Desert Hiking - Food

One desert-hiking myth is that since you have to carry water anyway, why not save a step and carry hydrated food? This means either fresh food, which doesn't keep, or canned food, which is heavy and leaves you carrying the empty cans for the entire trip. Moreover, many desert hikes have enough springs and other water sources so that you don't have to carry a huge load of water all the time. A great deal of specialty dehydrated food is made for backpacking and lightweight camping, but it is very expensive. Many items found in supermarkets make good backpacking food at a lower cost.

Of course, on a day hike you can carry fresh fruit, fresh food for sandwiches, or anything else. A juicy, sweet orange is a real delight on a hot summer hike!

Always keep an energy bar or two in your pack so that you always have something to eat even if you forget to bring lunch.

Avoid chocolate, which melts easily, and perishable foods such as soft cheeses and butter.

On multiday trips when you have to carry water for dry camps, plan to use minimum water foods. These include noodle or rice meals that use only enough water to hydrate the food, with no extra to pour off, and are easy to clean up.

On warmer trips or when you'll have to carry a lot of water, consider leaving your stove behind and eating trail munchies and other food that doesn't require cooking. (Remember to always carry emergency fire-starting material.)

Before leaving home, remove excess packaging such as cardboard boxes. Plastic bags with zipper closures (zip-locked bags) make excellent food repackaging bags. Double-bag messy items. If you do bring along margarine and peanut butter, pack them in reliable wide-mouth plastic jars (available from outdoor suppliers). Put the container in a plastic bag, too.

Extra zipper-locked bags are also useful during the trip for double-bagging messy trash such as sardine or tuna cans. Zipper-locked bags make good trash bags because the airtight seal minimizes food odors that attract wildlife.

Dedicate one or more nylon stuff sacks to food storage and don't use them for anything else during the trip. The idea is to confine food odors as much as possible to avoid attracting rodents and other animals. Bears are not usually a problem, but rodents can wreak havoc on your food supply.

Use your pack as a cooler. When loading your pack in the morning, place food bags deep within your backpack and insulate them with a down or pile jacket. Try to keep your pack in the shade during rest stops. The temperature in the shade may be 5—15 degrees cooler than in the strong desert

STOVES

If you use a butane stove, don't count on buying more fuel canisters in a remote desert region. Take all you'll need from home.

It's common for stoves to clog with sand and dust on desert trips. Make sure you have a stove repair kit that includes a jet cleaner. Some stoves have built-in jet cleaning mechanisms; these can save a lot of time and frustration.

Use a windscreen. In the desert, strong winds often blow for hours at a time, especially in the spring. Even a slight breeze greatly reduces the efficiency of an unprotected stove, which means you'll use a lot more fuel, and cooking takes longer.

Component stoves, in which the burner and fuel tank assemblies are separate, often have windscreens that completely enclose the burner. This design works very well and protects the flame even in strong winds. It also increases the efficiency of the stove in calm air.

Conventional stoves, designed with the burner and fuel tank as a single unit, are generally more convenient because they do not have to be assembled before use. The windscreen never encloses the burner completely, because doing so would allow too much heat to reach the fuel tank. To protect the stove from wind, you'll have to build a windbreak using your pack, other gear, or stones. Warning: Never use any type of windscreen to enclose both the burner and fuel tank on any stove. The fuel tank can easily overheat and explode. During use, periodically check the temperature of the fuel tank. If the tank gets more than warm to the touch, turn the stove off.