Wallowas Backcountry Ski Recap: Food Edition

I've started training building a base for my spring races. Really. But before I get to that, in true "eking out what I can from the 2011-2012 ski season" form, I'm writing one last more post about the Wallowas backcountry skiing trip. 

You may remember that about a month ago, I was in the midst of prepping meals and food for the trip and nervous about it. I'm not a confident backcountry cook, and I didn't know two of the people in the group, which made it even trickier. What if they were gourmet cooks?? I was banking on everyone burning a lot of calories the day that I was assigned to dinner and being so famished that they'd eat anything.

So of course it rained for 28 hours straight, making the avalanche risk super high. We stayed at camp. All. Day.  No one burned a significant amount of energy.

I know you're dying to find out how my communal meal went. Let's get to it.

Despite the lack of calories burned during the day and my bias, I think my meal turned out yummy. It faced stiff competition, though, as the couple that brought in a sled actually brought in all fresh food, including: Brussels sprouts, asparagus, capers, lemons, and  2 pounds of fresh salmon (and a half gallon of milk, raw eggs in shell, raw sausage, bell peppers, and new potatoes...suffice to say that not all backcountry trips are created equal.). On the other hand, the sled was a fiasco.

Quarter mile in and already having sled issues.

Being a mean 100 lbs and schlepping everything on my back (squashed in a 35L pack!) meant that my meals needed to be light and compact. There was virtually no on-site prep required for my recipes, unless you count "boiling water" as prep. Also, they're "one-pot" friendly.

Slaving away.

The Dinner Menu

Snack: [something crispy] and guacamole

Appetizer: potato leek soup

Entree: teriyaki salmon with brown rice and spinach

Guacamole:

• 1 packet guacamole mix
• avocado
• lime

Follow instructions on packet, which are more or less "mash avocados, add mix, and mash some more." The lime was my special secret ingredient.

This one is a no-brainer. I brought in Simply Organic guacamole mix and an avocado. My guru, the Backcountry Culinary Goddess gushes about the virtues of bringing an avocado or two into the backcountry, so I did. Then I found two more in one of the camp's two coolers. The prior hut group had also left a lime. Score!

I later (like two weeks ago) found crystallized lime packets that will substitute for fresh lime when weight is an issue, as it is in most backcountry situations. 

True Lime, where were you when I needed you??

This "recipe" is definitely coming with me the next time I head out into the woods. The challenging part is figuring out what to dip into the guac. It needs to be something I can squish into my pack. I'm open to suggestions...

Potato Leek Soup:

• 1 package of potato leek soup mix
• 1 cups of potato flakes from instant mashed potatoes
• 6.5 cups water
• 3 bouillon cubes
• 1/2 cup cured bacon bits
• some amount of shelf-safe grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup shelf-safe whole milk (or powdered equivalent) 

Bring water to boil and add bouillon cubes to create broth. Add soup mix and potato flakes and simmer ~30 minutes. Add milk. Top with cheese and bacon bits. Serve.

Soup mixes are abundant. I've also seen some in the bulk food aisle (in Seattle).

There are also several options for instant mashed potatoes.

The Backcountry Culinary Goddess told me that a block of aged cheese almost always makes it into her pack. I sought a lighter weight alternative: grated Parm. As for the milk, 2% or whole fat is better than non-fat for this recipe. For the life of me, I could not find powdered milk with fat in this town. So in a departure from my goals of reducing volume and weight, I actually brought in shelf-safe whole milk. 

Not sure which is more creepy: shelf-safe milk
or cow drinking milk from a straw.

A benefit of being assigned to prepare a menu for the last night of a backcountry trip when your group includes members petrified of running out of food is that you can often scrounge some ingredients. So I scrounged an obscene amount of fresh cheddar cheese, which someone else had brought in but didn't want to carry out, to add to the soup. I also grabbed some cheese that the prior group had left behind. Don't worry, I tested it on a guy with an iron stomach before adding it to the soup. 

This soup would have been ideal if we had actually burned more than a few hundred calories the day my menu was up for dinner. Instead, my meal made it seem like I was fattening up my pals for slaughter. Maybe I was.

