Food Matters: Reloaded

Over the past few months we've put in some serious time dehydrating food and vacuum sealing individual portions that we were planning on putting in resupply boxes that would be mailed to us along the trail. Then we began to question our plan. What about customs? What if we have a box sent to us, only to be held up in customs, or even worse, denied entry to the US altogether? We’d get to a town expecting to be able to pick up our food for the next stretch, and there’d be nothing there for us. I asked around and got even more discouraged to go with this method, as it’s just TOO risky, not to mention the postage costs. That we knew about and we okay with, but the uncertainty of these expensive little boxes of joy actually getting to us, well that kyboshed the whole operation.

NEW PLAN! (tentative as Julia has her reservations as to the details)

Many people utilize a “buy-as-you-go” method. I’ve read a few peoples’ experiences with it and this is, given our situation, how I think WE should go about it.

Firstly, we’ll have to get a really sturdy “box” (one each) that we can use as a bounce box. A bounce box is exactly as you’d expect. It’s a box that you mail to yourself, continually bouncing it up the trail as you go. When we get to a “bigger town” that has adequate resupply facilities (a decent grocery store) we’ll resupply for the next stretch as well as put some stuff in our bounce box to send ahead to the next town that may not have as good of a grocery store. Some places will only have gas station convenience stores that carry junk food and the basics.  In some rare situations, we’ll have to squeeze in some stuff for a couple stretches, but may be able to find some “basics” along the way, or eat out of hiker boxes every now and again. These are boxes in which people ditch food that they are sick of eating and don’t want to carry.

I have no doubt that we’ll get into situations where we can’t find the quality foods that we want, and variety for a few days will be lacking, but that will only be a few days out of about 18 weeks. We’ll survive.

Julia also has a very close family friend (that I’ve met as well on a number of occasions) that lives in Bakersfield, California. We MAY (?) be able to have her mail us a couple of pre-prepared boxes to a couple SELECT locations. One important one would be Kennedy Meadows. That’s where we need to pick up our ice axes and bear vaults for the Sierras. It would be fantastic if we could mail these to her long in advance and then get off the trail near her place for a couple days to set-up the few boxes she would send to us.

I think the costs incurred along the trail, buying food as we go and maybe staying a few extra nights in motels / campgrounds and the extra cost of the extra bounce box (we’d have one anyhow) will be made up by not having to buy all the food NOW, dehydrate it (electricity ain’t cheap!) and then mail it (this would be insane expensive) as per our initial plan.

I’m comfortable with it. She needs some more convincing / details first. J

There’s only about 134 days until we hit the trail, maybe less.

Food Matters, part 2

Over the past few months we've put in some serious time dehydrating food and vacuum sealing individual portions that we were planning on putting in resupply boxes that would be mailed to us along the trail. Then we began to question our plan. What about customs? What if we have a box sent to us, only to be held up in customs, or even worse, denied entry to the US altogether? We’d get to a town expecting to be able to pick up our food for the next stretch, and there’d be nothing there for us. I asked around and got even more discouraged to go with this method, as it’s just TOO risky, not to mention the postage costs. That we knew about and we okay with, but the uncertainty of these expensive little boxes of joy actually getting to us, well that kyboshed the whole operation.

NEW PLAN! (tentative as Julia has her reservations as to the details)

Many people utilize a “buy-as-you-go” method. I’ve read a few peoples’ experiences with it and this is, given our situation, how I think WE should go about it.

Firstly, we’ll have to get a really sturdy “box” (one each) that we can use as a bounce box. A bounce box is exactly as you’d expect. It’s a box that you mail to yourself, continually bouncing it up the trail as you go. When we get to a “bigger town” that has adequate resupply facilities (a decent grocery store) we’ll resupply for the next stretch as well as put some stuff in our bounce box to send ahead to the next town that may not have as good of a grocery store. Some places will only have gas station convenience stores that carry junk food and the basics.  In some rare situations, we’ll have to squeeze in some stuff for a couple stretches, but may be able to find some “basics” along the way, or eat out of hiker boxes every now and again. These are boxes in which people ditch food that they are sick of eating and don’t want to carry.

