as you can usually travel through it, just more slowly. You need to watch out for excessive rain or sudden snowmelt that can makes fords impassable and cover low water bridges. So bring a map, just in case, and if it's a questionable crossing, pack a couple extra days worth of food. Whatever you do, don't count on obtaining food from anyone else; if the weather is bad everyone will be low on food.

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    Ditto the above. Running out of food generally does not mean a survival situation. It's not fun at all, but you learn something. Very few people who take off on a long hike have ever gone to bed hungry (or thirsty, or encrusted with filth) in their lives, and it's quite a lesson when you do.
    "Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning

  7. #7

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    You can survive for:

    3 mins without air
    3 hours without shelter
    3 days without water
    3 weeks without food

    Yet plenty of people carry extra food, but not a space blanket.
    Love people and use things; never the reverse.

    Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.

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    I like to bring an extra 500ml tub of honey. I use a little in my tea, but if I do run out of food, it is easy to ration the honey while drinking bark tea, and what I don't use I just pop back on the shelf. It is also very compact. Olive oil has more calories for the weight, and is also good to carry, but I already have fat on me. The honey acts like kindling. My body fat is the primary fuel. In winter though, I would bring some extra fat also, as it is helpful for starting fires, and helps you generate more body heat when its very cold. Again, olive oil is handy because what you don't use you just pop back on the shelf.

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    "You can survive for:
    3 mins without air
    3 hours without shelter
    3 days without water
    3 weeks without food
    "
    This formula is familiar, but one certainly cannot walk significant distances for three weeks without food --- hiking all day burns a lot of calories, and when the metabolism is already cranked up to thru-hiker levels, it's even easier to "run out of gas" --- much sooner than three weeks. My couple of experiences at walking into a trail town hungry on the PCT made me a bit more careful to not repeat the experience.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by BrianLe View Post
    This formula is familiar, but one certainly cannot walk significant distances for three weeks without food --- hiking all day burns a lot of calories, and when the metabolism is already cranked up to thru-hiker levels, it's even easier to "run out of gas" --- much sooner than three weeks. My couple of experiences at walking into a trail town hungry on the PCT made me a bit more careful to not repeat the experience.
    A hiker could not maintain their pace for 21 days without food. But about the furthest distance between resupply points is about 5 days, which means you are really never more than about 2.5 days from a food source. And if you are stuck in a shelter for three days because of a storm you aren't burning nearly as many calories as you would on a 20 mile hiking day.

    Personally I would bury in my back something like this....

    http://www.campingsurvival.com/ma36caemfora.html

    tastes like crap, so you only eat it if you are really really hungry and has a high calorie to weight ratio.

    While it is pretty easy to get hungry on the trail (maybe not even possible to avoid that) it would be almost impossible to starve to death on the AT. You would be more likely to die of dehydration or exposure. In the winter lack of food could contribute to hypothemia, but most hikers don't hike it then.
    Love people and use things; never the reverse.

    Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.

  11. #11

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    After a few days(maybe 2 wks) on a thru-hike one starts getting a very good feel for how much food they need each day and how much food necessary between resupply pts. Despite some sections of the AT being more remote than others or the AT being characterized as a wilderness trail(perhaps the AT is correctly labeled wilderness for its highly populated east coast location) a thru-hiker is generally never more than 100 miles from a large eastern city, and most often within 50 miles, w/ ample places to find food at a large grocery store. Most often on the AT you will have opps to purchase food no more than 4 days spaced apart. - Maybe, not comfortable, but NOT exactly a survival situation either if one was to go 4 days without brought food. HIGHLY UNLIKELY THOUGH! The AT crosses a great many roads where one can get to someplace selling food. When those longer stretches with fewer or no food purchasing options are coming up, like the 100 Mile Wilderness in Maine or GSMNP for example, an AT thru-hiker will be well aware of it and plan accordingly. Even if it did come down to a "survival" situation YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE on the AT during TYPICAL AT thru-hiker season. IMO, and I think I'm absolutely right about this, the AT had more food purchasing opps most consistently encountered near the trail(less than 10 miles)than any other long distant trail I've thru-hiked. The AT may very well be the most well documented and analyzed long trail in the world. YOU WILL BE WELL AWARE OF RESUPPLY OPTIONS IF YOU THRU HIKE THE AT! One would have to be downright ignorant and negligent to run out food for very long on the AT. If a prospective AT thru-hiker should have initial concerns about how and where to resupply look to Jack Tarlin's or WeatherCarrot's Resupply articles here on WB and the AT Companion. Like I said, lots of info on the AT so YOU DON"T HAVE TO run out of food.

