Packing a Bear Canister
For out upcoming hike from South Lake to North Lake on the John Muir Trail, I have an unfamiliar challenge. That is to get food for 5 breakfasts, 6 lunches, and 5 dinners into a bear canister. In Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Washington, we just don't have that constraint very often (never in Idaho).
Taking the foods and weights I actually ate on the last week long backpack, I put together these foods:
15.5 oz raisin bran and 10.6 oz milk for breakfast (I have a hard time time instant oatmeal)
10 oz yogurt covered raisins
7 oz glazed walnuts
4.3 oz corn nuts
10.3 oz jerky
11.5 oz trail mix
8.6 oz Gouda cheese
11.2 oz dates
21.5 oz tortillas
11.4 oz dried apricots
7.8 oz dried peaches
12 Via Coffees
24 splenda packs
12 Crystal Lite packs
From the lunch and dinner stuff, I kept out enough for the first day's lunch and dinner, which doesn't need to be in the canister.
For dinners, I used Packit Gourmet dinners for the test packing of the canister, but on the trip I'll probably have some other ones, like pasta dishes, but the Packit Gourmet dinners are a good approximation.
End result: I got all in the canister except one breakfast of Raisin Bran, and the bag of peaches, and a bag of bisquik for biscuits. Next I'll try Grape Nuts instead of Raisin Bran and see of that works. If worse comes to worse I'll have to go for instant oatmeal.