Vegan/Ultralight Sleeping Systems

This is really a pretty simple topic. In the world of commercially available and generally accepted sleeping systems (bags) there are essentially two choices: down and synthetic insulation fill. Since this is a vegan blog, down is not a choice and thus, synthetic is the only choice.

Perhaps the main reason for writing this entry is to dispel the down myth as well as share my PCT sleeping experience. I'm sure many readers have at one point or another had a sleeping bag sales person or other hiker try to convince them that down is the only way to go. I got tired of hearing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you can special order some $300+ down bag that only weighs 1 pound - but for less than a pound more one can get a comparable synthetic bag for $80-$200. Yes one whole pound does seem like a lot of weight to someone who cuts the tags off of their clothes to save weight, but keep in mind that most down bags actually come in between 1.5 pounds and 3 pounds.

Mostly, I think that down has been over hyped up. Although sleeping bag fabrics have improved and down is "less likely" to get wet, the last thing that you want is to find yourself several days hike from anywhere with a limp, useless down bag. Down is worthless when it gets wet. On the other hand a synthetic bag can be wrung out and still retain as much as 50% of its insulative value when wet. Getting a bag completely soaked is not as unlikely as it may seem. Although many hikers don't run into extended periods of rain on the PCT, it is also possible that you get stuck in a week of rain, never allowing your gear to properly dry out. Also, any one of the many river crossings is an opportunity for an unexpected swim and gear wash.

Down is the soft quill-less feathers closest to a duck or goose's skin. Some times these feathers are removed after the animals has been slaughtered as part of the meat industry. Often, particularly with geese, the feathers are painfully plucked from the live bird on regular schedule - in fact these are often the same birds being tortured for foie gras. For more information about down checkout PETA's factsheed: http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=121 or their video, Plucked Alive: The Torture Behind Down: http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=down

My choice for the trail was a well used 35degF North Face bag. I still think that a 35deg bag is fine for summer purposes but in the mountains and desert it is important to know smart camping practices to stay warm inside the light of a bag. The bag that I started the PCT with was extremely compacted and was probably more like a 40-50 deg bag at that point. It got me as far as Aqua Dulce before I was able to switch it out for essentially a new version of the same bag - a 35degF North Face synthetic bag. After removing unneeded bells and whistles such as pillow pockets, watch pockets, etc. each bag weighed in at just under two pounds.

As mentioned earlier, I would say that good camping/survival skills are more important than the sleeping bag itself. The PCT Hiker's Companion has a number of good tips for staying warm at night. If you think that is going to be cold, it is important to shelter yourself from the wind, clear skies and cold ground. If you cannot completely shelter yourself from the wind sleep feet into the wind so that the wind doesn't go down your bag and so that the least amount of your body is exposed to the direct blasts. Clear nights act as blackbody radiators, literally stealing heat from you. This (and dew prevention) is a good reason to camp under tree cover if possible. Tree cover also means that it is more likely that there is a good layer of humus on the ground. Humus is the layer of organic matter than builds up on forest floors. This stuff is fluffier than lower strata of soil, thus it holds more air and helps to insulate your body from direct conductive body heat loss to the ground. If humus isn't an option due to availability or the site is sensitive and shouldn't be slept on, use extra clothing, backpacks and other gear to pile up under you. Finally, don't camp in a low flat spot. Flat spots at the base of a hill or mountain often collect extremely cold air that pours down the mountain and settles. One of the main thru-hiker tricks is to keep a little high calorie snack next to your bed to eat in the middle of the night when that 3am chill sets in. The extra calories give your raging metabolism a little more fuel to keep yourself warm.

Another sleeping option:
Although I haven't personally tried it, I am not convinced that the Jardine sleeping quilt is the worst idea in the world. The basic idea behind it is that the when you sleep in a sleeping bag you compress all of the fill underneath you so that it is effectively doing nothing. Therefore, R.J. suggests using just a quilt over you and some sort of closed cell foam type sleeping pad below you. "The Goat People" aka Rob and Katherine used quilts that they made and seemed pretty happy with them (especially through the sections when they had a warm goat to cozy up to). I think that each of their synthetic fill quilts weighed about one pound. I think that if my wife and I did more long distance hiking together I might make a quilt for the two of us to share. Also, I might try putting a piece of nylon across the bottom of the quilt to make sure the quilt doesn't slip off and to prevent warm air from leaking out around the edges.

