Today we spent over 12 hours packing. Yes, it really took over 12 hours and we don’t have the kid to blame.
My Mom (Granny) was here the entire day and kept the 2 year old out of the house and It still took us over 12 hours. It’s 9:35pm and we are still packing. We are prepping for a five day backpacking trip with a two year old (details to follow) but to add to the packing puzzle we are also packing for the 2 1/2 week road trip to Oregon that follows the backpacking trip. More on that in future posts…
Monday morning we commence our 5 day backpacking adventure. We will attempt the popular Rae Lakes Loop in Kings Canyon California. This will be our third backpacking trip with the kid and the longest one yet. 5 days, 4 nights. In case there are others out there interested in carrying an extra 25lbs that you cannot eat or wear but that does cry, boss you around, and will probably pee in the expensive Deuter backpack, here is a detailed account of what you may want to bring.
When it comes to food, the goal here is as many calories as possible with the least amount of weight and volume. Everything needs to fit in the large bear canister so it’s very important that the food we pack doesn’t take up much space.
The award goes to the one pound bar of milk chocolate from Trader Joes. But since we can’t subsist on only chocolate for five days we found a few other not-quite- as-delicious-but-still-pretty-good options. Trader Joes really is the best one-stop-shop for backpacking food as their Tortellinis are packed with calories and are very light. We will be having these three nights in a row. We also found a multigrain tri-berry instant oat meal that had the most calories out of the other instant oatmeal options so that takes care of breakfast. And have you looked on the back of that Trader Joes trail mix you love? Yeah… that shit is loaded with calories. Yay for us, boo for anyone else not planning on exercising for 35 hours in 5 days. We picked raspberry chocolate and the other one with the peanut butter cups.
Here is a picture of all the food we are bringing. One meal is left out. We are ditching the spaghetti. We have no more room in the bear canister so we will pick up some dehydrated Mountain House food and eat that the first night. The tabs on the left are something new we are trying. They are the nuun hydration tabs the flavor is pink lemonade. We threw in a few of the good ol’ gatorade packs because when you are only drinking water for 5 days and are sweating a ton the sugary green stuff really hits the spot.
Here are the clothes I packed. Fortunately for us, we are sleeping at pretty low elevation so I didn’t need a ton of warm clothes. the only thing not shown here is my patagonia down sweater jacket which is a lighter option that the full size down puffy.
Here are the clothes we packed for our daughter. After this picture was taken we replaced a pair of her cotton leggings for some REI sahara roll up pants. If she is going to wet her pants whatever she is wearing might as well be quick drying.
My husband’s clothes aren’t pictured because according to him, “I packed nothing.” It will be such a treat for all the other hikers to see Peter backpacking naked.
Last but not least the toiletries bag. This is a sandwich sized ziplock. chapstick, sunscreen toothpaste, toothbrush, soap. That’s it.
Here is the breakdown. This is the spreadsheet Peter created of everything we packed and how much each thing weighs. A kitchen scale and a luggage scale were used to get this data.
Food
item |
servings |
calories |
weight oz |
total calories |
calorie/weight ratio |
Multigrain triberry oatmeal |
12 |
190 |
21 |
2280 |
109 |
oatmeal maple and brown sugar |
12 |
160 |
17.2 |
1920 |
112 |
sugar |
28 |
15 |
4 |
420 |
105 |
TJ Fruit Servings |
8 |
50 |
4 |
400 |
100 |
Soft & Juicy Mangos |
10 |
120 |
12.6 |
1200 |
95 |
Pound Plus milk chocolate |
26 |
200 |
36 |
5200 |
144 |
Peanut Butter Cup Trail Mix |
13 |
150 |
14.3 |
1950 |
136 |
TJ Nuts about raspberries and chocolate |
11 |
150 |
12.4 |
1650 |
133 |
TJ Tortelinni with pesto filling |
16 |
230 |
32 |
3680 |
115 |
Gatorade |
8 |
50 |
4.4 |
400 |
91 |
Nuun Strawberry Lemonade |
6 |
7 |
1 |
42 |
42 |
TJ Torelinnini with mixed cheese filing |
10 |
260 |
24 |
2600 |
108 |
Trader Joes peanut butter pretzels |
15 |
170 |
15.75 |
2550 |
162 |
Probar |
1 |
370 |
3.14 |
370 |
118 |
Gear
Item |
Weight (oz) |
Weight (lbs) |
nalgene |
6 |
0.375 |
water filter |
18 |
1.125 |
first aid kit |
7 |
0.4375 |
Cooking Fuel |
13.3 |
0.83125 |
Cooking Stove & utensils |
25.2 |
1.575 |
Tent |
107 |
6.6875 |
Sleeping Pads |
51 |
3.1875 |
Peter Marmot Rain Shell |
17.6 |
1.1 |
Peter clothing |
44 |
2.75 |
Sage clothing |
38 |
2.375 |
Liz clothing |
67 |
4.1875 |
Peter Sleeping Bag & Two Down Jackets |
85 |
5.3125 |
Liz & Sage Sleeping Bag |
93 |
5.8125 |
Gregory Jade 60 Backpack |
56 |
3.5 |
Deuter Kid Comfort III Backpack |
126 |
7.875 |
bear bin |
41 |
2.5625 |
camel back & water |
60 |
3.75 |
food |
201.79 |
12.611875 |
toiletries |
6.6 |
0.4125 |
Sage |
400 |
25 |
Fuel Cannisters |
20 |
1.25 |
Totals |
1483.49 |
92.718125 |
Below are a few resources we used to learn more about the trip.
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