Bear Canister capacity

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Wandering Daisy
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Re: Bear Canister capacity

Post by Wandering Daisy »

If you run into me you will see cooking. Here is how I see the difference in backpack "rehydrating" and "cooking".

Freeze dried and home dehydrated "meals" are re-hydrated by dumping contents in hot water or, hot water in packed such meals, wait until it hydrates, eat.

Cooking is taking many dried ingredients, putting them together, boiling water, add ingredients, spices, and cook perhaps 5-10 minutes. Also includes cooking fish. So if I pack bags of dried fruit, steel cut oats, salt, margarine, nuts, and carry a spice kit and take a bit out of each bag for each breakfast, am I "cooking" or "rehydrating"? My 1/2 cup of grains cook up to 2-3 times the original volume. If cooked and then dehydrated at home (or freeze-dried commercial meal), lighter, you do not get the equivalent decrease in bulk carried.

Many pots are NOT needed! I do all this with one qt. pot, one spoon and eat out of the pot. I can still fit all food in my Bearikade for 10 days. The bulk or the pot, fuel and stove does not go into the bear can does not impact what I can get inside the bear can. And I get 2,500 calories per day at 1.25 pounds per day. I would not say that is either bulky or heavy. Show me how no-cook meals compare with volume, calories, and weight.
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JWreno
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Re: Bear Canister capacity

Post by JWreno »

My wife, son and I each have an Expedition canister and have fit 12 days of food in them for northbound JMT trips between Horseshoe Meadows and Muir trail ranch resupply. We all fit the canisters straight up in the center of our packs. We keep the sleeping bags below and pack clothing around the canisters. We also have a Weekender that we bring for shorter trips. Sometimes my son and I have an Expedition with the wife carrying the Weekender. On even shorter trips my wife carries more of the tent and other common gear and doesn't have to carry any of the food.

We repack all the food in ziplocks and loose all the extra packaging. Empty ziplocks are good for waste containers. We only carry about a pound per person per day. We find we eat less at altitude. Most of our calories are eating while hiking on the trail and we eat lightly at dinner time and cook with a single pot and cozy to give our home made meals time to rehydrate. We only heat water for dinner or not at all.

I love using the canisters for hauling water for a sponge bath at the end of each day, doing laundry every 4-5 days and as a seat.
Jeff
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