Teriyaki Salmon with Brown Rice and Spinach

• The amount of teriyaki salmon packets that will feed your crew. I used 3 pouches of BUMBLE BEE® Prime Fillet® Pink Salmon Steaks for 5 people, although I had brought in 4 pouches.
• The amount of instant brown rice that will feed your crew. I brought 3 cups and cooked it all.
• Fresh spinach (large bag)
• Nori Fumi Furikake rice seasoning (optional, available in Whole Foods and Asian grocery stores)

Prepare rice according to instant rice directions, add spinach after rice is cooked. Let spinach wilt. Break salmon into chunks and heat through. Season to taste with Nori Fumi Furikake rice seasoning. Serve.

This recipe shouldn't even be called a recipe because it's ridiculously easy. My most genius move was bringing the rice seasoning in an empty Nuun tube (I also brought a tube actually filled with Nuun).  Even though the rice seasoning already comes in a small container, I still repackaged it in an even smaller container. 

Lunches...

Except for the day that we were stuck at camp, when I ate leftovers from dinner the night before, I ate Kind Bars, Honey Stinger chews and gels, and almond butter and honey-filled tortillas. I completely forgot that bars "froze" when cold. And using separate almond butter and honey packets for the tortillas was an unnecessary inconvenience. The raw almond butter was somewhat difficult to spread, and again, it wasn't until a few weeks after I got back to DC that I saw pre-mixed almond butter and honey packets. The latter turned out to be waaaay easier to spread on bread products. In my defense, they were on the highest shelf at the grocery store, so I didn't seem them earlier. Right.

Honey almond butter packets (right) are the way to go.

When it came to actually preparing the honey almond butter-filled tortillas, it was more effective to cut the tortilla first and then spread the honey almond butter onto each half before rolling them up. I previously had spread the honey and almond butter onto the middle of a whole tortilla, rolled it up, and then cut that down the mid-line. It resulted in a gooey mess. Gooey mess in the backcountry = not ideal. 

Breakfasts...

Again, these were the easiest for me, and I described my quinoa  flake porridge in my food prep post. They did the trick.

Parting thoughts, keeping in mind that my focus is on weight...

• Repackage the amounts you'll need for your meals, and bring in only what you need, with a little more just in case. This saves on the waste you'll most likely have to carry out. On the other hand, I personally wouldn't repackage meat/fish because it probably comes in a seal-tight packet that I can't recreate.

• Measure and combine ingredients in ZipLoc bags prior to the trip so that all you need to do on your trip is open and pour. Again, this also saves on waste that needs to come back out. Although, if something is already pre-prepared/mixed (ie, soup), there's no need to open and repackage it, unless you are consolidating multiple packets. 

• If you're bringing in fresh food/veggies, continue to think in terms of weight. I brought spinach and not, say, broccoli (or a head of lettuce), and it's not because I dislike broccoli. Spinach is light and can be compressed. Period. 

The next post is back to running. I promise.

Wordless Wednesday: The Wallowas Edition

Here are some more of my favorite pics from last week's adventure. There's a definite benefit of being the last one when climbing/hiking in someplace: there are lots of photos of you!

Snow shadows

Sliding downhill with skins on
and heels up is confusing. Just sayin'.

Looking like it's the heart of winter right now!

Don't let me down, snow bridge...

Thanks for all the turns, Winter 2011-2012!

Wallowas! (aka, Winter's Last Gasp)

I'm back on the grid! After weeks of blogging and talking about it, the trip to the Wallowas happened.

Bright and early last Tuesday morning, five of us set out for a 7+ hour drive to Joseph, Oregon, from Bend. Our ultimate destination: the Wallowa Mountains. After playing in Bend for three straight days, I was my hip flexors were grateful for a travel/rest day. 

Gear and skis for 5 actually fit into a Suburban!

I'd skied the backcountry before, and I've even hauled in my skis a few times for the spring Tuckerman Ravine ritual. But the Wallowas would be my first multi-day backcountry ski trip. Until this week, I'd only done day trips, and I'd slapped skins onto my skis a grand total of probably 4 times, if you count the first day of my avalanche class where we were focused on rescue, not climbing, techniques. I'm also counting the time that I skinned up a closed ski area in New Hampshire.