I have no doubt that we’ll get into situations where we can’t find the quality foods that we want, and variety for a few days will be lacking, but that will only be a few days out of about 18 weeks. We’ll survive.

Julia also has a very close family friend (that I’ve met as well on a number of occasions) that lives in Bakersfield, California. We MAY (?) be able to have her mail us a couple of pre-prepared boxes to a couple SELECT locations. One important one would be Kennedy Meadows. That’s where we need to pick up our ice axes and bear vaults for the Sierras. It would be fantastic if we could mail these to her long in advance and then get off the trail near her place for a couple days to set-up the few boxes she would send to us.

I think the costs incurred along the trail, buying food as we go and maybe staying a few extra nights in motels / campgrounds and the extra cost of the extra bounce box (we’d have one anyhow) will be made up by not having to buy all the food NOW, dehydrate it (electricity ain’t cheap!) and then mail it (this would be insane expensive) as per our initial plan.

I’m comfortable with it. She needs some more convincing / details first. J

There’s only about 134 days until we hit the trail, maybe less.

Food matters

We're getting into the nitty gritty of food planning and there's so much to consider! Here's what we're tentatively planning and how it will work.

We'll each shoot for 4000 - 5000 calories per day. Probably more in the Sierras where there's more climbing and generally cooler weather, and less in the desert where the temps are really high. In the desert sections hydration will be a major concern, so we'll try to get in a high electrolyte sports drink like eload a couple times per day. 

Each day will start with a high low-glyaemic carbohydrate breakfast, with some protein as well. Something like:

1 cup (dry) oatmeal with dried cranberries and almonds and a whey shake with Progressive VegeGreens and Phytoberry. That will be a nice 700 or so calories to start the day. Lots of carbohydrates to burn throughout the morning, some healthy fats, lots of antioxidants and some quality protein. The breakfast will stay RELATIVELY the same, maybe altering the dried fruit / nut options in the oatmeal and flavour of protein to offer at least a little bit of variety.

We LOOOOOVE Apples!

4 Trays, 4 Apples Each Tray 35 minutes prep time

This will be done about 25 more times. These are being dehydrated as we speak and tomorrow will be vacuum sealed and stored away for when we set up our resupply boxes.

SOOO MUCH FUUUUUUN!

Quote

I kinda like this. Yes, he was found dead of starvation, alone in the wilderness, but he probably LIVED more than most ever do.

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man, than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." Christopher McCandless

Summer winds down, prep winds up.

After an insanely busy summer of working at a variety of events all over Ottawa and as far as Toronto, and a season of the usual training and racing, summer is certainly winding down and the feeling of an Ottawa Autumn in in the air. I love this time of year, I love being outside in the fall, enjoying the cooler weather and watching the season change before us.

This also means that we'll have more time to be home and put in some serious prep for next year's hike. We have a TON of food preparation to take care. Dehydrating fruits and veggies will be a massive undertaking, as will planning daily meals / snacks that will offer us the nutrition we are looking for with adequate calories to fuel the long days of hiking. I've really been looking forward to this time, to actually feel like we're making progress towards the ultimate goal.

I've also been looking for sponsorship in the way of product from a variety of brands that we are very fond of. I'm hoping to save on some costs so that we can really make this happen and maximize what we can do for the charities. As we really get into the planning and prep and we have some stuff prepared, I'll start recording some videos for YouTube.

PCT Training

Hiking the 4200km of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is undoubtedly an incredible test of body and mind. One that can't be taken lightly. With this in mind, we'll be training our bodies to withstand the rigors of hiking 30+ kilometers day in and day out, carrying up to 40 pounds or more in gear, water and food.

