SUPPLEMENTS!

Spending 4.5 months in the wilderness (or most of it anyways) and having to carry all your nutrition means that you concern yourself more with getting in the necessary calories to fuel your 20+ miles per day of hiking, than you do QUALITY nutrition. Getting in enough calories is definitely a priority, but for us, getting in the quality nutrients our bodies will need is equally important. Hiker food, for the most part is exactly fresh. You don't get to carry with you fresh fruits and vegetables as they just weigh way too much for the calories they provide. Everything is measured against a gold standard of 100 calories per ounce. We'll be eating lots of oatmeal, nuts, dried fruits, noodles and rice dishes with spices and some dried vegetable flakes, but we'll be supplementing our diet with some key items that will ensure we're getting in what we need to keep us not only moving, but thriving! The following is a list of "staple" supplements that we'll take pretty well every day.





VegeGreens - One serving of this stuff will provide the nutrient value of 6 - 8 servings of dark green vegetables, the ones known for nutrient density. These will help keep energy levels up, aid in digestion, and just keep our bodies running as efficiently as possible. This is something we use everyday at home as well, since we are very active in endurance sports and have very busy work schedules. Anyone can benefit from VegeGreens, it's certainly not exclusive to athletes.







PhytoBerry - PhytoBerry is an incredible whole body antioxidant. This will be huge to keep our immune systems running at full capacity and help get rid of the free radicals we'll be creating while hike all day long! Another product that we use everyday (or just about everyday). We use it after training sessions, especially longer ones or workouts in extreme conditions, where our immune systems may be compromised. Again, anybody can benefit from PhytoBerry since we all consume or create toxins and free radicals everyday!

Men's And Women's Active Multivitamins - With the stress we'll be putting on our bodies everyday and the lack of variety in our diet, it will be nice to know that we're getting in all the vitamins and minerals we'll need to keep us healthy! We've both been using the multivitamins for year's now and love them!








Protein Powder - Since Julia is Vegan, and I only eat fish, our protein sources at home are somewhat limited. This becomes an even bigger issue while hiking because our muscles will be constantly under stress and so we'll need to give them the amino acids they require to adequately repair! We'll be using products from Progressive and Vega.

Nutrition Bars - Neither of us are fans of chocolate bars, but realize the value of convenience of these prepackaged treats. We prefer nutrition bars that offer quality along with the taste. We'll be using ELEVATE ME! bars as they have all the qualities we look for in a bar. They are essentially comprised of dried fruits and nuts with whey isolate protein. No added sugars or preservatives. These bars won't melt on us in the heat, won't get crushed easily in our packs and they're bars that we already know we can eat DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY without getting sick of the taste. Another bar that's of equal quality, and new on the market is the Precision All Natural Bar. I've fallen in love with their Chocolate Cherry Bar and will be eating a ton of these also.

Some Details of Our Resupply Strategy

April 28th. That’s our official start date. It’s on paper, it’s planned and we can’t wait for it to come! The other date is April 14th, our wedding date!

We’ve done SO much planning in the past while. So many details have been clarified and we’re feeling more and more confident going into it.

Our resupply strategy:

Thanks to Abby, we have a resupply strategy that we’re extremely comfortable with. Abby is a close friend of Julia’s family and just so happens to live in California. She’s offered to help us out with some of our resupply boxes. Certain towns that we go into along this trail will consist of nothing more than a gas station, convenience store and a post office. In those circumstances, Abby will mail us a box that we can pick up at the Post Office that will have everything we need for the next stretch. Luckily for us, from Campo to Tehachpai (where we'll get off trail to go to Bakersfield for a few days) there are plenty of good spots to resupply so Abby will only have to send us one box, that we'll prepare here in Ottawa and mail to her, that she will then mail to us on trail in mid May. This may sound complicated, and it is, but it makes complete sense to us now!! I've learned an immense amount from a handful of guys (Dug (Rawhide), Adam (Krudmeister), Paul (Outpost), Tamsin and Chris) who are all vets of this trail. Tamsin and Chris are also both Canadian, so they offered some advice that is specific to us Canadians.

Bounce Box:

A bounce box is simply a box that you continuously mail to yourself along the trail. It is typically used to hold supplies, equipment and specialty foods that you may not find everywhere. There's no sense in carry maps for the ENTIRE trail, so what you do is just split them all up in sections and only take the ones you need with you and send the rest ahead in your bounce box! Same goes for certain articles of clothing that may be needed in colder or warmer temperatures. We'll also use our bounce box in cases where we arrive in a town with a
great resupply store, though the next stop won't be so great. We'll buy enough food for the next stretch and then send some ahead in the bounce box to the next stop.

Certain stops REQUIRE that you send your boxes VIA UPS, others don't have outgoing mail and others charge you an arm and a leg to get your boxes. This all has to be accounted for as well.

Kennedy Meadows is one important stop. It's the last stop before you enter the Sierras and it's where you pick up two important pieces of equipment; a bear canister (ours are Bear Vault BV500) and an ice axe (ours are Camp Corsa Nanotech). You also have a LONG stretch of around 174 miles between there and the next stop of Vermillion Valley Resort. This means you'll need a ton of food, especially since your appetite will go through the roof as you work much harder climbing over serious mountain passes. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS SERIOUS! AND HEAVY!

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