I'd been feeling for a few years that backcountry skiing was the next progression for me, so I was super excited when Charlotte called in January inviting me on the trip that she and Aaron were planning. It would be a relatively flat 4-mile ski into the huts, from which we could access some amazing terrain. My hope was that even coming from sea level, I'd be able to keep up with everyone (uhm, yeah), and with any additional luck, my feet would remain relatively blister-free (I was a little more successful at this one). 

We arrived in Joseph, Oregon, just after 5pm. Our plan was to spend the night here before heading onto the trail the next morning. Not so conveniently, nearly every store in town closed at 5pm in the winter. Our only options for killing time before dinner were checking out Our Little Store and window shopping. 

The results of our not-so-blind taste tests of Mexican Pepsi
and Mexican Coke purchased at Our Little Store: Mexican
Pepsi has more flavor than Mexican Coke. Who knew?

Carb loading at Embers Brewhouse, one of the few
open establishments in Joseph after 5pm

My room at Chandlers' Inn. Pretty inspiring!

The hut company sent an employee to our B&B for a briefing Wednesday morning, and a Forest Service ranger also joined us. Then we headed out to the Sno-Park.

If you've spent your entire life on the east coast like me, you probably have never heard of a Sno-Park. Thanks to Google, I've learned (in the last five minutes) that there are Sno-Parks in Oregon, Washington, California (and probably other states), and permits are required for parking there. Yay, Google.

DAY 1

After gearing up in the parking lot, we set out. Our goal for Day 1 was to make it into camp, and depending on how we felt afterward, maybe climb for some turns.

I've never been successful at shooting non-butt
photos of people gearing up...

View from the Sno-Park parking lot.

Every now and then, the sky brightened, and we were treated 
to great views. 

Practicing some spacing. The guys are way out in front with 
the sled. We won't talk about the sled, but let's just say there's a 
reason that two people needed to maneuver one sled. Charlotte 
and Christa are also in front of me, so I was just hanging out, 
taking pix.

Snowmobile high marking tracks on the treeless slope 
near center.

We arrived at camp too late for more skiing, but Christa and Andrew had brought in fresh food (hello, sled!) and whipped up an amazing backcountry meal: fresh salmon, rice, asparagus, and...brussels sprouts. My second brussels sprouts experience ever, and it happened in the backcountry. Not kidding. They weren't bad, either.

Veggies being prepped. I was a little apprehensive about the sprouts. 
I mean what kind of wacko people pack in Brussels sprouts??

The complete meal.

DAY 2

When we woke up the next day, it was snowing and there were several inches of fresh snow on the ground! Whee! After a bit of climbing and some snow pit digging and analysis (thanks, Aaron!), we skied.

Rise and shine!

Freshies at camp!
The kitchen hut is to the left, and sauna hut to the right.

Charlotte skins up.

I've approximately two photos of the climb up because I was working hard. The reward, though, was worth it.

Here's the thing: I know this is blasphemous, but my powder skiing is marginal, and with a pack throwing my balance off, it became atrocious. Nevertheless, I managed to get comfortable with it by the end of the run. So even though this isn't me skiing down, it's a picture of my tracks, which enter the photo on the left behind some trees, cross over another set of tracks and end, well, at the bottom of the frame, where I'm taking the photo. 

My tracks (and evidence of my outriggers).

DAY 3
And on the third day, it rained. All. Day. So I played Bananagrams. A few times with Charlotte, Aaron, and Andrew, and once solo. Yep, I know how to have fun on a rainy day in a ski hut. 

The completed Bananagrams board. And honey bear.

A part of me was glad for the forced rest day. I'm not used to skiing with a pack. Between skiing in on Day 1 and the skiing on Day 2, my right calf was weirdly sore in a spot I don't think I'd ever felt it sore. I sort of felt that I needed some rest so that I'd be able to ski out the next day. But the rain was also depressing. We all hoped that it hadn't deteriorated the snow too much – like melt the snow bridges over the water crossing – for the ski out, and that the weather would improve in general.

DAY 4

I don't know about anyone else in the group, but given that it was pouring rain when we went to bed on Thursday night and raining even harder on Friday night when we hit they hay, I wasn't entirely sure it would clear up for our ski out. I woke up a few times in the night and was pleasantly surprised not to hear any drips. I did, however, hear weird rippling sounds that sounded like rodents and freaked myself out. After I finally fell asleep for good, I woke up to this:

The sun rises behind Christa & Andrew's hut. 

