[pct-l] hiking calories

[Edward Anderson]

Good morning to you Steel-Eye,
 
Your posts are always interesting as well as informative. Do you believe that if you had been able to start from Independence with 8,000 more calories (extra weight) and would have been able to carry that outside the volume capacity of your bear can (illegal), then, you would have lost little or no weight? Would the resulting 4,000 calories per day have really allowed you to remain at essentially the same weight even though the work of crossing all of those high passes was very substantial - being more than hiking a similar distance on most other parts of the PCT. 
 
I don't have a lot of body fat reserves myself. I plan to try to put on a few extra pounds prior to starting my PCT journey this year. This summer I will start from Horseshoe Meadows. (I have not yet decided whether I will ride or hike, but even when I ride, I like to sometimes walk. I carry under 20 pounds in my knapsack. Does that make me a UL'er?)  I plan to resupply at Onion Valley and will lose weight when I reach my second resupply at Muir Trail Ranch. I can accept that - no problem. My third resupply will be T.Meadows. From there I am considering the possibility of going west to Wawona and then farther west (if I can find a route) to where I have relatives south of Mariposa. I am somewhat familiar with N.Forest trails and dirt roads east of Mariposa since I have ridden some of them. I won the Mariposa Run For The Gold 50 -miler, riding Primo in 2006, and finished fourth on Neekalos in 2005. I think I will recognize some of those trails My
 relatives live about 2 or 3 miles from the base camp of the race.

You might find it interesting that when I solo backpacked the JMT in 1957 I did not resupply. I only went from Whitney Portal to T. Meadows. I recall that the distance then was about 185 miles. When I started I was probably carrying around 160 pounds in my Kelty Pack. I was in no hurry, and, as I recall, it took 18 days. I had no time schedule and I took several side hikes to fish lakes off the JMT. I fished a lot and also supplemented the food that I carried with wild plants that I already knew of. I even had time to climb a few peaks during that hike. I'm sure that I lost some weight.

MendoRider-Hiker

________________________________
 From: CHUCK CHELIN <steeleye at wildblue.net>
To: Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "pct-l at backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net>; Charles Williams <charlesnolie at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 6:09 AM
Subject: Re: [pct-l] hiking calories
  

Good
morning, MendoRider-Hiker ,  
A pound of pure fat has about 4,000 Calories,
but fat in the body also has 0-Calorie water which means to drop the scale needle
by one pound it’s only necessary to short your intake by about 3,500 Calories.  All of that is highly situational and your
results may vary. 
Due to the capacity of my bear ‘can, and the
nature of foods available in town, I departed Independence with about 3,200
Calories/day knowing that it was insufficient for the probable burn-rate over
the next 8 days.  The result
was being short about 1,000 Calories/day over that period.  Sure enough, I had lost several pounds when I arrived at VVR where there was scale. 
 
Steel-Eye 
-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT –
1965 
http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye 
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/ 


On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Edward Anderson <mendoridered at yahoo.com> wrote:


One comment and question, to be clear, how many calories must one consume if he/she is endowed with ample body fat and would like to lose much of it ?  
>

MendoRider-Hiker 
> 
>