You would not believe it, but we have acquired another, lighter tent! Plus, I have prepared the food I will be taking on trail and explaining how it pertains to my anxiety. Finally, here is my Gear Shakedown #3…Tent and Food.
I know what you might be thinking, wasn’t there already a Gear Shakedown about what tent we are carrying? Why yes, Gear Shakedown…#1? However, while our Coleman 2 person sundome is a great tent, it is heavy and bulky. My sister, Rachel (you met here in her point of view backpacking Pictured Rocks for the first time), sent us her new backpacking tent and it is a darn game changer!
I have sought out advice when deciding to carry our 7lb Coleman tent and decided to go with the people telling me “hike your own hike” and “pack what you have.” And what we had was a heavy, bulky tent. However, in an amazing sale, Rachel got her hands on a Nemo Hornet Elite. Rachel and I are always hyping each other up when it comes to our outdoor adventures and are not shy about sharing our gear. Rachel was even the person that introduced me to the idea of hammock camping! When discussing my tent dilemma, Rachel offered too send me her brand-spanking-new tent!
The Nemo Hornet Elite Ultralight Backpacking tent is 3lbs and packs smaller than our sleeping bags! On top of being so much liter, Charlie agreed that he will carry the tent body and rain fly, while I will carry the poles and stakes. SO CONVEINENT. We have practiced setting up the tent and it is a darn dream. If you can get your hands on this tent I really encourage it!
On top of acquiring an amazing backspacing tent, we are to the point where we have packed our food bags!…a few different times! This is a big deal from me because backpackers are known to “pack their fears” and my fear is being hungry. Originally this meant that I had 2-3 days of extra food including too many snacks.
This might look like not a lot of food to some people, but I was definitely overcompensating for a four day trip. While a day before our hike I removed food, I did buy one backpacking meal while in Marquette at Downwind Sports that made a huge difference in how I cooked all my dinners.
In my after picture you can see that I added the Good to Go – kale and white bean stew and removed the mushroom Marsala meals. This made a huge difference for weight and cooking/cleaning. The mushroom Marsala meals were the heaviest things in my food bag, removing these and one ramen meal made my bag lighter. The addition of the backpacking meal gave me a vessel to hot soak my ramen meals that was lite and compact – plus, no dishes since I was just boiling water in our one pot!
In the end this is what I packed in my food bag:
- 4 ramen meals
- 4 packets of dinosaur oatmeal
- 4 packets of single-serve instant coffee
- 1 resealable snack bag of powdered milk
- 5 packs of gushers (never enough gushers)
- 5 cliff bars
- 5 little Debbie oatmeal cream pies (another item i wished I had more of)
- Pack of 10 tortillas
- 1 reusable squeeze pouch of peanut butter (should have also packed jelly!)
- 8 single-serve bags of Jerquee
- 1 Good to Go – Kale and White Bean Stew
Thank you for sharing my excitement as we plan our 2021 Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore backpacking trip. We are getting down to the wire and next I will sharing our 2021 Pictured Rocks Backpacking trip!
Love,
Sara