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View Full Version : no stove ,fule,or pot.



mweinstone
06-03-2006, 23:15
bone pac left springer as i did in feb. hes in vt now. he uses no stove. cooks no food. has a nice lite pack. eats alot of pbj's,on bagles. im thinking about his success alot. can a thru hike be as good with all cold food? he doesnt even carry a pot. what do you think.

Frolicking Dinosaurs
06-04-2006, 00:00
HYOH - it isn't for me, but if it is working for him -- that's great.

C_Brice
06-04-2006, 00:13
I use a Nomad wood stove (15 oz, 18 ga.) and a stainless 2 qt. kitchen pot (8 oz., handle still attached, pie plate lid) for my cook kit. And that would be considered way too heavy by some on hear. All foods I take are dehydrated like Lipton noodles, ramen noodles, beef jerky, rice, oatmeal, etc. To eat cold, most of the foods you are going to carry/eat will contain water and weigh a lot more than the weight of my cook set.

My guess is it's not weight/pack size he is saving, It's TIME. He never has to boil water for coffee or tea, never has to cook a meal, never has to clean a pot. I'm betting that he is walking 10 minutes after he wakes up and walks till it's almost dark. He sets up camp, eats in 5 min and goes to sleep. A person can cover a lot of ground without the down time it takes to prep and eat a warm meal.

To each his own, but that doesn't sound like much fun to me. Down time can be more fun than eating up loads of miles. Have to stop and smell the flowers sometime.

CB

bigcranky
06-04-2006, 00:24
We were doing a family section hike, Fontana to Unicoi, in June a couple of years ago. It was hot. Really hot. We had Liptons dinners and just hated eating them, hated cooking hot food, hated having to force down dinner because we needed the calories. In Franklin, I had the bright idea of buying all cold food -- send home the stove, the 2-liter pot, the fuel, and all our pre-made meals.

The good news: we ate pretty well. Lunches didn't change much, but for dinner we had sliced turkey and cream cheese wrapped in tortillas, and hard sausage and cheese with crackers, that sort of thing. Much tastier than cooking dried stuff with powdered stuff on top.

The bad news: the cold food that we bought was a LOT heavier than the usual dried/dehydrated backpacking food. Even with the weight we saved leaving the kitchen kit, we still had very heavy packs climbing up Albert Mtn southbound.

The really bad news: as soon as we left Franklin, the weather got cool again. Not a big deal as far as those cold dinners were concerned, but my wife in particular missed her hot coffee on those chilly mornings.

So sure, it's possible to eat cold food in moderate weather and survive, and even eat well. I sure wouldn't want to do it in March in Georgia, where I need hot food to keep the furnace stoked (and my hot coffee to get going in the morning). Try it for a long weekend and see what you think.

MedicineMan
06-04-2006, 00:51
in setting up my space for the night, cooking a meal, and trying to become more creative in what i eat on the trail...kinda like beating the system (the freezerbagcooking thing fascinates me)......I also enjoy being in the camp area well before dark so I can look around, smell the smells, and relax in the hammock reading before i fall asleep...i've walked from sunup to sundown many times but that is not why i hike the AT anymore.
C.Brice is probably right in the time saved versus weight carried...

Smile
06-04-2006, 05:11
I ate raw food this year on my hike until the last day or so. It was not easy, and the raw food bars I carried along with nuts and dried fruits were heavy. I felt great though, and had lots of energy! I carried an Anti Gravity Gear pepsican stove and a few ounces of fuel for an emergency, along with a small titanium mug.

It can be done, hiking raw is healthy, and the weight loss is much less significant if done properly. Doug Walsh hiked the CDT raw a few years ago along with a guy who ate conventional food.....guess which one had the least weight fluxuation and the most energy?

Definately a challenge! When I got into town that was the hardest......going to the AYCE place in town at Mtn. Crossings and eating lettuce etc. while everybody else was slurping yummy hot gravy smothered meat and potatoes was a very tough hour ;-)

Mouse
06-04-2006, 09:22
I ditched everything but my spoon for the middle three months of my thruhike. Eating without cooking is pretty easy. I found ramen and tortelini are both easy to eat right from the package as is foil pouch tuna.

I also got in the habit of buying a pound of so of roast beef, pastrami, liverwurst or some other ready to eat meat when leaving town to eat the first day, extending my in-town protein binge an extra day.

Then peanut butter and any number of fresh foods and snack products work well.

the goat
06-04-2006, 11:26
i ditched my stove a month into my '01 thru, haven't carried one since. and yes, i still enjoy the hell out of the woods, stove or no stove.

Grampie
06-04-2006, 11:43
You can cook or not, it's up to the indivigual. I think a lot of folks put too much thought into trying to go light, thinking that this is what will get them to Katahdin. In the process they are eliminating a lot of creature comforts that will go a long way to make their hike more enjoyable.
I found it was always nice to be able to cook a warm meal for dinner. It would give me something to look forward to after a long day. I would also heat water for oatmeal and coffee in the AM, when the weather was cool. That would kind of get me off to a good start. I could never see eating cold uncooked noodles, after hiking all day.
I just hiked a 80 mile section into Demaskas, for Trail Days. The weather was very damp and quite cool. I was hiking with two other friends who also thru-hiked with me in "01". After getting into a shelter before them I boiled up some water, through in some instant chicken soup and had it ready, to their suprise, when they arrived. It was the feeling of a nice hot drink that made that day for them.
Don't leave all the creature comforts behind. It's a long, long trip. Try to enjoy it.:sun

weary
06-04-2006, 12:49
Primitive humans began to enjoy the pleasures of cooking at least 50,000 years ago. Being primitive, I continue the enjoyment. I get a lot of fun out of making interesting, cheap, and reasonably light weight meals on the trails -- and interesting cheap meals at home.

But a stove isn't really necessary on the trail. For years I just built a small fire. Then in a moment of weakness I bought a Svea, then a Whisperlight, and finally a Zip woodburning stove -- battery-powered primitive!

Weary