Pre-Alaska backpack trip: T-5 days!

Wow, planning for this trip is a lot of work. Especially since so much of it is being done last minute. Saturday night we spent several hours grocery shopping. It was fun looking for foods with the most calories and fat. Our food will mostly consist of granola or oatmeal for breakfast; summer sausage and cheese for lunch; trail mix, dried fruit, and bars for snacks; and dehydrated dinners. Last night was the real challenge, we spent almost 5 hours getting together all of our gear and agonizing over how to fit all of our food into a ~100 cubic inch canister ("designed to carry 6-person days of food"). There were a couple of things that we kind of skimped on because of space. I think we have enough food but I don't think I will ever feel full. If you know me at all, you know I like to eat, so this will be a challenge. The bear vault is frustrating because normally I wouldn't mind at all carrying extra weight in food. But that's not an option unless you want to lug around another heavy, bulky canister that you won't even need after the first two days. You aren't required to use bear vaults in the Chugach, but it seems pretty necessary since I think treeline is pretty low up there.

Tonight we went to Jax and bought some mosquito netting, liner gloves, and bear bells. Actually the mosquito netting we bought is made for bee keepers. It is very stylish and I'm sure we'll have some great pictures.

Chris just stressed me out because he thinks we have less than 1700 calories per person per day. I am pretty sure this is how much I burn in a day when I sit on my ass. So I'm going to go and reanalyze this food situation.

According to: http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/Weight_Loss/Weight_Loss.html
Basal calories = 1392
+ Calories burned in 6 hours of backpacking: 3672
= 5064 calories.
Also apparently you burn 10% of the calories you consume just digesting it.
And if you burn 3500 more calories than you eat, you lose 1 pound. Usually I would be super excited to lose some weight, especially since it will probably be fat as we'll be building muscle as we hike. But ... 5000-1700 is almost 3500 calorie defecit each day. I could potentially lose 7 pounds in one week and this does not seem very conducive to my half ironman training/racing. That is why I am a little stressed about it. I've been trying really hard all summer to take care of myself, and this might negate some of it. Then again, coming back from Alaska leaner might make me faster. Who knows. All of this talk is making me hungry though, so I have to go eat.