AT Hike - 2007

Food and Related Items for the Hike:

Since all my food has to be liquid, well I can eat a few soft things if I am careful, I have an interest in higher mileage between resupply stops. I can't just walk into many stores and buy Dry Ensure. To do an AT Thru-Hike or a very long hike of any kind I had planned to do a lot of mail drops. In the early planning I thought about just doing my resupply when I walked through a place with a Post Office or a store that would hold a food drop for hikers. The idea of going into town after town has very little interest to me as I can't eat the kind of food I would find there.

This idea of only a few resupply stops wither it is 3 or 5 or 10 plays into my food needs. I am sure I can not nor would not try a 3 resupply AT Thru-Hike this time. I might think about 5 resupply stops. That would give me a average food weight at the start of each of the sections of about 33 pounds. I was surprised at the large volume the food was going to take up in my pack. My Dry Ensure packs a lot of calories in a small package. A one serving amount of 282.5 calories (2.29 ounces) will pack into a coffee filter and be about 2" square for planning. The zip lock bag in the picture is 10 servings or food for one day (2825 calories). I am using Hammer Perpetuem in all my water and that will add about 520 more calories a day for a total of about 3345 calories a day.


Nutritional information for Dry Ensure:


Nutritional information for Hammer Perpetuem:







Multi-Use in action:

On the second half of my hike in Georgia last month I started packing my Dry Ensure in a large paper coffee filter. It made my every 90 minute food stops go much faster. The paper coffee filters also turned out to make great TP. That saved a little weight and got rid of the paper. The paper burns nice if I need something to start a fire with.