[Here's an old post and old foolishness that didn't get sent right away and that I'd like to have out of the queue. I ended up trashing all the dog food--I got sick. From it, I am not certain, but I associate it with that. I was carrying too much weight with it all at any rate. I have no plans to try any more of it.
Re: bear canisters: most of the less-traveled trails seem not to require them.
Re: fires: in many places out here fires are ok.
Re: other potential dietary foolishness: the large white shrooms that grow on dead foxtail pines maybe cause loose stool. I've followed the approach w/ shrooms of avoiding any that are somewhat like the deadly ones--but I definitely could stand to learn much more.
Re: not filtering the water--so far, so good, adding onto last year's five weeks, even after drinking from the cow sewer--it's been, well I guess it's only just been 14 days (giardia incubation period). I do have to endure some horror stories however when talk gets round to that. See earlier posts and Elpel's _Participating in Nature_ (hollowtop.com ?) for more on that. End note.]
I've walked my 3 am hrs & 3 pm. I've resupplied, some key decisions made. Got out of K-Mart minus $15 on nuts, prunes, pet food, all except the latter eaten soon. In Vons: $8 instant potatoes ~3.5 lbs. mustard, cabbage, 2 bananas, 1lb carrots, $12 on two 1+ lb salamis, $4 tub of butter, $12/10lbs dog biscuit, $14/7lbs iams dog food. Pet food taxed, total:~$60. $6 to mail cook pot, unneeded maps, misc to Tuolomne Meadows. $80. May do for two weeks. Goal: no-cook, no-binge food, with enough to keep me going for two weeks. It's about 160 miles from the trailhead near Independence to T-meadows. I want to be lazy and do non-hiking things--no strings of 20-mile days.
Made those decisions, (after/while) ate a bit too much salami, but not to the point it was a problem, looked at bear canisters, headnets, mailed pkg, walked around Bishop desert for miles eating apples, peaches from trees looking for community college. Found it at last, closed, but water available, lay down to rest and read Pynchon, the/a real goal all along.
I've done the sewing, walking, sitting,eating wild food, but not the reading yet these two weeks, except for audiobooks.
Tomorrow: walk back into Bishop (decent town!), find way to upload photos (public lib?), or at least get them off camera so I can take more. Go back to Independence (-$4.50) but could go into mts from here.
The main new experiment will be the no cooking and kind of food--many possibly nasty issues with chicken byproducts, from China, oxidized cholesterol, I really should learn to/practice catching fish. Cooking, a nice ritual, learned from Frank Cook. . . well, my pot should be in T-Mdws when I get there, or sent back to SD if I don't go there after all.
Concerned about over-acidification or whatever it is from eating that stuff--I'll keep eating greens I find, but won't have pot to cook them or shrooms these next 2 weeks. Maybe later I'll type in what the animal feed is reported to have in it. As noted before, it sounds better than most every kind of human neo-pemmican found in mainstream stores and costing less than $12/lb. I have a hard time spending $ on anything where some type of sugar is the main ingredient.
Descending further into odd personal experimental culture hobo-dom.
Precedents are the bigger-budgeted/better self-controlled no-cook, powerbar-, jerky-, pop-tart-, cheap 7-11 pastry-eating, small store-resupplying thru-hikers, and Muir, who self-reports bringing only bread and tea on mountaneering expeditions (but those lasting only a few days and carrying hardly anything).
You do need to prepare or catch your own food, as do the longer-term adventurers (Jardines, Billy Goat) I've heard of, or spend a lot on small-store fresh fruit, frozen blueberries (Crow, asthecrowflies.org?), to eat the large number of calories needed in a way that sounds healthy.
This should, at least, get me out there to experience some time of no cook, no binge--since I rarely practice self control, though I did successfully ration on my first trip last year. Bringing food requiring cooking prevented eating everything up.
Most thru-hikers resupply every week or more often. For whatever reason, I like shooting for two weeks. This last time, I was only a day or two short. But as a result, my pack is heavy now: ~22 lbs dry food, plus the wetter food, which will be gone soon. Maybe I'll collect some apples on the way in to Bishop to take up to mts, but there are gooseberries up there--
I've heard the estimate of 2lbs food/person/day on caloric-intensive trips.
Eventually, as long as I can learn to do it without spending all my time at it (unless I want to!), it would be good to select adventures or dwelling-places where nutrition and calories are more easily and not illegally found along the way.
That will be a good thing to think more carefully about--I've heard of fish in baja, seaweed and fish in most coastal areas, sierra trout, fruit & seafood in tropical areas, figs & other fruit in urban areas. Rabbits, other small game, once you have the knack, in many places. Snakes in SoCal wilderness. Animals in Sequoia/Kings Cyn don't fear people much--wild chickens and the groundhogs (?) [marmots] are easy to get close to.
[I agree with Mollison/Permaculture we can't be going to live off the wild lands, that we need to rehabilitate the places already paved/deforested/devastated--but I'm not doing this. I appreciate the intention and effect of the ban on hunting, grazing, fires (in many places) in these parks.]
If the animal feed / human feed (peculiar to my lack of desire to practice self-control perhaps) works for me, it could provide for two weeks of practice in the regions where better food could be gotten on site.
Of course, fires are not illegal in most places outside of CA's mountain museums / suburban sprawl estate borders. They are allowing stoves, but I don't (yet) want to carry one or burn imported fuel when so much is right around. . .
I am trying, as Tagore (_Sadhana Realisation_, librivox audiobook) presents as a possibility, to use (and appreciate) the restrictions and guidelines as a challenge or form for more creativity--to question my old habits, rituals.
I may still be an outlaw south of Sonora Pass, however. I'm now well educated about the purpose and use of the bear canister, but believe the Jardine/thru-hiker approach: don't camp where everyone camps, camp high, don't cook where you camp, sleep with your smelly feet on your food (never leave it alone)--should be fine.
Tomorrow I should be able to reexamine sierrawildbear.gov and the map there. Bears and rangers. My permit is ready to show them; I think they only go around checking for canisters in established campsites, but who knows. How much am I willing to pay for peace of mind? I've spent too much time already imagining what I might say in response to "do you have a canister?"
Enough--I doubt I'll have more to write before I head back to no-reception land. But commenting on the pictures could be fun if that works out. The community college in S. Lake Tahoe was ideal for that, and I thought this one here might be. Cerrocoso.edu (?) is much smaller though, and, closed, I cannot tell.
Peace,
coyotes-
water in the desert: multiple well-running rivers and streams right through town. Almost every third gutter is a running stream, and not, as in SoCal, because someone is overwatering. Residential ponds are common. Massive mts, clouds to east and west of desert valley.
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