Packing tips

[Cgconrad]

Hello all. Im doing a 5-6 night AT section hike in a few weeks. Im curious on how everyone usually packs their food, once they have divided it up/sorted it into ziplocks. Sort it out by day? meal? or toss it all in one bag? Thanks for the input.

[Rasty]

I usually sort by meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, beverage) instead of by day. Less hassle if you change your mind about eating dinner #3 on your 2nd day.

[geomaniac]

I usually sort my in the order in which I plan on using them..so mine would be in my food bag from top to bottom..breakfast, lunch, dinner..snacks in a bag on top of all of them.

[Cgconrad]

Thanks for the responses! I think im going to divide it up by B/L/D. Seems like it would be easier in the long run.

[flemdawg1]

By individual meals for suppers (meat can, noodle pouch, seasoning), by ingredients for other things (all the oatmeal packs in a bag, coffee ina bag, drink mixes in a bag, all the snickers iab, cheese....)

[Last Call]

I usually just throw it all in 1 bag & eat the heaviest stuff first.

[russb]

I sort by day.

[Rocket Jones]

Mine all goes in one bag and I figure out what I want to eat as I go along.

[off-pher]

I put all dri suff in one bag.
put cheese fresh meat next to
water bladder snacks for the day go in
one cargo pocket every thing else in one bag

[max patch]

Sort??????

[johnnybgood]

Mine all goes in one bag and I figure out what I want to eat as I go along.

This is also what I do. I must admit sometimes l do wish for more organization .

[Cgconrad]

Yeah ive been trying to stay more organized this time around.

[garlic08]

The concept of breakfast, lunch and dinner becomes lost for me on hiking trips. I throw everything into bulk bags and dip into them when I'm hungry. I keep rough track of how much I've eaten vs. how much I've hiked to my next resupply.

[BirdBrain]

No sorting here. I can tell the difference between breakfast, gorp, snacks, and supper. I write what is in the bag on the bag with a sharpie. The pop-tarts go on top. My food bag is air tight. By leaving a small amount of air in the bag, the pop-tarts are safe from being crushed.

[MuddyWaters]

Type A personalities maybe ?
Do you sort your food at home, and organize it by meal or by day?
Why would you bother on the trail?
Not enough time, too big a rush to figure out what to eat when the moment comes?

[Rasty]

Type A personalities maybe ?
Do you sort your food at home, and organize it by meal or by day?
Why would you bother on the trail?
Not enough time, too big a rush to figure out what to eat when the moment comes?

Some of us like things to be in order. I also like to count and sort items by color. One just doesn't eat M&M's randomly.

[A.T.Lt]

Some of us like things to be in order. I also like to count and sort items by color. One just doesn't eat M&M's randomly.
Haaa!! And I thought I was OCD!

[Drybones]

For a 5-6 day hike if no re-supply is involved I'd probably separate by day in gallon ziplocks. For multi-week hikes I use three dry bags, one for each meal, makes it easier to find what I want and makes the pack more even.

[tiptoe]

I sort by meal type (breakfast, lunch, snacks, supper, beverages), using plastic bags of different colors from my vast collection, then label the bags with a marker. That way I can choose what I want each day and also have a good idea how much food is left. I also usually bring food for an extra day, just in case.

[RodentWhisperer]

I usually just throw it all in 1 bag & eat the heaviest stuff first.

+1 on Last Call, with a slight twist. I cook via the freezer-bag method, and pack my breakfasts and suppers into separate Ziplocs. Lunches usually consist of homemade trail mix, supplemented with beef sticks and coconut butter in individual packets. I drop the beef sticks and coconut butter, still in their packets, into the large Ziploc into which I've put the trail mix.

When it's mealtime, I just grab whichever Ziploc is on top of the pile!

[BirdBrain]

...................................

[RodentWhisperer]

Understood. Packing the food as I do always makes me feel... a little too organized. But I still do it. My rationalization is that it gives my food another layer of odor protection in bear country. :-)

[BirdBrain]

................................

[RodentWhisperer]

It does seem we're on the same page...

[Cgconrad]

+1 on Last Call, with a slight twist. I cook via the freezer-bag method, and pack my breakfasts and suppers into separate Ziplocs. Lunches usually consist of homemade trail mix, supplemented with beef sticks and coconut butter in individual packets. I drop the beef sticks and coconut butter, still in their packets, into the large Ziploc into which I've put the trail mix.

When it's mealtime, I just grab whichever Ziploc is on top of the pile!

Yeah, I think im going to FB cook this go around too. Seems to be up my ally.