This will take significant physical fitness, specifically a combination of aerobic endurance, upper body and core strength and flexibility. All of these will help prevent injuries, especially early on, while we adjust to the trail. Many people start the trail with all the motivation in the world, though undertrained and injury prone. They put in too many miles too early and wind up getting injured, taking them off the trail for a few days or even for good.

We already keep pretty fit, but if we  can tailor our training to get us the best shape possible for the challenge we will face, we will be way ahead of the game and really enjoy the first few weeks.

Starting in November, I'll be doing a lot of cycling. Great for aerobic fitness, and great for leg strength and power. At the same time I'll be doing regular kettle bell workouts, which are incredible for core strength and overall conditioning. A few times per week, I'll be doing traditional weight training, which will help me gain upper body strength and build some muscle. I know that I will lose weight on the trail, so I might as well go in with a head start in terms of muscle mass. Finally, we will be consciously stretching (especially Brian) so as to decrease chance of overuse injuries.

On The Daily

We think and talk about the trail daily. We've committed to doing this thing, way over a year in advance and the just makes the whole waiting period that much more painfully long. Every day we're reminded in some way of what we'll be doing a year from now. This weekend, for example, we were staying in downtown Toronto for a couple of days for work. Despite having an incredible view from our hotel room in a classy hotel, I couldn't help but be reminded of how much I look forward to getting away from everything that a busy downtown of a big city is all about. The smell of thick humid air radiating off the concrete and ashphalt and the piles of garbage on sidewalks, and the smells of dumpsters on a hot summer day just make me wish for the the day we start our hike. Everyone in a busy city has their own agenda, their own jam packed schedule that doesn't leave room for common courtesy to a fellow citizen. More and more we become self absorbed in our own lives, living attached to technology, walking and surfing, driving and texting, that we miss out on so much of what the REST of hat life offers. The goal of technology, at the end of the day, is to make life more convenient, to get routine tasks done quicker, to work more efficiently, to communicate easier, to live life at a blistering pace so that we can be more efficient with our time. What's the point, though, if we never use the extra time we save to SLOW down, appreciate the simple things in life that bring joy? I'm rambling, I know that, but this may be the single most important driving force behind our daily motivation to make this hike happen.

Rant over.

The Goods

We recently went on a bit of a tear with buying up our gear. Got some great deals on a number of items, and from the generosity of Aaron Labarre of Popeye's Supplements, we were able to get ALMOST all of the gear we need for the expedition.

From Right to Left:
Top Row:
Red Ram Merino TShirt
MEC Merino Hoodie
Patagonia Down Sweter
MEC Lightweight Rain Jacket
Exoficcio Men's Airstrip Lite

Bottom Row:
Marmot Trail Wind Jacket
Under Armour Underwear
Patagonia Capilene 2
Chlorophylle Raid Pants
Brunton Solar Charger
Spot GPS Unit

From Right to Left:
Top Row:
Patagonia Capilene 2 Long Johns
Moving Comfort Charity Bra
Asics T7 Short
Mec Merino Lightweight Hoodie
Middle Row:
MEC Merino Lightweight 2 S/S Crew
North Face Horizon Spire L/S Shirt
Marmot Trail Wind Hoody
Marmot PreCip Jacket
Patagonia Down Sweater
Bottom Row:
Chlorophylle Impulsion Pants
Outdoor Research Sun Bucket
MEC Thundersnow Toque 
Smith Redline Max Sunglasses 

Reluctant Retreat

After hours on the road, we finally reached Rain Lake, our entry point to Algonquin Park for our big 4 day hike. We had been looking forward to this hike so much and had put a ton of time and some money into preparation, so the feeling of finally being able to get on the trail and just walk was awesome. We packed up our bags, fitted our gaitors on our shoes, greased up our feet, slapped on sunscreen and Deet and hit the trail! Amazing feeling to be maching along the trail towards a destination. Every footstep is progress. What we weren't ready for were horse flies. I'm not talking the odd one or two, I'm talking swarms. Relentless swarms of these buggers that wanted blood, our blood, and they were gonna get fed or die tryin'.

