Resupply buckets

One of the biggest challenges with hiking long distances is fitting all of your food in your pack with you. Thankfully there are a few places to resupply on the JMT so I do not have to carry 23 days of food with me. There are about 4 good resupply stops that I will visit. The first 3 are all within the first 13 days, so I will only need to carry 7 days worth of food at a time. No biggy. The challenge comes at stop #4, Muir Trail Ranch, when I have to carry 11 days worth of food. This is the last resupply station before the summit of Mt. Whitney and the end of the hike. 

So, why is carrying food a big deal? Because it can get heavy! Generally, they say to carry 1.5-2lbs of food per day. So,

If you do the math, that equals between 16.5-22lbs of extra weight on day 14. Wow! My 11 day resupply weighs in at about 11lbs, so I'm a little under that. Not a problem, as much of my food is dehydrated and calorie dense. 

Here is what my resupply for MTR looks like: 11 days of dinners, lunches, breakfasts and snacks. Also some toiletries. 

For breakfast I will start out with a Zone bar (yogurt covered cereal and fruit bars that are about 200calories) and a breakfast pack (nuts and fruit by Emerald at about 200 calories each). On a few days I will have eggs, mashed potatoes and spam. Lunches consist of 300calorie Probars and some sort of tuna or meat on tortillas for my high mileage days. My low mileage days will be meat and tortilla wraps or meat and cheese sticks. Dinners will be cooked. These are various kinds of Knorr noodle and rice packs with a tuna packet, pepperoni, or chicken. My favorite so far is BBQ chicken rice with Tyson chunked chicken and a packet of ranch dipping sauce (from a fast food restaurant, such as McDonald's.) 

Of course I will have snacks as well: Cliff bars, Mojo Bars, nut packs, Jolly ranchers, gum, Girl Scout cookies and Snyders honey mustard and onion pretzels. 

My daily calorie intake should look somewhat like this:

Breakfast = 400-500cal

Lunch = 500-600cal (or less for low mileage days)

Dinner = 500-600cal

Snacks = 500cal+

Total = between 3,000-3,500 calories. 

Seems like a lot right? Well, a normal daily diet for my age and activity level requires about 2,000 calories. Now, add to that the high level of calorie burn I will experience with hiking, which is between 1,500cal - 2,500cal per day and you're looking at a daily need of 3,500 - 4,500. It's totally fine that I'll be under on some days, because let's be real... I could stand to lose about 15-20lbs. 

As you can see, planning for a hike like this requires careful thought... And math! It's quite interesting and fun to research and plan out your meals. I had hoped for some more unique meals by using a dehydrater, but I never got to that. Maybe next time!