[Kerosene]

If I didn't try to re-supply a few times during my 7-10 day section hikes then I'd probably just dump everything into my food bag. As it is, my dining room table is a mess for a week as I carefully ration everything out by day, and then put re-supply bags into new piles for mailing. Food is my heaviest item, at about 1.7 pounds/day on average. Saving a day with an early (but easy) re-supply is worth reducing my pack weight by a re-supply.

[Chef Glenn]

I pack three meals (b,l,d), 4 - 5 single serving snacks (nuts, gorp, dried fruit, sweet potato bark, etc), 1 veggie side to go with dinner, and 1 dessert all in their own ziploc bags and then I vacuum seal the whole day's rations in one bag. Vacuum sealing scrunches the food, saving space. I stack the vacuum sealed daily rations in the food bag with the pot/stove at the top of the bag. In the morning, I open a fresh bag, cook breakfast, move the snacks to shirt/pants pockets, and leave the lunch and dinner in the food bag. When I pick up a mail drop, I don't have to do any sorting with the daily rations already packed and vacuum sealed.

[FarmerChef]

I pack three meals (b,l,d), 4 - 5 single serving snacks (nuts, gorp, dried fruit, sweet potato bark, etc), 1 veggie side to go with dinner, and 1 dessert all in their own ziploc bags and then I vacuum seal the whole day's rations in one bag. Vacuum sealing scrunches the food, saving space. I stack the vacuum sealed daily rations in the food bag with the pot/stove at the top of the bag. In the morning, I open a fresh bag, cook breakfast, move the snacks to shirt/pants pockets, and leave the lunch and dinner in the food bag. When I pick up a mail drop, I don't have to do any sorting with the daily rations already packed and vacuum sealed.

OMG. It's Chef Glenn and his first post. Welcome to Whiteblaze! :welcome

It was your site I used to design many of the meals I take when hiking and because of it that I got my trail name (FarmerChef).

As for the OP's original question:

I pack for 5 at a time so this necessitates a modified approach.

Breakfast gets packed on a per day ration in a gallon freezer bag (i.e. pop tarts, oatmeal packets, etc.) and labeled for that day.
Lunch is packed in it's own gallon bag if possible. For instance, bagel things for 5 don't really pack well in the gallon bag. They go in separately.
Dinner is measured and packed in successively larger bags by recipe until the final bag is a gallon freezer bag with dinner and dessert.
Snacks are bulk packed and the day's ration is taken out and distributed among hikers each morning (gorp, granola, etc.).

For instance, if dinner is Chili Macs. One bag has all the items which need to go in to rehydrate first (ground beef, dried beans, herbs that I want to soak into the beef) (quart bag). The next bag has the macaroni which I only want to cook until done (sandwich bag). The last bag has the tomato powder, sour cream powder, cheese powder and other seasonings (snack size bag). Dessert could be Hot Mudd which has two chocolate pudding packs, a snack size bag of NIDO, a snack size bag of Teddy Grahams and a sandwich bag of crushed oreo cookies. Dinner gets packed up inside a quart bag (the one containing the "rehydrate first" stuff) and dessert gets packed up in a quart bag (the one holding the pudding packs). These both get placed inside a gallon freezer bag.

Why the progressively larger bags? Well, if an item explodes in a bag (say seasonings - it has happened) it is contained within the next most appropriate place for it. Plus, the gallon ziplocs are good for multiple uses on the trail and keep me from sifting through multiple quart bags in my pack. 5 days of 3 meals plus snacks for 5 people is a lot of food. We've even gone to placing the smaller packs inside a larger grocery bag so we can more quickly remove it from our pack. The bag is ultralight (though it does tear easily) and we can use it for dog poo if necessary. We bring extra bags for redistributing resupplies at the grocery store. Thankfully, much of that comes already prepacked (lipton sides, tuna pouches, peanut butter tubs, etc.).

[Chef Glenn]

Thanks for the welcome FarmerChef. Great insight into packing for a group.

I have found a second use for vacuum seal bags. I cut mine 12" x 11" for daily rations. Because the bags have a special lining which makes them stronger, you can poke two holes at the open top near the edges through which you can run a hiking pole or stick. The bag makes a fast water collection device in certain circumstances and can be used as a camp water supply. Think of all those times when you stand there pumping water at the creek or spring at dusk with the mosquitoes making a meal of you. It hangs nicely with cord attached dead center on the pole and then over a low hanging branch or you could rig it up to the end of a picnic table with another pole or stick. Water can then be pumped and filtered from the bag. Capacity is about 3 liters of water before the bag gets too heavy for the holes. Great for sponge baths also.