After an hour or so filled with frustration and every effort to outsmart these bastards, our efforts proved futile. We didn't like the prospect of continuing on into the woods, not knowing when or if these guys would disappear. After a little discussion, we decided that it simply wasn't worth it to continue on and risk a horrible 4 day experience. Instead we turned back, reluctantly and with some hesitation, headed back to the car. It was a difficult decision, but was the right one. We turned up at Julia's parents' place 4 days early surprising and confusing her family. The next morning Julia had 4 or 5 swollen bites, as always happens with her, and I had a few of my own. Imagine the shape we'd have been in had we spent 4 full days on that trail!

We will plan another trip for the fall sometime and have another crack. We're committed to this thing and will do what it takes to get our novice camping butts ready for the PCT!

Four Day Hike Prep

After our last trip in May, we realized that we really shorted ourselves on the food side of things. We were somewhat lucky that we decided to bail a little early and cut the trip shorter than we intended, because we would have definitely ran out of food. This time around we've gone BANANAS! We've dehydrated a bunch of apples, bananas and even made a fruit leather. We've also got 6 detour bars at 460 cals each, and 10 Elev8Me bars at about 240 cals each. Both bars will not melt in the heat and both have some good protein content. We've also got 3 hearty breakfasts of oats, almonds and dates, with cinnamon and 3 dinners, 2 of which will be rice noodles and one of lentils. We've got some trail mix type stuff as well and some "cashew clusters" that we picked up at Costco. I'm thinking we'll be good this time around!!

Another thing that we learned last time was that our hydration strategy was less than optimal. We each had 2 x 1L bottles that we refilled and treated as we went. Problem was, they were never really convenient to drink from as we needed to take off our packs to get them from the side pockets or stop and help each other take them out. A few weeks ago, we picked up a couple 3L Osprey Hydraform bladders. Hopefully with this thing, we can fill it up each morning with clean water and have it last a good while and then add more mid day from the 1L bottles that we will use to treat the water with the AquaMira. Drinking will be MUCH more efficient and thus we will drink more often, which I think will be crucial as the forecast for this trip is HOT HOT HOT!. I'm also bringing some electrolyte caps to pop throughout the heat of the day, as I prefer to drink water but need those electrolytes to stay appropriately hydrated.

We both have some new shoe / clothing items to test out this time around. I picked up a pair of Brooks Cascadias, which have great reviews for long distance hikes and the ones I'll probably go with for the PCT. Julia found a pair of North Face trail runners that she really likes and will be trying them out with a pair of Superfeet in them.

For this trip, we'll be leaving our wicked awesome, super lightweight, super expensive sleeping bags at home. I really don't think it's going to cool off much at night, probably lows of like 20 - 22C. We're simply going to bring a bed sheet, and maybe a pair of light tights, just in case.

Anyways, that's it for now! We are PUMPED!!

Test trip #2

We just booked our second major test trip!

We'll be spending 4 days, 3 nights back in Algonquin Park, hiking the Western Uplands trail network of the backcountry. This trip we'll enter the trail from a different spot and hike 74.5k in total, covering a little of what we did last time as well. We're both pretty excited for this one as we took a lot away from our last hike and will be even better prepared for the terrain, weather and food needs!! Last time we felt we didn't pack enough food, mainly snacks. I think this time we'll pack 3 breakfasts and 3 dinners and TONS AND TONS of snacks to eat throughout the day. I'd be plenty satisfied with that.

This time around our packs will be significantly heavier due to increased food requirements and thus it's crucial that we take our time each day so that we don't kill ourselves just trying to get from A to B. That's more of a challenge for me than it is Julia. Sometimes I don't think of the fact that everything is so much more difficult for her because, despite the fact she's pretty darn fit, she's still a relatively tiny girl and so everything is just a little more taxing on the body. I'll try to carry the extra weight, but both of our packs will inevitably be heavier than last time.

