Fritos and almonds are supposed to the two most calorically dense foods. Learned this watching a video with Jason Hairston from Kuiu about what he packed on a sheep hunt.

I forgot to add precooked bacon. You can get it for pretty cheap sometimes. It fries up pretty quick and you can fry a tortilla in the left over fat to get all of the salty fatty goodness.

CharlieBrown17 said:

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A 375 of cheap whiskey for the campfire

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bladder of stranahans. Don't compromise your mountain experience with cheap whiskey!

What do you guys put your cheese in to preserve it for the week ? Or should I just look at babybel and not worry about it ?


I'm the kind of guy that can eat the same thing everyday. This is what I'm thinking.

2x Cliff Bar for breakfast
1x Starbucks via instant coffee for breakfast
1bag Fritos and almonds and Lara bar for snack
2x Tortillas with dried sausage link for lunch with cheese and mustard

1 bag mountain House meal for dinner
Nuun tablets for electrolyte recovery

What's yalls favorite mountain house flavors ? I've heard beef straganoff and now it looks like I'll give chicken teriyaki and biscuits and gravy A try. Any other recs? Like Joey said Chili Mac definitely looks like it could be good but dangerous.

I like the MH spaghetti. The lasagna is also good but the cheese always sticks to my spoon in annoying fashion. The Chicken and Dumplins are good.

The Rice and Chicken is ok. Lots of rice and not much chicken. I think this is the highest cal bag and highest food vol bag MH makes.

I want to like the beef stew but I can never quite get that one to rehydrate the way I'd like to and it always seems a little bland.

The stroganoff is very good.

This one, might be the most satisfying freeze dried meal I've had in the Backcountry.

It tastes like Thanksgiving

Beef Stroganoff with noodles is my favorite.

Spaghetti is good.

Chili Mac is good.

Chicken chili is good.

Chicken Fried Rice is good.

Beef Stew is good.

Scrambled eggs with bacon is not bad.

Breakfast Skillet ...Not that good.

Sweet and Sour Pork. Not good.

Raspberry Crumble. Meh.

Sardines/Tuna w/ Crackers are good to mix it up.

My #1 outdoor food item is this:

These are tasty, filling and most importantly will keep you taking good CLEAN ****s.

You wanna avoid mud butt at all costs. Nothing worse than blowing out your TP / baby wipe supply and having to use socks or some **** to wipe your ass with.

They don't crumble all that easy, but best thing to do is stuff the roll into a Pringle's can or some round Nalgene type container to keep them relatively intact and dry. You can put squeeze peanut butter or jam on them for extra calories. They go great with coffee or tea. Can eat on the go. Will last in a jacket pocket all day.

These are popular in the UK but you can for sure order on Amazon in US.

Lots of good ideas here. For dessert, I make my own trail mix and it has a great energy-to-weight ratio of about 150 calories per ounce.

Raisins
Dried and sweetened Pineapple
Freeze dried bananas
Sunflower seeds
Cashews
Pistachios

Lightly toasted in some coconut oil and the nuts sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Thanks for the tip on the digestives. Gonna have to order a pack to try

X2! Looking forward to backcountry bowel movements that's are a little more "put together" this year!

If you have a dehydrator it's fairly simple to make your own meals. My personal favorite is dehydrated chicken with some instant ramen. I also made BBQ brisket with instant potatoes which turned out well too, think I sent someone on here one of them. My beef stroganoff didn't turn out so well and ahd to really try and choke that down on an elk hunt. Dehydrated strawberries are one of my favorite snacks.

For a lazy breakfast if there's time, Krusteaz pancake mix is awesome. Just add water.

Do you guys run through a few days of simulated back country meals a few weeks before departure... just to make sure everything "agrees"?

Anyone else get the alti-toots? Anytime i'm at elevation I always get the farts real bad. Enough to want to pack my own tent out there haha

lazuras_dc said:

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Do you guys run through a few days of simulated back country meals a few weeks before departure... just to make sure everything "agrees"?

Anyone else get the alti-toots? Anytime i'm at elevation I always get the farts real bad. Enough to want to pack my own tent out there haha

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I do- but just because I'm out backpacking, scouting, and fishing anyways. If I have a brand new flavor or brand- I always want to test drive it before I'm dependent upon it.

