food on a route | Uphill Athlete

food on a route

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    Topic
  • #3679
    rhysmacallister
    Participant

    Hi,

    Last week I climbed the Pierre/Alain on the Petit Dru in Chamonix. It was winter conditions and cold temperatures down to at least -15 to 20 at night. There are two things i want to discuss and get feedback on.

    1. using fuel at altidude and at – temperatures
    2. what food people eat on route in winter

    First of all I made the call to bring a pocket rocket burner as opposed to a jetboil. This was a mistake as there was no shelter from the wind. Having said that, the main cause of the problem was the cartride gas (butane) and its lack of function at – temperatures. As i said above it was likely that it was between -15 to -20 that night, the bivy at the base of the route was at an altitude of 3000m.

    It took me two hours to make 2.5ltrs of which we only boiled 1 litre for the freeze dry meal. When we added the boiling water to the meal and left for 10min, the water had not been absorbed. It was still tasty and gave us liquid to have.

    While making the water the flame would eventually lose its power and at that point i would hover the other cartridge over the flame to warm it up and then switch.

    What are peoples experience with this, suggestions, alternatives anything out of interest and related.

    One idea i had was to use neoprime as used to insutlate nalgene bottle for the cartridges. I then read that it does not work?

    In the end we had 1 litre each over two days and one night, totally dehydrated and post climb, found it really hard to recover. I also found it hard to eat, which brings me to the next problem!

    What to bring on route, in winter!?

    I have experimented a lot over the years and in the summer although never perfect i have found that cheese bites and dried sausage work well, although to much sodium can be a problem.

    I brought a bag of cheese bites and saussison mixed with apple. The cheese and apple froze and took the flavour of the sausage which made me dry wretch. i did not eat for two day barely.
    I can`t eat wheat which cuts out a lot of other things you might bring.

    Again lack of nourishment, major reason for slow recovery, i imagine.

    I am going to experiment with energy balls and homemade bars, such as the one’s in new alpinism.

    What do you guys and girls go for?

    Thanks

Posted In: Nutrition

  • Participant
    psathyrella on #35434

    I’ve been trying to get a system like that ^ working on the msr windburner, which doesn’t have a gap through which you can feed the flattened copper tube into the flame. The best I’ve tried so far is using a few “slats” made from many layers of aluminum foil attached to the outside of the burner with a hose clamp, and squeezed against the gas cannister with rubber bands. The heat transfer seems to be about right, and you can adjust for different temperatures by changing the number of slats. I at least prefer it to the warm-water-in-the-cap method (since if the water is too warm you get a conflagration in your tent, and you also end up with ice on the cannister and cap, which eventually finds its way onto your down clothing) or the swapping-cannisters-into-jacket method (since you need an extra cannister, and swapping takes time).

    The downsides to this method are that carrying a dime to work the hose clamp, and twisting the hose clamp, are somewhat annoying. Plus the hose clamp is an awkwardly shaped, sharp thing, so it’s hard to pack in a way that doesn’t damage delicate clothing and inflatable pads.

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    Participant
    kmfoerster on #36234

    Heres some very helpful info on another way of making a heat exchanger/conductor for canister stoves:

    https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/98947/

    This setup is very light and simple. I especially like the use of the silicone bracelet to keep the copper in contact with the canister.

    Participant
    oceandean4life on #46088

    I think people must eat and drink only hot things. No matter from what they are maden.
    Also you can go for hidden spy apps for android if you are not alone while you are hiking/climbing somewhere, it will help you to not lost your mate!

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