Other down gear:
Most other down gear has an equal synthetic counter part. I hiked the High Sierra section of the PCT with a Patagonia puff vest made from synthetic insulation. Also, when I got to Stehekin there was a severe threat of snow storm - and conveniently a sale at the Stehekin Lodge ultralight gear shop - I was able to get a previous season Go-Lite puff parka for only $40. This is now one of my favorite pieces of backcountry gear summer or winter.

My Food Strategy

Overview

• Resupply Strategies
• My food planning
• Revised food plan (what actually worked for me)
• Thoughts for next time
• Some of my favorites

Resupply Strategies:

Anyone interested in the PCT probably knows all about resupply strategies by now; hopefully I can provide a little insight to how strategies are effected by being vegan and introduce them to those that don't know at all. Essentially there are two primary strategies, plus a number of hybrids of the two.

1. Buy all of your food in advance, package it into boxes and send them to any of a number of post offices or resorts along the trail. A list of commonly used resupply points, their addresses and important information is available on the PCTA Website.
This is essentially the strategy that I used. It is a good strategy for vegans and those concerned about what they put into their bodies. You can purchase food in bulk, buy local, organic, vegan, exactly how you want. Shipping can get expensive though (definitely use flat-rate boxes to save money) and most likely you won't be able to really know exactly what you want to eat every day for the next 4-5 months.

2. Buy your food along the way. There are a number of larger towns within 4-10 miles of the trail that can be hiked or hitched to, however, most of the time the shopping is limited to what one might find at a typical gas station. Hiker's that buy along the way tend to eat a lot of candy bars, pop tarts, ramen, instant rice and instant oatmeal. Although a considerable amount of money might be saved on shipping, mountain resort food prices are significantly higher than one can find when buying bulk.

3. The main hybrid strategy involves buying along the way at locations where good food is available and sending food from some of these locations to the places where good food is not available. For instance, Ashland is only a 10 mile hitch from the trail and is a great place to buy bulk, organic, etc to resupply for Oregon and possibly Washington. If you are willing to hitch, you can probably buy good food within 10 miles of the trail for most of the Southern California portion.

My Food Planning:

My typical, off trail, diet primarily consists of organic fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains. I was a little concerned about 4+ months of no fresh vegetables and a diet of a great deal of dehydrated foods. Additionally, I was overwhelmed by the idea of planning all of my food for 4.5 months in advance. To begin to reduce the stress I made a day by day itinerary of my trip down the trail in Excel. I used the PCT data book and guide book to get a general idea of where I would be and when. I allowed myself 2 weeks to build to a 20 mile per day average (based on the recommendation of another thru-hiker I had talked to) and barely hit 25 a day before the Sierras where we reduced mileage again to below 20. After the High Sierras we planned for 25's again (but in reality we averaged 30 a day from Tahoe to Canada).

After creating a rough day by day itinerary, we were able to plug in the resupply locations that we had chosen. Most of the points were chosen due to proximity to the trail since we were planning to avoid getting in cars when possible. Therefore, all of our resupply locations were within about 4-5 miles of the trail where we could easily walk to them. We resupplied at:

Mt. Laguna, Warner Springs, Idyllwild, Big Bear, Cajon Pass, Aqua Dulce, Tehachapi (we had family deliver this one), Kennedy Meadows, VVR, Tuolumne Meadows, Echo Lake, Sierra City, Belden Town, Old Station, Castella, Seiad Valley, Crater Lake, Shelter Cove Resort, Santiam Pass (again family delivered this one), Timberline Lodge, Cascade Locks, Naches, Snoqualmie Pass, and Stehekin.

