Sun dried tomatoes

Well, if I had a half brain, I'd have recalled that I could have made something like sun dried tomatoes.
From my freezer, some zip lock baggies with tomato paste dried  in my dehydrator--quite yummy at last taste in August 2013.

Found at the Marketplace, organic dried Mango $12.35/lb.  yum.  And Black Bean mix $5.69/lb--To Olympia Food Co-Op, I say, go study economics, please.  I'm not coming back.

Also in the freezer, so many bags of dried apple!  mmm.

A better way of filling supply boxes

I felt like I took too much time making up the first food box for mailing.  I made some meals and threw in about 50 trailbars and snacks along with a jar of nut butter and had filled it to about 7 pounds.  I had no idea where I was sending this nor whether I should add or remove food.

A better way:

1. Figure out my supply locations and the distance between them
2. Decide how many days I'll need to travel from one to the next.
3. For each day make up a bag with food**, snacks, six sheets of double ply toilet paper, 2-4 ibuprofen tabs (I hope to have many of these to drop in hiker boxes), dental flosser,and weigh each bag until its weight reaches my estimated limit.
4. The nut butter stays in its container.  It's 16 oz may cover 4 to 8 days.
5. 8 oz of oil covers 4-8 days also.
6. New shoes go in at 400 miles.

Great tip from Chris Cookiemonster Pirrello:  USPS has regional flat rate boxes, same service as Priority flat rate, but cheaper by 10% or so.  You have to order boxes online--when online pay attention to the number of boxes you order--you can order one batch of 10 boxes and one batch of 25 boxes in each size.  For me size B worked well for 4-6 days of food (1.3-1.5 lb of food/day).  You must print the labels yourself--no one at the p.o. can help you get the better rates.

**A day's worth of food.
2 oz of rice plus 2 oz of Fantastic Foods refried bean or black bean mix for the mid afternoon meal.
2 oz of potato flakes with 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of salt, onion powder and garlic powder mixture.
trail mix bags.
bags with gummy bear like treats.

Things to buy along the way:

1. sun screen and bug juice.  These things you don't want to mail to yourself b/c if they spill, you might not want to eat your food.
2. maybe tortillas to go with the nut butters, 
3. oil to go with the mid afternoon meal and ease its passage--buy it along the way and leave the rest of the bottle in the hiker box.
4. replacement shoes, if you're wearing sneakers.  Grandma Gates wore sneakers to hike the Appalachian Trail--I am trying to justify boots even as I myself plan to hike in non waterproof trail shoes in southern Cal.
5. Other food for a change.  Of course, you can just trade with other hikers and with the hiker boxes at each outpost.

Northbound

I thought briefly about a southbound trek, but I have my northbound permit.  I'm ready for a desert hike now rather than waiting for another three months to take my chances in the snow, even if this winter's poor snowpack may make for an easier journey.  Add to that the prospect of meeting all the northbounders while going south--one would feel crowded meeting 60-80 hikers going the other way on any given day.  Instead, northbounders may be going as a mass movement with some leapfrogging along the way, but will see mostly familiar faces, which contribute more to the building of community on the trail, even for solo hikers.

Cold Food

My comment on this webpage: https://just2hikers.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/cookless-backpacking-food/
Thanks. I just soaked and ate a cup (water plus mix) of an Idahoan brand potatoes package, flavor:  Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Baby Reds.  It tasted good and I was stuffed!  It'll taste great on the trail!  Bookmarking this page!  More last minute trials to come as I'm leaving for the PCT in two weeks.  Just now packing food!  Just in case I get the miseries and crave my stove, I'll pack it in a box with my shipper, but I think this experiment will go well.

Yay, I may have liberated myself from hot cooking for at least southern Cal.

The future is mine to see.

Food and cooking; boxes to ship

Some thoughts:

From Chris Pirrello, Patagonia Boston, re: alcohol stoves.  Too slow, too scary for southern Cal and doomed for prohibition.  Chris swears by his JetBoil with the heat sinks welded/soldered onto the saucepan bottom.  I saw a similar Primus ETA lite stove at REI sale priced at $70.  I almost bought one, but thought the Snow Peak needed a good workout.  Presently my outfit weighs about 11.5 oz (stove, cup, Evernew titanium saucepan, pot cozy, and diy windscreen) and will burn about 6 gm to bring 2 cups or water to a rolling boil in 3:30.   I don't know how the 12.5 oz Primus performs.