We cleaned up camp following the strenuous checkout requirements and then worked our way out of the backcountry. On our way out, we actually crossed paths with the group coming in for the weekend. I was mildly jealous because the weather report looked pretty good for their stay.

Strenuous checkout duties (and camp rules).

We had lucked out with amazing weather for the ski out!

Amazing views, too. Btw, does this beacon make me look fat?

The route follows the contour of the slope.

It was sunny, warm, and a little very breezy. We could spot the parking lot from a distance, and it was a little sad to realize that each stride brought me closer to the end of my 2011-2012 ski season. I had eked out all that I could. It's now time to hang up the skis and focus on running.

I'm super grateful to have had this opportunity to head out into the backcountry with such fun and patient people. I can't wait to do it again!

Wallowas Ski Trip Prep: The Playing in Bend Edition

I've been cooling my heels in Bend, Oregon, for the past few days. Charlotte and her husband have been taking me out on snow every day I've been here, and Charlotte and I have chased the skiing with some yoga: Back Bend Yoga for some hatha flow and Juniper Yoga for yin. Right now, my legs – especially my hip flexors – are crying. Good thing tomorrow is a rest/travel day.

As for the last three days' play time, they looked a little like this:

Saturday: cross country day.

Mini clinic on skate skiing. On my rental classic skis.

On skinny skis for the third time in my life!

Sunday: A little climbing before avalanche
beacon practice and a short ski down.

Monday: Resort day at Mt. Bachelor. I've no earthly
clue why my helmet is askew.

We head off the grid early tomorrow. The fingers are crossed for smooth travels and stable snow!

Wallowas Ski Trip Prep: Food Edition

One of the things that makes me anxious about backcountry trips is the food situation. While everyone else worries about being mauled by bears or facing natural disasters, I worry about getting enough calories into me. I also worry about whether anyone else will eat the food I bring, if I'm responsible for a meal or two.

A peek into the food stuff sack. Yes, those are Honey 
Stinger gels and chews. And a tube of Nuun.

Even on my hungriest days, I have a tendency to get bored with the flavors and textures of my food long before I'm full. This isn't a backcountry phenomenon, but it's not ideal when it happens in the backcountry because usually the only food option is sitting in my bowl at that moment. I once forced myself to eat mushy mediocre cous cous because it was either mushy mediocre cous cous or nothing. Blech.

So, it's important for backcountry meals to be tasty.

Also, weight matters, especially when you're my size. The general rule of backpacking is that the total weight of your pack shouldn't be more than some manageable percentage of your body weight.  Obviously, this is more challenging the less you weigh. Food can be heavy...on the flip side, commercial freeze-dried meals taste sort of "meh." It winds up being a balance.

On this trip, I'm responsible for one dinner and all of my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. No pressure. I can do this. With these challenges – tasty and lightweight – in mind, I turned to the Backcountry Culinary Goddess. 

The Backcountry Culinary Goddess kicks back in 
amusement as I subject everyone to freeze-dried lasagna.

When we were hiking the Torres del Paine circuit, the Backcountry Culinary Goddess whipped up amazing meals on the camp stove while I subjected the group to freeze-dried meals, which are only a few steps up from MREs. What's her secret to yummy meals in the backcountry?

The Backcountry Culinary Goddess told me that she basically adapts tried and true home kitchen recipes into backcountry recipes by using as much dry product as possible, with the exception of aged cheese and avocados, which she just tosses into her pack and says is completely worth it. She directed me to a survivalist online website that sold powdered foods in bulk (#10 can of powdered eggs, anyone?). She also owns a food dehydrator, which made her options almost limitless. I, on the other hand, decided that because all I was responsible for was one dinner and a handful of other personal meals, I'd try to to this without buying crazy amounts of powdered anything or a food dehydrator.

I spent a day visiting grocery stores in DC – the Backcountry Culinary Goddess advised hitting the specialty stores in addition to the regular stores – and I returned with a pile of dried/shelf safe foods. My best find was almond butter packets and honey straws. It means that I won't have to go to a zillion diners around town to steal peanut butter and honey packets for my lunchtime nut butter & honey sandwiches/wraps. Woohoo!

