[Karen]

I should have eaten the cheese instead of leaving in my tent. This is what happened: a hot, sunny weekend teaching a field trip in the Teanaway. Car camping which can lead to loading up the car (and the body) with delicious food you might not actually carry on a backpack. Such as a wedge of Cheddar Cheese. Yum. Well, on the third morning it rained and I had taken the cheese into my tent the night before to nibble on it. I forgot all about the cheese and rolled up my tent and stuffed in its stuff sack, all tidy and neat. Not to be opened until a few weeks later. Can you even IMAGINE the smell when I unrolled that tent? It was like barf -- or worse. I tried everything I could to get rid of that smell and greasy stain -- soaked the tent in the bathtub and all to no avail. Had to throw the entire tent away. Then there is noodle death. That is what my ex-to-be and I called our meals on long backpacks with the Scout troop. The concoction was usually a glutinous mass of pre-packaged macaroni and cheese or stroganoff mix with a few pallid veggies thrown in or tasteless hamburger that we dried out before leaving home. Over the years this tasteless concoction became known to us all as "noodle death". Worse is when the other adult that joined us (Dave) joined in and add his magic touch. He also added those awful canned mushrooms and then a package of slivered almonds. Sounds good but the over-all taste was truly yucky. There's more but I'll sign off for now. But you might lose your appetite when the first thing you see in the morning outside your tent is the sight of a slug "resting" on the rim of your coffee mug. Our food was usually so awful that it was safe from the racoons and other critters. Karen

[Larry]

[Dante]

[polarbear-]

I have never had a powerbar, but last year on the way back from Sahale Arm, I stopped to talk with another hiker at Cascade Pass. I told him about forgetting all my good food in the car and having to live off peanut butter sandwiches. The guy pulled out one of those naturey bars and asked if I'd like one. He must have thougth I was hungry which was true. We talked for about an hour, and I nibbled away at that bar which was a bunch of green dry gooey stuff that tasted terrible. It was like pouring salt on my food woes that trip. I don't think I finished it, and the naturey remains are in some landfill now where they likely blend in quite well with their surroundings.

[Hiker Chick]

Well, I'll chime in.. Many years ago, my girlfriend and I decided to go backpacking for the first time. We didn't read any books or consult anyone. We packed a lot of the instant pasta/soup cups. Well, our stove didn't work quite right (didn't think to check that out either) and we couldn't get our water to boil. so, we ate soupy, crunchy pasta with freeze dried broccoli chunks in it. Yuk! We were starving! However, like polar bear, at least we had peanut butter so we lived off of that for the rest of the trip. Never thought about power bars though! Another one was our big Wonderland trail trip. My friend was responsible for bringing the jam. My other friend was our food planner and we were going to have raspberry jam on our cheesecake pudding. Well, come to find out the jam was what I had made for my friend and it was freezer jam with no preservatives so it HAS to be refridgerated. So, we glommed it on our pudding and I took the first bite and almost chucked!! Needless to say that was a lot of wasted food to pack out!

[El Puma]

Powerbars in the winter - be careful! In AK, I got to medevac two guys in one winter because of those things; one removed his tooth filling (how about a deep breath at -25º?), and the other his entire tooth with a bite-and-yank maneuver on a cold PB...

A friends picture (Bagley Glacier AK)

[tasslehouf]

[marzsit]

assimilate your powerbar/gel cartridge like a good little robot drone.... i can handle clif bars, but all of the rest are absolutely awful... i'd rather live on gorp....

[Malachai Constant]

It is only fair to warn that Power Bars are largely composed of oat bran. Anyone who has ever camped on the STP cas tell that a night in a tent with someone who has been eating them is a fragrant occasion.

[Erik the Nav]

I did a few power bars a few years ago, but find them of no particular advantage over other snacks, not overly enticing, and waay too expensive for what you get. Of course, if you're a bicyclist and need something that sticks to your bike frame in bits, that's a different thing. But otherwise, a candy bar or cheese crackers or whatever is yummier, similar calories/food value, and cheaper. Really wracking my brains to think of bad meals. Hunger is the best cook, and I'm not too picky adds up to not many problems. I did have a few alpine aire FD meals some years ago that weren't so hot, they seem to all have the same heavy dose of weird freeze dried sour cream flavor. But it wasn't -bad-. Heck, I even liked the infamous old original freeze dried pork patty MREs. If you find one now, don't eat it, they're too old! Kiliki - one of the best food surprises I ever got from a hiking partner was when she pulled a big bag of fritos and a can of bean dip out of her pack at camp. Man, that was good, second night in, too. Fritos are a good choice for in-pack durability and compact bag for weight of chips.

[Larry]

I had "written up" one of my hiking forays into the backcountry Olympics years ago, and there is a sort of "food surprise" lurking in the writeup. It's attached...don't mind the loss of formatting from the old Word 6 file form, the text is there. Food, food! 15Queets.doc (25 KB)