IF authorities nix stoves for southern Cal, I'd eat either re-hydrated cold or go to snack bars, nut butters/jelly wraps and sandwiches--and the re-hydrating water will require treatment, too.  Why even bother with possibly carrying a stove and food intended for cooking.  I could forsake the stove until Kennedy Meadows.  Hot meals at asphalt trail stops will taste that much better.  The elevation exceeds 7,000' for 22 miles in section B, 44 miles in section C and 37 miles in section D.  It barely exceeds 5,000' in section E, 6,000' in F and consistently stays high only after Kennedy Meadows (section G).  Two to three days without hot food/drink at cooler altitudes--bearable as it's probably only mornings and nights.

Also from Chris:  use a bear can for the whole trail to protect from all critters, and for general convenience.

Boxes to pack for sending:

cold food boxes, nut butters, tortillas, bread, dried fruit, trail snacks, maps, trail notes, vitamins, toilet paper, dental floss, sunscreen, bug dope.

stove box with hot food, fuel, trail snacks, hot chocolate, maps, trail notes, vitamins, toilet paper, dental floss, sunscreen, bug dope, bug head net, shampoo

Kennedy Meadows box.  Ice ax and ice trekkers.  bug head net, shampoo

Hot Food boxes, fuel, chili, par boiled rice, dried bean soups, black bean, hummus? thin noodles to mix with bean mix,dried fruit,  olive oil, maps, trail notes, vitamins, toilet paper, dental floss.  curry spices, sunscreen, bug dope.

Hot food:  Fantastic foods mixes, rice, thin noodles,

Cold food:  trail snacks, dried fruit, tortillas, nut butters, bread,

every 400 miles: shampoo.
Every drop, toilet paper, floss, sunscreen until Washington. vitamins.

Slow cooking a hike

I hike a little here and there.  In the 1970's I camped in the desert and the mountains with other hiking nerds, who also couldn't make or even bother to try out for sports teams in high school.  I don't know how I found them.  Maybe they found me or maybe they just couldn't get away from me.  I sewed all my gear from Frostline kits.  Some of that Frostline stuff, I still have.

My backpacking gear went to college with me (Palo Alto). I went to Yosemite, got rained on and just got cold.  I transferred to U of Nevada Las Vegas and went hiking with classmate Mark Hodgkins, a hippie who actually completed his master degree after passing a class we took together.  In that ancient age camping gear weighed only less than the anchor of an oil tanker.  (Mark got a job with the government--Fish and Wildlife, not politics and has since retired.  He now travels and takes selfies with his iPhone)

My backpacking gear went to med school with me.  Once again, Mark joined me for a 7 day, 45 mile loop through Yosemite National Park's northeastern country--Bridgeport, Twin Lakes etc.  Bears had no Yogi Bear skills then, so we stayed fed by hanging our food.

My gear went to upstate NY where I did my residency.  Just a few overnight hikes.

We lived in Texas after residency for four years.  Nowhere to hike.  Lydia's childbearing years.

We moved to Las Vegas.  A few hikes with camera gear in Utah, Arizona.  A day hike to Mt Whitney.  I returned to Yosemite for 4 day trip.

We moved to Washington state.  Work kept getting in the way of life.  I finally quit/got kicked out of work in 2009.

I got rid of my heavy Dana Astralplane pack (7 lb 12 oz).  The replacement weighed 3 lb.

I sold a puny Bibler Tripod Bivy, replacing it with a palatial Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo that happily weighed less.

One day in 2012 I woke up and said I'm gonna hike the Wonderland Trail.  The next day I drove to Longmire, got my permit and seven days later, I had finished the 93 mile trail with its 21,000 feet of up and down.

I still didn't see myself hiking the PCT.

Last year Chris Pirrello walked the trail.

Two years ago, my brother Tom gave me Cheryl Strayed's book, "Wild."  I read it and saw the movie this year.

Then one day two weeks ago while visiting my mom, brother, and sister in Vegas, I just decided, that I wanted to walk part or all of the PCT.

I got some maps (the PCTA maps) & a trail data book.  I downloaded a California fire permit which required viewing a short video about fire safety and take a short quiz--they said to denude a ten foot circle putting the fire pit in the center and then said to put out the fire with water and cover with dirt using a big shovel.  I now must decide which day of the last week of March I'll fly out and which day I'll start hiking, and apply for the permit.

I have boxes to pack with food.  Boxes to pack with gear for snow, etc.  Boxes to pack with replacement equipment (shoes, socks, dental floss)

resources: http://asthecrowflies.org/pctpacific-crest-trail-town-guide/