As far as the gaseous increase- we call that "Mountain House Gut". Always happens with too much freeze dried stuff. Drink more water (always the #1 remedy at altitude), and try to vary your diet a little more. I'm interested in if those digestive biscuits recommended earlier on the thread might help this as well.

lazuras_dc said:

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Do you guys run through a few days of simulated back country meals a few weeks before departure... just to make sure everything "agrees"?

Anyone else get the alti-toots? Anytime i'm at elevation I always get the farts real bad. Enough to want to pack my own tent out there haha

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Yes, we joke that in addition to HACE, High Altitude Cerebral Edema, HAPE, High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, there is also HAF, High Altitude Flatulence. I don't seem to suffer from it, but it is an issue.

Looks like some really good info here! I'll second the suggestion to get a decent dehydrator and make your own dried fruit (strawberries are awesome) and jerky. You can make a lot of jerky out of your choice of meat at the thickness and texture you like. You can even get one of the "caulk gun" type things and use ground meat to get more of the slim jim type jerky. I have one of the Excalibur units from Amazon and I've made my money back on that thing making jerky, dried fruit, fruit roll ups, etc. Bad thing is I'm now the jerky maker for the group when we go on hikes, but I don't mind too much.

Great suggestions here on food you can get at the grocery store instead of spending $$$ on freeze dried meals. However, I have found that I really don't have much of an appetite after a hard day of hiking and anything that requires more effort than pouring hot water into a bag is probably more effort than I'm willing to put out. I've also found that 3,500 calories/day is more than I will eat so I just wind up with extra food (weight) at the end of the hike. If you follow the 100-125 calories per ounce and shoot for around 3,500 calories per day - that will net you about 2 lbs of food per person per day and most guides will recommend you pack at least enough for one extra day, just in case. Again, that's too much for me.

Here's what I'm planning to pack for this year's hike:
- Dinners - Freeze dried meals. These are so light and simple, I think they are worth the $$$ for at least one meal/day. My favorite so far is the chicken and rice from backpacker's pantry but I need to sample some more.
- Lunch - Ramen and salmon packs and maybe powdered pesto mix to go with. You can put the pesto powder in a protein shaker with water and EVOO and it works pretty good. This is a cheap meal with a good calorie/weight ratio. The cheap Ramen works but the stuff that costs about $1 is much better and can just be eaten with the salmon and seasoning it comes with. Put it in a quart size freezer bag so all you have to do is pour in hot water, salmon and seasoning.
- Breakfast - I'm not a big breakfast eater so I'll probably just go with cliff bars or something similar. I've found the Starbucks Via instant coffee packs are good enough. I love good coffee and use to pack an aero press but decided it wasn't worth the weight and trouble.
- Snacks - trail mix and beef jerky. I have made my own trail mix with cashews, almonds, dried fruits, M&Ms, etc. It's easy to pack too much of this because it's very calorie dense. Jerky is just one of those things I will always pack extra. Everyone loves it, its light and will keep you going for a while if things don't go as planned.
- Drinks - gotta have a flask of GOOD whiskey to sip on in the evenings. I pack the good stuff because I'm on vacation and working to carry every ounce in my pack. Also, the Propel powder packs are excellent to mix in your water bottle to give you some flavor and electrolytes. This is something I almost always run out of and wish I had packed more.
- Sweets - again, I pack the good stuff. Some really good chocolate covered almonds, high quality dark chocolate, etc.

Others have mentioned the Idahoan instant mashed potatoes. We've found the loaded baked potato version is our favorite and great filler if you're still hungry. I love the idea of adding some sharp cheese. Didn't know you could pack that without keeping it cold. Also, I'm working on a good mac and cheese that may replace the ramen program for lunch. We've tried the easy mac type ones but they aren't very good, IMHO. I used to do a big cooked breakfast at least one morning with cubed up hickory smoked spam, powdered eggs, Idahoan instant hashbrowns, and tortillas. It's really good, lots of calories but lots of effort and not something I want to do on a morning when we have to pack up and move. I'm interested in the pre cooked bacon for this...

I found a few books that gave me a lot of ideas for backpacking meals. Probably my favorite is "Freezer Bag Cooking: Adventure Ready Recipes" by Sarah Kirkconnell. Lots of good ideas for making your own Mountain Home style meals that just require hot water. Again, I've learned that keeping it simple and light is key for me, especially when the hiking is really difficult or the weather sucks.

Jack Links turkey jerky for snacks. Much better than regular jerky, imo.