My original plan was based on recipes from "Lip Smackin' Vegetarian Backpacking" a book of backpacking recipes by Christine and Tim Conners. Essentially I picked about 20 recipes that "seemed" good to me. Unfortunately I never really went and tested them all - worse, I thought that for some reason while out on the trail I would begin to like hot cereal... not the case. So, I made another Excel sheet of all of the recipes and used it to total all of the ingredients that I needed to buy, went out and bought them all and the weekend before beginning the trail I packaged each meal into zip-lock baggies and put them in bags that would eventually be packed into flat-rate boxes.

My general plan included 3 "meals" per day plus several baggies of snacks, which included nuts, dried fruit, trail mix and energy bars.

My Revised Plan (What actually worked for me):

As I mentioned, the whole hot cereal breakfast thing was a no go, also my other breakfast plan - soymilk powder + granola, just add water was a gooey disaster. I also realized that a number of my untested meals were no good (inlcuding: Green Dragon Pad Thai, Absaroka Sweet & Sour, and Time Travelers Tamales). It is funny, I had done a decent amount of backpacking before this trip but it was rarely in the desert and rarely did it involve sunrise to sunset hiking. I should have known that 3 "meals" a day would never work. In addition to problems with the actual food, I had pretty serious "trail shock"/heat sickness the first two weeks on the trail. I could barely eat a thing (fortunately I had plenty of fat reserves to give me energy...)

My saving grace was that my girlfriend (now wife) was sending each of my resupply boxes one at a time - so I had a little room to make some changes. I had her take out every breakfast and about a third of the other meals (starting with the above listed). She replaced my old breakfasts with about 1.5 cups of dry granola and doubled my nuts, dried fruit and energy bar supply. So, the new plan that got me the from about Idyllwild to Canada was granola first thing, nuts, fruit and energy bar in the morning, the same in the afternoon, and a cooked dinner when we reached camp. It is strange getting used to the idea of exercising all day, eating, and immediately going to sleep - it seems contrary to what we are told about healthy eating, but for a thru-hiker it makes a great deal of sense. If you look at Barbara Braatens articles that I refer to in the previous post, she recommends eating a large carb meal within 15min to an hour after stopping exercise - this help to restore glycogen levels. Additionally, thru-hikers metabolisms never stop racing which means when your body is out of calories in the middle of the night it can get cold fast. A meal before bed restores glycogen and gives it the energy to feed your metabolism through the night.

In addition to the above noted regime of granola, nuts, fruit, bars and cooked meals there were a number of little extras mixed in. I brought ONE powder with me, a whole food veggie based powder that meets most of a persons daily needs for vitamins and minerals. Since I wasn't getting fresh veggies often, this seemed to best way to keep my body in balance. At a few points along the trail my dad surprised me with care packages of his dehydrator creations. Some of my favorites were tofu jerky and smoothies. For the smoothies he would simply dehydrate some fruit, throw it in the blender with some soy milk powder and I would add water - not exactly Jamba Juice, but it sure is refreshing. Other treats included chocolate, fruit leathers, halvah (5000 calorie sesame based dessert bars) and what we called energy goo - essentially peanut butter, chocolate chips, rolled oats and coconut mixed up in a zip lock. Whenever we hit town we loaded up on any and all fresh produce that we could find.

Thoughts For Next Time

I have many thoughts for next time, which will most certainly be topics for future posts, but the main one I will share now is a change in strategy for my cooked meals. It seems as though I would divide my cooked meals into three types and bring about 1/3 of my meals from each type.

1. Pre-assembled meals - This is essentially the approach that I already took. There is very little prep really, you simply buy a few ingredients, combine them in a zip lock, throw them in a pot of boiling water and done. Some of my favorites from "Lip Smackin Vegetarian Backpacking" were: Miso Madness, Ketchikan Cous Cous and Lone Pine Lentils.

2. Make a meal trailside - We spent a good amount of time with the infamous "Goat People" aka Rob and Katherine and they had a similar set of dietary goals but a different meal approach. They pre-cooked all of their rice, beans, lentils, etc. and dehydrated them. In their packages they sent themselves larger bulk supplies of these grains and kept an array of spices, oils, etc. with them to create new meals each night.

