| Being in the backcountry for extended periods of | | | | achieve your goals, but on the other hand, you don't |
| time requires a lot of thought and planning for all | | | | want to haul food around that you are never going |
| aspects of the trip. One area that can be a real | | | | to eat. Excess weight is a real killer. |
| headache, and can make or break an expedition, is | | | | Have a well thought out rations plan has the added |
| food planning. | | | | advantage of making managing food in the hills |
| You need to have food that satisfies a number of | | | | significantly easier, less time resorting food, less time |
| different sometime conflicting requirements. It needs | | | | worrying if you are going to run out of coffee in |
| to be light, reasonably priced, easy to prepare, long | | | | week 3. |
| lasting, able to withstand being crammed into a | | | | So the question is how to get all of this unruly |
| backpack, have the right combination of carbs, | | | | information into a form that you can manipulate and |
| protein, fats, and it has to taste good. That's a | | | | work with? It's time to get friendly with a |
| power of things to get right and can make for a lot | | | | spreadsheet. |
| of head scratching. | | | | If you are already familiar with Excel then this will |
| As well as all of the above you need to be able to | | | | probably be a breeze for you. If not, it's a good |
| work out exact amounts of food to take. Ideally you | | | | opportunity to learn. The investment of your time to |
| want to take with you only as much food as you | | | | set up a rations program will have big paybacks for |
| need, so no one goes hungry. Food is your fuel as | | | | future trips. |
| well as a big factor in the overall happiness of your | | | | Stick around for Part 2 when I talk about how to |
| group . It is important to have enough food to | | | | structure your Rations program. |