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forest gnome
Forest nut...



Joined: 24 Apr 2003
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forest gnome
Forest nut...
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 12:10 pm 
so just thought I would ask if anbody here has used the lake for cold storage of frsh foods....like cheese, bacon, or what else? thrown into the lake on a rope, do ya think it would not be bothered by racoons ect.? the cheese usually lasts 3 days, and I havn't tacken mucho meats, but would like to get in a good meal the first 1.5 day.

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Allison
Feckless Swooner



Joined: 17 Dec 2001
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Location: putting on my Nikes before the comet comes
Allison
Feckless Swooner
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 1:22 pm 
My biggest problem with this so far has been leakage. Have you figured out a lightweight 100% leakproof container?

www.allisonoutside.com follow me on Twitter! @AllisonLWoods
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ActionBetty
Im a dirty hippie!



Joined: 06 Jul 2003
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Location: kennewick, wa
ActionBetty
Im a dirty hippie!
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 1:33 pm 
If I were to choose this method of keeping my foods cold..I would get some of those heavy duty ziplock bags (my hubby gets them from work up.gif ) Wrap the food up in one...press all air out..seal the plastic with a lighter or matches..would make a better seal than the ziplock part. I would then repeat the porcess with another bag so its doubly protected. I might wedge it under or around some rocks so that its secure from currents..I dont know if an animal would pull the rope out or not. Experimentation wink.gif

"If you're not living good, you gotta travel wide"...Bob Marley
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Ski
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Ski
><((((°>
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 2:36 pm 
I've never used a lake, but we used rivers to keep things cold for years. Mostly butter and bacon and fresh skein eggs my old man used for bait. ( We're talkin' ancient history here. ) You can wrap stuff in 9 layers of plastic bag, but it's still going to get wet somehow during the night. Or at the least you're going to have a little sand in your butter with your pancakes. Or the raccoons are going to get into it and tear stuff to shreds, leaving it for the pre-dawn crows to pick over and scatter. We built little rock "pens" to hold the stuff, and found big flat rocks to cover it all. That method works fairly well, but raccoons are pretty determined animals when they get a whiff of food. My mom discovered "Dak" ® canned bacon in the mid-60's. No refrigeration required, but you have to haul out a greasy, stinky steel can with sharp edges. I don't haul anything which requires refrigeration anymore. If I do want to keep something cool, I'll pack it in an old cottage-cheese container or a small square tupperware container that fits into a pocket in my pack. Even sealed in a hard plastic container, I have to bury it under rocks at the edge of the river to keep the animals out of it. ( Even grapes or apricot - go figure. ) You might want to consider alternatives that don't require refrigeration. A good hard Parmesan cheese will be okay for a few days, although it gets a bit whiffy. Canned smoked salmon ( Trader Joes ) makes a great dinner with some tortellini, dried tomatoes, and parmesan.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore



Joined: 15 May 2003
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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 3:41 pm 
Might not be an effective way to keep food very cold if you’re just sinking it near the shoreline where the water is warmest. But while on a WTA weeklong, we waded out a bit where the water was cooler, and sank our perishables in sealable buckets and put rocks on top of ‘em to keep ‘em in place. But by about the 5th day the crew leader (a professional chef) didn’t feel comfortable serving it to volunteers. Had we waded to the middle of the lake, it would have been colder and had kept longer, I suppose. (personally, I would have felt comfortable continuing to eat it). For personal trips, I figure the coldness of nighttime keeps food refrigerated for 6 or 8 hours - it can get warm during the following day, I keep it buried deeply in my pack, and the un-used portion will be refrigerated again by nighttime another night – I’ve done this for up to 4 days and 3 nights out for cheeses and cooked meat (smoked salmon, hamburger patties, pork chops). Foist brought eggs for our 3 days out this summer – hot hot hot temps during the day, but they kept. Foist said so long as the eggs aren’t broken, they keep. We’re still alive to talk about it, so I guess he was right. An alternative is to freeze some of your food and bury it in your pack. It might thaw after the first day, but that’s one day less to worry about.

