Now that all the equipment is in place it is time to concentrate on food.  Obviously you can't carry 6 months worth of food on your back, so you have to plan on getting food on the route.  There are 3 main ways that people resupply food:

   1.  Buy - Buy all food in towns along the trail.
   2.  Mail - Send packages to yourself along the trail with enough food to get you to the next
   mail drop.
   3.  Hybrid - Use mail drops and buy food in towns along the trail.

Since I don't eat meat it would be hard for me to rely on stores along the route for all my food, so I am leaning toward the hybrid route.  I will send full mail drops to towns that do not have a significant market, and those towns that do, I will send a mail drop that has breakfast and dinner and then buy lunch items in the markets.

Now, what do we eat?  For basic breakfasts we are planning on protein bars, oatmeal, and cold cereal.  For lunch we are planning on eating fresher items that do not require any cooking.  These meals could include tortillas, bagels, cheese, avocados, crackers, peanut butter, and fresh fruit & vegetables.  Dinner will be a more significant meal including pasta, rice, couscous, and tuna & salmon packets.  Of course, there will be snacks (granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, candy bars, etc) and after dinner hot drinks such as tea and hot chocolate.

All these meals and food need thought and planning.  At first I was planning on relying on Quaker instant oatmeal packets for breakfast and Knorr Noodles/Rice & Sauce packages for dinner.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that these pre-packaged food items would be OK to eat once in a while, but would get pretty unhealthy if we ate it every day for 6 months.  Wouldn't it be better if I put together my own oatmeal and noodle/rice & sauce meals using healthier ingredients with less salt and preservatives.  So here I am trying to figure out how to do this.  After a trip to a health food store and Trader Joe's this is what I bought to experiment with:

My thoughts for breakfast is to make my own instant oatmeal using rolled oats, almonds, dry milk, brown sugar, and freeze-dried fruit.  I will also try to make breakfast quinoa using quinoa flakes, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and maybe a hot cereal using couscous, dry milk, brown sugar, chopped almonds, and freeze-dried fruit.

For dinner I am also going to try playing with quick cook pasta and all natural cheese sauce mixes instead of the kraft macaroni and cheese junk.  I also bought Simply Organic dressings and sauces to play with and see how they mix with rice, pasta, and tuna/salmon.  One of the more interesting items I found is Ova Easy Egg Crystals.  I will try this as another possible protein source, maybe eggs an egg and refried bean burrito?

Bottom line is that I have to get started working with these ingredients and testing them out for the trip, or else I will wind up going the easy but unhealthy route of ramen noodles and Kraft macaroni and cheese.  I better get going!

After 6 months of research and purchasing gear, our final item came in the mail today.  We officially now have in hand all the gear we need for our 6-month backpacking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail.  You can see our final list on the "Gear" page on this website, or you can just click here:

To summarize our gear, we have a total of 30 pounds and have spent $5,250 (WOW!!!)  We actually did spend more then this in buying extra shoes and socks while we were trying to figure out what we will be wearing on our feet...arguably the most important piece of equipment.  We finally decided on trail runners (me: Brooks Cascadia and Tim: ASICS trail runners).  For socks we are going with Injiniji toe sock liners and Smartwool PhD run light socks...at least as of today.

My goal has been for our packs to weigh at most 15 pounds without food, water, and fuel (AKA base weight). Right now I am at 14.5 pounds and Tim is at 15.5 pounds, both close to the 15 pound goal.  Both of our packs will be a bit heavier when we add maps and drugs, but I am pretty happy with what I came up with.

There are people out there called ultra-light hikers whose base weights are closer to 10 pounds, but this doesn't seem like for me.  There are some things I don't want to do without...namely my "luxury items" accounting for about 1.5 pounds (10% of my total base weight).  These items include my iPhone in a waterproof case, my new camera with 22x optical zoom, and my newest and most exciting addition, a portable solar charger to charge my iPhone and camera battery on the trail.

As we hike, we may find that we don't need everything we are carrying so we might be able to lighten the load some.  For instance, some people don't carry rain gear (~1.5 pounds) through the desert portion of the trail, while others carry it for another layer of warmth for the cold desert night.  Also, our first aid kit weighs in at over 0.5 pounds.  Can we maybe shave some of this weight?  Do we really need 10 Band-Aids instead of just 5? These are questions that will not be able to answer until we are on the trail and getting comfortable with the situation.  I know that a half pound doesn't seem like a lot, but it really does add up!  I never thought toilet paper and wet wipes would weigh 0.5 pounds, but again...this is a luxury I am not willing to go without.

Don't forget...all this weight I am talking about is our base weights and does not include food, water, and fuel.  Food will weigh 1.5 - 2 pounds a day, water weighs 2.2 pounds per liter, and fuel weighs 0.5 pounds.  So, for instance if we are on the trail for 5 days and assuming the dry weather in California continues making us have to carry extra water, my final pack weigh will be 15 lb base + 1.5 lb (5 days) + 2.2 lb (4 liters water) + 0.5 lb fuel for a total of 31.8 pounds!  Now you can understand why we might need to shave some of our gear...even if it is only a few Band-Aids.