  12. #12

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    In the beginning of a long hike, most people discover they've brought along too MUCH food and not too little. This is also true of maildrops with food in them.....most folks discover they've sent themselves extra stuff, as opposed to finding out they haven't sent enough. It takes awhile til you figure out what you'll actually need for a three or four day stretch or whatever.

    Nevertheless, yeah, some day you may discover you've misjudged things....maybe a stretch of trail takes a bit longer than you'd planned, or perhaps bad weather conditions have made you do slower miles. Maybe you're hurt, or slow down to accomodate a slower partner. In any case, there may well be a time when you make fewer miles than you'd planned, and may find yourself short on food.

    Good news is there's always someone with a bit extra who'll help you out, i.e. someone who has an extra dinner, or snacks or whatever. You may not eat great, but it'll keep you together til you get to the next re-supply point.

    Two things: Don't make a regular habit of this, i.e. the third time this happens to you and you start asking people "Hey, anyone got extra food?" people are gonna start wondering about you, and not in a nice way. Self-sufficiency is important out there.

    And if someone bails you out, well make a point of doing them a good turn in town...buy them a beer or surprise them with something. Good deeds should be rewarded; when you receive an unexpected kindness, well pass this along.

    Along these lines, it never hurts to leave town with a little "extra" in the way of food. Better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

  13. #13
    Registered User Tennessee Viking's Avatar
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    Hikers beg for food...lol

    Rarely. But if you do run out of food, you can usually find a hiker box, a trail angel, or a fellow hiker share some food. Then with all the trail events along the trail, food is cheap or lots of time free.

    If all else fails, just call out Baltimore Jack's name. He will cook up some of the best spaghetti.
    ''Tennessee Viking'
    Mountains to Sea Trail Hiker & Maintainer
    Former TEHCC (AT) Maintainer

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    In the 100 mile wilderness I brought enough food for 4 or 5 days. But I was sick the first few days and hardly ate. And it ended up taking me a couple extra days to hike the whole thing.

    Many others that I was hiking with brought way too much food and kept offering it to me so that their pack would lighten up. I took a few things. So it worked out.

    However, I feel like rationing worked just fine for the most part. And if I was really that worried about it, I would have just walked more miles instead of stopping each day after lunch.

  15. #15

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    I ran out of food just before Devil's Tooth...I woke up that morning with one pack of ramen left and tried to eat it for breakfast but one bite made me sick...all I had eaten the previous day was a ramen. I thought I was going to pass out climbing up there...luckily somebody left a grocery bag full of snickers bars at the road crossing and I spent two days at 4 Pines Hostel pigging out at the Home Place and eating ice cream and anything else I could get my hands on.

    After that I made sure I NEVER ran out of food again. I'd usually carry 3 days or more of extra food...reason being I tended to take a lot of zero days on the trail and they were never planned...if I found a cool spot I'd hang out awhile...sometimes two or three days.

  16. #16
    AT NOBO2010 / SOBO2011 Maddog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JustaTouron View Post
    You can survive for:

    3 mins without air
    3 hours without shelter
    3 days without water
    3 weeks without food

    Yet plenty of people carry extra food, but not a space blanket.
    i've got one...for emergencies!
    "You do more hiking with your head than your feet!" Emma "Grandma" Gatewood...HYOY!!!
    http://www.hammockforums.net/?

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    Melt-N-Metal GeneralLee10's Avatar
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    I found this video a while back that is why I started this thread. Watching it made me ask the question about food. I do thank you all for the responses. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMexY...eature=related
    I don't know

  18. #18
    Registered User Jofish's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lndwlkr View Post
    I found this video a while back that is why I started this thread. Watching it made me ask the question about food. I do thank you all for the responses. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMexY...eature=related
    Looks like poor planning more than anything else. And, although it would be uncomfortable, you wouldn't "drop" if you had to hike 40 miles to get food. Would it suck? Big time. As others have noted, modern people (and Americans like myself even more so) are accustomed to eating our fill. But going a day or two without food will not kill you. Even if you're hiking all day.

  19. #19
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    I like having a light pack, but I am willing to carry a little bit extra of certain items "just in case" an emergency happens. Food is one of those "extra" items.

    Bad weather, illness, injury, equipment problems or unexpected trail conditions can happen to anyone of us at any time. Such things can sometimes cause us to be on the trail 1-2 days longer than planned. Thus, I try to carry at least enough extra food to get me through one "emergency day".
    "A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." - Paul Dudley White

  20. #20
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    Seems like I always carry too much food. Maybe because I like to eat while hiking. I typically always carry a hershey bar for quick energy as a first aid item.

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