"...Other than that, the post was more or less accurate." Bernardo, NW Hikers' Bureau Chief of Reporting
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sarbar
Living The Dream



Joined: 28 Jan 2002
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sarbar
Living The Dream
PostWed Jan 10, 2007 4:41 pm 
I have used the freezer bag method of food in cold rivers (not lakes though). We do food in one, and set in another bag that has a guyline tethered thru it, just in case it decides to come lose and go awandering down river! Works well. But, for the most part I don't carry really perishable food unless it is off season. I can live a couple days without it-and I appreciate it more when I get back biggrin.gif

https://trailcooking.com/ Eat well on the trail.
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome
PostThu Jan 11, 2007 10:35 pm 
What about those vaccuum sealer machines? They suck all the air out, and then seal it up tight. That might not work for eggs. moon.gif

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Opus
Wannabe



Joined: 04 Mar 2006
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Opus
Wannabe
PostThu Jan 11, 2007 10:45 pm 
You can buy a salmon at Costco packed in those vacuum sealed pouches. It's good stuff. I've brought a frozen piece before in the summer. By the time you get to your camp it's thawed out and tastes fantastic cooked up in a foil pouch with some veggies. I haven't tried cooling perishable stuff in a lake, but it works great for chilling beer! biggrin.gif

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mtnwkr
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Location: Bremerton. I'm the Lorax, I speak for the trees
mtnwkr
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PostFri Jan 12, 2007 8:44 am 
goat lake (13)
goat lake (13)
Never mind that nice rainbow.. wink.gif You can see that I've used my natural resources to keep my cheese fresh.. Never had a problem with leaky ziplock bags myself....

There's a mostly unspoken acknowledgment among the voluntarily impoverished that it's better to be fiscally poor yet rich in experience-living the dream-than to be traditionally wealthy but live separate from one's passions.
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kiliki
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kiliki
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PostFri Jan 12, 2007 10:15 am 
I love cheese when I'm backpacking. Hard, dry cheeses don't really need to be refrigerated-I take them backpacking with no problem. Actually, some cheese afficianados don't even refrigerate any of their cheese at home. The oils start to ooze out of softer cheeses in warm weather so I stick to hard (ie dry monterey jack/cheddar-you'll probably need a store with a decent cheese selection to buy these).

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Mount Logan
Canada's Highest



Joined: 04 Jan 2005
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Mount Logan
Canada's Highest
PostFri Jan 12, 2007 1:40 pm 
hijacked.gif Cheese! The sharper the better, especially at altitude. hungry.gif

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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore



Joined: 15 May 2003
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Quark
Niece of Alvy Moore
PostFri Jan 12, 2007 2:08 pm 
Yah, Ope, I had the salmon in a pouch last summer. I throw it in the Mountain House pasta primavera meal. It really is good! I've taken whole unpeeled carrots for a week trip; worked well. Easy to just shove in your pack any ole where.

"...Other than that, the post was more or less accurate." Bernardo, NW Hikers' Bureau Chief of Reporting
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Red Squatch
NW Native Species



Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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Location: Black Diamond, WA
Red Squatch
NW Native Species
PostFri Jan 12, 2007 8:43 pm 
If I make up Milkman for an evening meal, I'll usually make enough for breakfast and keep it in my Nalgene bottle, anchored down in some rocks along a lake or creek. Nothing like ice cold milk in the morning, even if it does have that slight "powdered milk" essence! Meal in a foil - now that's a fun way to cook. I was always burning the things on the outside of the package, until I finally figured out that I was putting the package in too soon. If you wait until all the burning wood chunks have been reduced to that fine, glowing coal, and have a good enough bed of it to cover the foil package well, you can get everything nice and tender, without burning the meat or the veggies. Folks still burn yard waste out here, so I went on down to my neighbor's burn pile two days after he took care of all his limbs from that last windstorm and found that he still had a huge bed of embers. Tucked in a few beef stew packets and topped it off with a couple banana boats. Oh man - what a meal!

Good judgment comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgment... PPE
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome
PostFri Jan 12, 2007 10:18 pm 
Powdered milk can be fixed with a couple drops of vanilla.

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trailjunky
Backcountry Bumpkin'



Joined: 14 Jun 2004
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trailjunky
Backcountry Bumpkin'
PostFri Jan 12, 2007 11:28 pm 
I once tried to cool a six pack of beers in about 6 feet of water at Rachel Lake while we summited Alta Mountain. The beers were under for about 8 hours before we drank them in camp that night, unfortunately they were not very cold, but they weren't warm either. There was that one guy in Alaska who is always on PBS who buried his food underground to keep it refrigerated, worked quite well actually, might want to research this idea a little closer.

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