Praying for good weather!!!

We'll be hiking July 22 - 25. Depending on how warm it is, I'm considering leaving my sleeping bag behind and maybe just bringing a light blanket of some sort.

We'll see!

Following Along

As part of our preparations, we've learned a ton from watching YouTube videos of people who have completed this thru hike in the past, or are currently on trail as I write this.

We've watched countless videos on the ideal gear for this particular hike, taking into account durability, weight, usefulness and in some cases, just to take the edge off living out of a backpack for 4.5 months! So many helpful videos out there and I HOPE to be able to contribute for future thru hikers. Two that are out there right now are:

Dug:
Website and YouTube Channel

Outpost and Echo
YouTube channel  and Facebook Group

Logistics Coming Together

Since my last post on here, a lot of logistical stuff has come together, and will continue to over this next week.

Firstly, Julia and I sat down one afternoon and hammered out a general (but pretty solid) resupply schedule. We used other people's stuff as resources as well as http://www.planyourhike.com/ website. Looks like we'll have 25 in all! Postage will be an absolute NIGHTMARE, and expensive, but we're working on that as well. :)

Secondly, and I can't say this enough, but Aaron (my boss at Popeye's) is helping us out HUGE. We still need a ton of gear and so he asked me to put together a list of what we need, with links to online stores, photos and total cost of each item. He's going to take this list and "shop" it around to the distributors that we do business with to see if they'd like to sponsor us by purchasing a piece (or 2 or 3 or 4!) of gear for us. In return, we'll use our means of social media (here, YouTube, tTwitter, fFacebook) to promote their brand. If we can get even just a portion of this stuff donated, it would be HUUUUGE!

I've also been in contact with Ray Zahab from http://www.impossible2possible.com/ about involving his foundation in this hike. I want there to be an education component to it and he's the man that knows how to make that happen! We'll most likely have a second blog (or maybe just this one) where students can ask questions and we can answer them whenever we're in town and have access to a computer. I'll be putting up videos talking about nutrition, health and fitness topics mainly, but perhaps also environmental, science and so forth as well. We want to use this as a means to teach kids about the benefits of proper nutrition and physical activity and to get them thinking about how they can be more active in their lives and/or how they can improve their eating habits.

As these things come together, I'll post more details!

First Trip!!!

Our first go at a decent hike / camp is a couple days away!

We leave Friday morning (early) and drive to Algonquin Park, as we'll be hiking the second loop of the Western Uplands trail over three days.

The length of our trip will be a total of ~57km of hiking, the biggest day being the Saturday. We chose this because we wanted to "ease" into it on Friday, so we are only going to be doing ~14k or so and will set up camp and figure everything out with that! Also, the forecast for Saturday is looking to be the best of the three so we decided to make this our long day, and will go about 24km. The overall trip will be 3.8k longer than the loop itself as we have to hike a bit off the route to another lake where there were available camp sites. No big deal! The physical part is not our concern. All Saturday is going to be sunny and moderate temps, so I'm anticipating that to be a great day to really test as much stuff out as we can with the tent, cooking, water stuff etc etc etc. Like I said, we are BRAND new to this, so hopefully everything goes smoooothly! Sunday is looking to be rainy, so we may just get up and hike out as early as possible, or start making progress at least before the rain hits.

After the weekend I'll have some videos and pics to share!!

Expedition Packs

We got our expedition packs!

Awesome deals at Bushtukah last night, 20% off!

See the "Our Gear" Page. :)

The Challenge of Social Media

Lately I've been totally consumed with trying to figure out how to get more and more "followers" on twitter. This is something I want to start now so that in a year's time we will have a solid number of followers for our expedition. Even if many of them aren't necessarily "following" what we're doing, it still looks great in the eyes of potential sponsors and does allow people to follow us along. It'll be a grea tool for keeping family, friends and general followers up to date on where we are and what we're doing along this hike.

