Best lightweight Food Options for the Wall

Ryan Hamilton wrote:

I had never considered Macadamia nuts, sounds like a solid idea. Makes me curious of the fat content of other nuts, maybe there is a an even better one out there. 

Check it out let me know but I highly doubt it.

I checked, Macadamia nuts are the highest fat percentage.  88-93% of the calories are fat. In 100 gm you get about 720 calories. That is some very calorie dense food. I'm heading down to do climb the Titan in a few weeks. I think I'll use that as a demo day for some new food options to see how it goes. 

Ya and they are delicious. So be careful i've desstrooyyeed canisters of these things in one sitting thats why i "cut" them with cashews. LOL Coscto has the best deal on mac nuts that ive seen. If you order some from Mauna Loa Nut distributor from Hawaii there are many different kinds. I highly recommend wasabi and the brittle is out of this world. Kona coffee glaze is amazing too and Maui onion and garlic is the bomb. they are all the bomb well... fuck. 

Pemmican!

Fat and protein in a compact bundle.

Freeze dried food and or no stove on El Cap? You guys are a lot tougher than I am. Dry or boring food for El Cap days would not have worked for me. I want my heated canned chili for dinner, fruit cocktail in a can serving and then my pudding cup for dessert. My typical approach for food on El Cap is the heavier the better, because the heavier the more moisture content it has.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only a certain number of big wall days in your life, and I want to enjoy all of mine! 

I just eat salami sticks and dried mangos. Works for me as enjoyable. Warm food is for princesses.

Cous cous

I definitely agree with the Perpetuum note.  I throw a pack of that in my water bottle in the morning and I think it helps.  Also, I love packing a burrito bought on the drive up.  Eat it for breakfast/lunch, maybe dinner for day 1.  I leave off the perishable stuff and it's better than anything freeze-dried, in my opinion.  Even a bland burrito is a feast when you're exhausted... :) 

The saddest moment of my life was getting down from El Cap and getting to Pizza Deck at 9:05 and not being able to get a pizza. Who decided that Pizza Deck should close at 9:00pm on a Saturday??? I had been dreaming about stuffing myself with pizza and gallons of ice cold coke for days and to be denied by 5 minutes was almost more than I could bear. They were even still handing out pizzas as they finished cooking, I think just to grind it into my soul.

kevin deweese wrote:

I just eat salami sticks and dried mangos. Works for me as enjoyable. Warm food is for princesses.

Salami and mangos?!  Luxury.

Right.  I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

Moof wrote:

Salami and mangos?!  Luxury.

Right.  I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

See? Moof gets it. Except, your mom and dad killed you? Man, I wish I had a mom and dad growing up. Mine sold themselves into slavery to that same Mill owner to buy wood shaving for me to teeth on. I missed them, but it was worth it for the relief from the pain of my adult teeth coming in (because I NEVER had baby teeth, did you?)

Some years ago I was working with some guys that were very into going light. They did some math and reportedly determined that Cheetos are the highest calorie food for the mass. So these gluttons for punishment would crush Cheetos to a fine dust and press/mold them, into Cheeto dust bricks. Viola. You have gone light. 

High fat/Protien , light weight, packable, crushable!  .  . .  just saying. .  .  .  .   Frozen Meatballs . . . . Start frozen, may sour in 4 days or not. .  . not much bigger than a ping pong ball.  ( Summer sausage, hard block cheese, a single feed bag of 'Everything' mixed in fruit to pepperoni iota of nuts and m&ms.. . )

K-Tanz wrote:

Some years ago I was working with some guys that were very into going light. They did some math and reportedly determined that Cheetos are the highest calorie food for the mass. So these gluttons for punishment would crush Cheetos to a fine dust and press/mold them, into Cheeto dust bricks. Viola. You have gone light. 

Did this REALLY happen. Because if so, this will become a story to be told among every person that gets in a UL discussion for climbing or backpacking. 

Ryan Hamilton wrote:

Did this REALLY happen. Because if so, this will become a story to be told among every person that gets in a UL discussion for climbing or backpacking. 

If you want "pics or it didn't happen" then it didn't happen. These were the type of guys who cut off excess nylon straps and remove the brains of the packs to save a few grams of weight. I do recall that the pressed Cheeto bars only lasted one trip due to the resulting GI distress. 

K-Tanz wrote:

If you want "pics or it didn't happen" then it didn't happen. These were the type of guys who cut off excess nylon straps and remove the brains of the packs to save a few grams of weight. I do recall that the pressed Cheeto bars only lasted one trip due to the resulting GI distress. 

No, don't need pics. You're verification of this is enough :) Good to know, not that I would have done this, that it caused some gut problems. No bueno on a wall. 

Just take a camelback full of olive oil to sip on.  Better density than crushed cheetos.  250/ounce vs. 162/ounce.  Olive oil is 50% better than cheeto bricks!  No baby teeth required either!

Just war the tourons not to walk below you, especially on sunny days.

I forgot to add an amazing staple... Butter. Doesn't need to be refrigerated and holy calories. Just put it in a container because it does most certainly melt.

Perhaps not lightweight, but my big wall mentor in the 70's showed me the magic of cream cheese and avocado sandwiches. High calorie to weight ratio and you could actually swallow them when parched. And not nearly the food poisoning risk as some of the other items mentioned. (Frozen meatballs? Seriously?)