later than 5am every morning. My favorite meal of the day, and the
first thing I do when I wake up is eat breakfast: one spoonful of
instant coffee, three spoonfuls of powdered milk, cereal of choice
(usually granola or Kashi), and a quarter liter of water. Some
mornings if I really want to treat myself I add TJ's dried wild
bluberries--trail luxury at its best. My breakfast is not a typical
thruhiker one, which usually consists of a bar or poptart, due its
high time investment for absolutely no further calorie advantage.
Food storage in the Sierras is always a hot point for discussion among
thruhikers. Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks all
require food to be stored in bear canisters, bear-proof plastic
cylinders that weigh about 2.5 pounds each. If a hiker wants to walk
the 10 or so days through the High Sierra without resupplying, it is
virtually impossible to get all that food into the container. So you
must sleep with it or hang it, but you always cook dinner before you
camp. The bears are generally a lot busier busting into naive
tourists' cars in the national parks or trashing established campsites
for food nibbles. In the more extreme case, some hikers eat only cold
or dry food for simplicity's sake.
About three days into our Sierra stretch, I felt this sharp aching
pain in my upper stomach. It would come and go during the day, subside
at night, and seemed to feel better when I ate. I was sure it was an
ulcer from all of the stress. Boston complained of tiredness as we
climbed to Mather...maybe something was going around?
I kept complaining until finally Happy JO asked me if it hurt when I
went uphill. I had empirically determined that it did. I answered
affirmatively. He laughed and told me that it was hunger pain, severe
hunger pain, or as he liked to call it the "Sierra Stomach". My body
was eating itself and crying out for more food. Turns out that Boston
was feeling the same thing. A bar every two hours was not going to cut
it. Unfortunately that was all we could ration for ourselves.
Two days before our arrival in Red's Meadows Happy JO told us that the
diner had great breakfast. Done. We would set our sights on breakfast
in Red's Meadows the morning of the seventh day. 7am. It was a date
with the breakfast club.
At lunch on the fifth day Kern stuck is head into his bear canister,
demoralized by what little remained. At lunch on the six day Happy JO
and I ate plain tuna on a slab of dry ramen. We looked in the
canister--dry soup and six three-year-old Power Bars to get us to
breakfast 18 miles away. Time to start supplementing with my trusty
old, unconventional powdered milk.
We all dreamt of what we would order. Cubby insisted she would walk
into the night to get there the evening before. We convinced her not
to torture us.
On the seventh day we rested- after six miles, three hotcakes,
scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, bluberry pie a la mode, and a
strawberry milkshake. Whew.... Then we felt ill. Our stomachs had
shrunk to rabbit size and we were eating like elephants. Oh, the pain
of a full stomach....my distended tummy stuck out farther than my
deflated butt.
Time to rest in Mammoth Lakes and move toward the John Muir Trail's
terminus in Yosemite Valley. Mile 908, and anxious to catch up with
the rest of the thruhiking community before branching off for my
finale...with plenty of extra food.
Song for this section: Air for Life by Above & Beyond. Clean, crisp
Sierra air is good for life but not when it's at the bottom of your
bear canister.
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