I'm still learning how it all works and the different strategies involved in getting people to follow you, but I'm STARTING to get the hang of it. I tweet AT supplement companies as I konw their products, can compliment them and they have a lot of followers, so if they choose to "retweet" my tweet, then I'm exposed to a much larger audience! That's been my focus so far. I'm up to 23 followers, not too bad, but need MORE! I want more like 1000 by the time we leave for this hike.

SO FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

It's begun!

Over the past week I've had two VERY important preliminary conversations.

The first was a simple phone call with Ray Zahab (www.impossible2possible.com). I wanted to talk to him about supporting his foundation through this hike. There are a number of causes that I feel "attached to" or that I believe in, however this one is definitely my favourite and it's been without question that I want to support i2P. Ray does an incredible job inspiring youth to achieve what they think is impossible through these one of a kind youth expeditions all over the world. Not only are the expeditions about accomplishing the daunting, physically and psychologically demanding task, though there's a very important educational aspect to it as well. These "youth ambassadors" as they are called, are learning about a variety of environmental / climate issues that we are facing, and relaying these experiences to their peers in classrooms all over the world. His work educates and inspires youth the world over to create positive change for our natural environment. Education, physical challenge and the environment, the perfect marriage of what I believe in.

You can follow Ray on twitter at www.twitter.com/rayzahab

I’ll be meeting up with Ray in the next couple of weeks to discuss some ways in which this hike can be used to benefit i2P.

A few days ago I sent Aaron, my boss and owner of Popeye's Supplements (www.poeyescanada.com) in Ottawa / Southern Ontario, a carefully written email about our intentions to do this hike. Aaron’s an incredibly supportive boss and I kind of knew in the back of my mind that he would support us, but there’s still a nervous feeling I get sending a letter like this. People who know me, know just how ambitious I am and how unsatisfied I am with “normal things” people value, and I guess that’s why Aaron wasn’t too, too surprised. I got an email in return reminding me I’m just a little bit crazy, but that he’s excited to help us make this a success. He’s out west right now, but we’ll get a chance to sit down and chat in the next few weeks about some ideas I have.

Having the support of these two men is an enormous help in making this a success. It would honestly otherwise be significantly much more challenging logistically / motivationally had we not had this support.

Awesome week so far!

PCT Mission Control

Well we've OFFICIALLY moved to our own little place in Hintonburgh area. PERFECT location for us. Near the Canal, near the Ottawa River Parkway and not too too far from Gatineau Park. This will be perfect for us to get out walking, cycling, running and hiking/camping as often as possible over the next year! We already love fitness and the area is perfect regardless, but with the focus being this PCT thru hike, we'll be using these resources as opportunities to practice the skills we'll need a year from now!


The place itself is great. We've got plenty of storage for our bikes (4) and other sports equipment, a beautiful new kitchen with tons of space for food storage and cooking! The house itself is old as, but we're super pleased with it so far! Apparently my great, great (maybe a third great) grandfather lived around here and was a wagon builder. My dad is all about the genealogy thing right now. :)

Anyways, the crowning jewel of the place is the sunroom off the front. Pictures don't even do it justice, but here they are nonetheless! This will be our space for planning and prep work! I can already picture all of the carefully planned and organized mail-drop boxes place along that front wall. :)

Uploaded - 11-03-22

Learning

I've been learning quite a bit about how to set up this blog and it's potential! It's a fun, but sometimes tedious process. I hope to get this up and running with as much info and detail as possible before I start sharing it with people. It's definitely a little early for some people to know our plans. :)

Naturally Driven

Naturally Driven means that we are motivated to make positive change for our natural environment.
Naturally Driven means that we are literally Naturally Driven to achieve great things.
Naturally Driven means that we are fueled by healthy, natural foods.