Highline To WFBF part 5

DrNed

DrNed

The mountains are calling and I must go
Joined
Mar 31, 2013
Messages
1,026
Having put seven plus miles of hiking with some moderately steep climbs I was beat. So the first thing I did was take off the pack and sit down and have some lunch.

Unfortunately, lunch wasn't a medium rare steak . . . it was two Clif Bars, which is the case everyday of backpacking.

One of my backpacking mentors, Jerry, taught me his backpacking menu and I've stuck with it with a few minor alterations. My backpacking menu consists of three instant oatmeals and one instant hot chocolate for breakfast, two Clif Bars for lunch and a dehydrated dinner. I add a few additional calories with Gatorade powder and licorice. The funny thing is, at home I could never get away with eating so little. At home it only takes thirty minutes and I'm wondering where the next meal is.

So after eating and setting up camp we did some exploring around Helen Lake.






See that green strip on the far side of the lake? Past that the landscape slopes down and you're at Lightning Lake. You've heard the phrase "a stone's throw"? Well, these two lakes are just about that close.

Helen Lake as the sun is setting





Once it got dark we had our one fire for the week. Usually we would sit around a fire every night, but the mountain air and the labor of hiking and exploring had me ready for bed by 9:00 PM every night.

Wednesday we awoke to sunshine and blue skies with puffy white clouds. The Uintas are known for afternoon showers and having done several backpacking trips through these mountains and never getting rained on I was actually hoping for some rain.

Wednesday was a rest day, meaning we wouldn't be moving camps today. Wednesday was all about exploring this section of the Rock Creek Drainage.

Roman and I headed over to Lightning Lake.


Here's Roman sitting on the cliffs at Lightning Lake.





After knocking around Lightning Lake we decided to go vertical.



Looking down at Helen Lake.



Roman at the top of our climb. Here you can see how close Lightning and Helen Lakes are.
 
Cliff bars will bloat your stomach so you feel full........ :eek:
 
Thank you for the TR. My first trip to the Unitas included most of this route. I loved that trip so much. I miss it.
 
Apparently Clif bars aren't a fave here. I chose them based on weight/calories/cost. I get the most calories for their weight at the lowest cost.
 
Chocolate Brownie Clif Bars are the best!
One of those and a bottle of water has been my breakfast at work for 10 years.
 
DrNed said:
Apparently Clif bars aren't a fave here. I chose them based on weight/calories/cost. I get the most calories for their weight at the lowest cost.
Click to expand...
Best dinner I ever had was a cliff bar while I was in Heaps Canyon. After a day of canyoneering in freezing cold water, my body couldn't get enough of my chocolate mac nut cliff bar!
 
I used to eat cliff bars, but I ended up having kidney stones after a few months of eating them regularly, turns out soy is not a good thing to eat if you are predisposed to kidney stones.

Now I make my own granola bars from scratch, with oats, flax seed, sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, dried apricots, dried mango, dried figs, coconut, and all held together with vanilla and honey. Beats the heck out of cliff bars, I down one of those and it fuels me for few hours. I make a big batch in the early summer and freeze them so I always have some on hand.
 
backpacking breakfast for me is 2 packets of oatmeal and a clif bar...maybe some hot chocolate too if i brought some
 
Oatmeal for me too in the mornings.

Mountain House makes a pretty good egg and bacon meal that I like to put in tortillas. It's a nice change from the oatmeal but more time intensive and of course quite a bit more expensive.
 
andyjaggy said:
Mountain House makes a pretty good egg and bacon meal that I like to put in tortillas.
Click to expand...
i grabbed one of those for our trip with @steve and the gang (great name for a band?) next week...breakfast burritos for dinner? i'm going crazy folks!
 
andyjaggy said:
Oatmeal for me too in the mornings.

Mountain House makes a pretty good egg and bacon meal that I like to put in tortillas. It's a nice change from the oatmeal but more time intensive and of course quite a bit more expensive.
Click to expand...
Breakfast Skillet. We eat them just like the dinners-right out of the bag. We also make our own oatmeal mix and include freeze dried raspberries, strawberries, dried bananas, walnuts and sometimes other goodies. Usually have 2 full cups of it for breakfast.
 
John Goering said:
We also make our own oatmeal mix and include freeze dried raspberries, strawberries, dried bananas, walnuts and sometimes other goodies. Usually have 2 full cups of it for breakfast.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know of anyone that sells empty metallic reusable bags that are sealable like the ones that Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry meals come in? I'd like to make my own oatmeal mix like John describes, but I'm one of those lazy jetboil users that'll go to no end to avoid having to clean dishes. I tried cleaning and reusing a Backpackers pantry bag once before, but my oatmeal had the faint odor of the spaghetti that was once cooked in it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top