Some of the finds...

As for the meals themselves, ever since I had the Backcountry Culinary Goddess's potato and corn chowder on the trail, I've wanted to recreate it. I picked up purchased a bag of creamy potato soup, hoping it would be a good starting point. Then I read the ingredients and saw that it contained MSG. Eek!

Next! 

Whole Foods came through for me. Really. I found a package of potato leek soup with all the herbs already in there, plus some instant mashed potatoes. To this, I added finds from the standard grocery store: shelf-safe crumbled cured bacon bits, grated Parmasean cheese, and – of all things – a juice box-sized package of shelf-safe whole milk. Add boiling water. And vegan bouillon cubes, which I know are negated by the bacon bits. Work with me here.

The beginnings of a creamy potato soup.

As for the rest of dinner, I'm thinking packets of teriyaki salmon on instant brown rice, with baby spinach. The baby spinach part may emerge to be the most genius part of my scheme – lightweight and compressable!

Breakfasts...so, even though I can't eat a ton of the same thing in one sitting, I have no problem eating the same thing every. single. day. My breakfast plan: quinoa porridge. I like slow-burning carbs for breakfast. I mixed quinoa flakes, shredded coconut, dried papaya and dried cherries, and added random nuts that I had laying around: macadamias, almonds, and peanuts. I topped this with cinnamon and a dash of salt.

Then I added boiling water. This cooks up in minutes, and after it cooled somewhat, I tasted it. A fresh fruit version of this is often my go-to breakfast at home, and the dried fruit version proved to be pretty tasty, too.

After fiddling around with the measurements, I packaged up the mix and double bagged everything. There's nothing worse than a dry foods blowout in the backpack.

I'm excited to see how this all works out. Bon appetit, happy campers!

ॐ 

Short of hiring your own cook to take care of this for you, what are your backcountry meal inspirations? Are there any foolproof recipes you always take into the backcountry?

Wallowas Ski Trip Prep

I'm two weeks away from setting out for my first multi-day backcountry ski trip to the Wallowa Mountains in northeastern Oregon later this month. I've been super excited for this trip ever since Charlotte and Aaron invited me to join them and another couple (hooray for being the 5th wheel!). We'll be skiing in to a hut glorified tent and making it our base for a few days before skiing back out. But, I'm not sure my friends knew what they were getting into when they invited me. . .

Wallowas, up close and personal in two weeks!

First, they have a physical advantage. They're both bigger than me, but then again, nearly everyone is. Also, I live at sea level. They don't. Moreover, they live in Bend, the capital of overachieving outdoor enthusiasts. The fly fishermen in Bend probably wrestle bears, and win. I, on the other hand, got sick in the second week of February, which knocked out my respiratory system. At the same time, I was reluctant to do any upper body strengthening until the pinched nerve in my upper back/neck was no longer traumatizing me in my sleep. In short, I took the month of February to recover. And I'm pretty enthusiastic about recovery. Endurance athletes (not that I'm putting myself in that category) lament at not being able to work out on weekends; I cheerfully spent the better part of my February weekends in my pajamas, editing ski videos and catching up on Grey's Anatomy episodes. And reading about central Oregon.

Central Oregon propaganda!

Second, I still needed to compile my backcountry ski repair kit. Yeah, so to the folks that I ski toured with last year, guess what: I didn't have a ski repair kit with me. Whoops. You seemed like kind, helpful people that would come through in a pinch, though.

With this in my repair kit, everyone will want to help, right?

Finally, I should not be trusted with preparing any meals for a group unless freeze-dried lasagna sounds appetizing. Nevertheless, Aaron assigned me to put together one night's meal. He should consider himself warned.

Aside from my physical fitness, which is what it is, I've spent the last few weeks putting together a ski repair kit, planning my  backcountry meals (more on this in a later post), and reviewing strategies in snow assessments and decision making. As a result, I added Hello Kitty duct tape to the repair kit (for those backcountry MacGyver moments); discovered that although my local REI does not have skin wax in stock (yeah, I don't know how to use it, either), it does sell replacement powder baskets for my ski poles; scoured the local grocery stores for shelf-safe foods; and perused some exciting bedtime reading material.

My avalanche mantra: 'fraidy cat = alive. And other stuff.

Onward with the trip prep!