3. Full meal dehydration - This is my dad's approach. He has a book called "Backpack Gourmet" by Linda Frederick Yaffe. He posted one recipe "Portobello Curry" that is either vegan or he adapted it to be vegan on his blog oregonhiker.wordpress.com. Another favorite was a potato and tofu breakfast scramble that he sent. The parents of my hiking partner, Dena, sent dehydrated Indian food leftovers and one point - in other words the options within the world of food dehydration are endless.

Some of My Favorites:

I've already listed a number of my favorite treats and recipes. But to recap...

Miso Madness - a combination of instant rice, miso soup powder, dried mushrooms, tofu and seaweed. You can make it soupy or like a pilaf.

Lone Pine Lentils - A delicious stew of lentils with fresh dumplings. Even though mixing the water and oil to the dumpling mix (flour and veggie broth powder) is super easy, something about this meal doesn't hardly seem like trail food. This meal never got old to me.

It is amazing how many things can be dehydrated and still taste great on the trail. I already wrote about the smoothies (mmm, smoothies), and mentioned the tofu jerky. There are a number of marinade recipes, but all you really need to do is marinade the tofu, slice it thin and dehydrate it. Spaghetti sauce rehydrates well as do other sauce like meals like baigan bharta and other Indian foods.

Store bought treats include other vegan jerkies like Primal Strips or Stonewalls Jerquee, the above mentioned halvah, chocolate, Newman O's, Uncle Eddies vegan cookies and Tami found vegan, whole wheat doughnut holes at one point that she sent for a resupply day treat. Dena's mom did some research on the foods of nomadic people and sent a number of interesting dried breads and crackers along with spreads and chutneys that didn't spoil in our packs. Mary's Gone Crackers and various seed/nut based raw crackers are particular good. The easiest way to increase ones calorie to weight ratio is by adding a tablespoon or so of oil to meals. Many hikers use olive oil, I like coconut oil because it stays solid below about 75degF. Perhaps the health effects of coconut oil can be a future discussion.

Although I ate a Cliff bar nearly every day, I think that they are way too sweet and can hardly eat them now. I will post in the future about vegan energy bars, but Lara Bars and Bumblebars are some of my favorites. Lara Bars are raw and date based (and delicious). Bumblebars are sesame based and equally tasty.

Nutrition for Thru-Hikers

Although being vegan is a lifestyle that guides ones decisions regarding most aspects of life, most people think first of how it effects ones diet. Thus, an intro to trail food seems an appropriate way to kick-off this blog.

I am by no means a dietitian, nutritionist or other expert on human dietary needs, but I have been vegan for about 8 years now and didn't have any dietary problems during my PCT thru-hike (after the first 2 weeks - more on that later). Brenda Braaten, however, is a PhD dietitian and has written a series of extremely useful articles on nutrition for long distance hikers and other endurance athletes. These articles can be found at:

http://thru-hiker.com/articles/pack_light_eat_right.php

The page includes articles on sugars/carbs, fats, protein, vitamins, minerals, recipes and even wild harvesting. Although the articles are not vegan specific, she writes mostly in general terms and does make a few specific recommendations for vegetarians. Additionally, her tables and charts of suggested foods tend only to refer to jerky and powdered milk - nearly all of the rest of the info is vegan.

Her primary suggestion is to create a diet that is approximately 50% Carbs, 35% Fat, and 15% Protein by calories. Although her fat recommendation is far higher than normal suggestions, fat tends to contain more than twice the energy of sugars by weight and since thru-hikers will burn the calories almost immediately it is okay. Braaten also focuses a great deal on carbohydrates. Carbs are our primary energy source - they feed both our brains and our muscles. Braaten recommends munching on carbs throughout the day and avoiding simple sugars (particularly before exercise has begun). She says that the protein recommendation for a long distance hiker is only slightly higher than that of a normal person - and as most vegans know, the average American consumes twice as much protein as they need. Protein is an inefficient source of energy, so it is really just needed for building new tissue.