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OT: Coronavirus Resources - and other things to not worry about

LeafGm said:
On a trip with portages, there’s usually two main things I’m looking to avoid. One is having more than one bag hanging off me during the portage, and the other is having to do multiple trips to transport all my gear.

So there’s no communal food bag/barrel on our trips. Everyone will typically have all of their own food, clothes, gear, tent & sleeping bag packed down into a single dry bag backpack. And each canoe can figure out how its crew want to divvy up carrying it on the portages.

And I still end up with amazing meals, a good amount of snacks and with more alcohol than I can drink.
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Not enough drink, sounds like.

Ideally you have more alcohol than you can drink and then a bit more beyond that.
 
Because tenting with a baby sucked. Got a teardrop trailer. Love it.

Gnome Homes Inc. Teardrop Trailers.

Gnome Homes Inc is a Canadian company that builds custom teardrop trailers. Handcrafted in Alberta, our vintage-style Teardrop Trailers will provide you with a lifetime of convenient and comfortable getaways in the great outdoors! And are Transport Canada certified.
gnomehomesinc.com gnomehomesinc.com
 
worm said:
Because tenting with a baby sucked. Got a teardrop trailer. Love it.

Gnome Homes Inc. Teardrop Trailers.

Gnome Homes Inc is a Canadian company that builds custom teardrop trailers. Handcrafted in Alberta, our vintage-style Teardrop Trailers will provide you with a lifetime of convenient and comfortable getaways in the great outdoors! And are Transport Canada certified.
gnomehomesinc.com gnomehomesinc.com
Click to expand...
There’s another alternative called hotel.

Also you could just stay home if you hate the outdoors.
 
LeafGm said:
On a trip with portages, there’s usually two main things I’m looking to avoid. One is having more than one bag hanging off me during the portage, and the other is having to do multiple trips to transport all my gear.

So there’s no communal food bag/barrel on our trips. Everyone will typically have all of their own food, clothes, gear, tent & sleeping bag packed down into a single dry bag backpack. And each canoe can figure out how its crew want to divvy up carrying it on the portages.

And I still end up with amazing meals, a good amount of snacks and with more alcohol than I can drink.
Click to expand...

Agreed that no extras is the key to a good trip. But we were packed perfectly tight.

3 people
3 bags
3 seconds (2 canoes 1 barrel)

= 1 trip portages

And the food barrel is a no-brainer must for me - Unbreakable, waterproof, scent proof, and doubles as a cutting board and table.
 
LeafGm said:
One thing I do definitely have to figure out is my portaging footwear. I like to do the portages with proper hiking boots, but it’s a pain in the ass repeatedly taking them on and off.

Toe shoes or water shoes most definitely don’t look like the answer for me.
Click to expand...

Putting on hiking boots every portage seems crazy to me. Let alone carrying them around.

Water shoes - step out of the canoe into the water, put your pack on, lift the canoe...and you're starting your portage before you even get out of the water.
 
LeafGm said:
On a trip with portages, there’s usually two main things I’m looking to avoid. One is having more than one bag hanging off me during the portage, and the other is having to do multiple trips to transport all my gear.

So there’s no communal food bag/barrel on our trips. Everyone will typically have all of their own food, clothes, gear, tent & sleeping bag packed down into a single dry bag backpack. And each canoe can figure out how its crew want to divvy up carrying it on the portages.

And I still end up with amazing meals, a good amount of snacks and with more alcohol than I can drink.
Click to expand...
yeah if portages take more than one trip, you're doing them wrong.
 
zeke said:
Agreed that no extras is the key to a good trip. But we were packed perfectly tight.

3 people
3 bags
3 seconds (2 canoes 1 barrel)

= 1 trip portages

And the food barrel is a no-brainer must for me - Unbreakable, waterproof, scent proof, and doubles as a cutting board and table.
Click to expand...
yeah this is an acceptable set-up and arrangement
 
zeke said:
Putting on hiking boots every portage seems crazy to me. Let alone carrying them around.

Water shoes - step out of the canoe into the water, put your pack on, lift the canoe...and you're starting your portage before you even get out of the water.
Click to expand...
especially if you're doing a trip that involves any rivers / moving water, I find I'm in and out of the boat so frequently that amphibious shoes are pretty much a requirement.
 
zeke said:
Agreed that no extras is the key to a good trip. But we were packed perfectly tight.

3 people
3 bags
3 seconds (2 canoes 1 barrel)

= 1 trip portages

And the food barrel is a no-brainer must for me - Unbreakable, waterproof, scent proof, and doubles as a cutting board and table.
Click to expand...


All of my dry food is in a smaller dry-bag inside my big dry-bag backpack. So I don’t really have any worries about it getting wet—whether when I’m travelling or when I hang it from a tree at night.

And my cooking pot lid makes for a perfectly cromulent cutting board.

So I get the appeal of a food barrel, but it definitely wouldn’t be worth it for me. And in general I like the principle of everyone having to carry their own shit instead of having any communal bags/barrels.
 
zeke said:
Putting on hiking boots every portage seems crazy to me. Let alone carrying them around.

Water shoes - step out of the canoe into the water, put your pack on, lift the canoe...and you're starting your portage before you even get out of the water.
Click to expand...


Yeah, getting the hiking boots on and off is for sure a pain in the ass.

But while I take longer to get going, once I’ve got them on and get moving I’ll usually catch up with and pass at least a few of the guys in our group that are making their way through the portage with flimsy water shoes or flip-flops. Especially on portages getting up to the 2km range.

Still though—I’ve got to figure out a better way.
 
LeafGm said:
All of my dry food is in a smaller dry-bag inside my big dry-bag backpack. So I don’t really have any worries about it getting wet—whether when I’m travelling or when I hang it from a tree at night.

And my cooking pot lid makes for a perfectly cromulent cutting board.

So I get the appeal of a food barrel, but it definitely wouldn’t be worth it for me. And in general I like the principle of everyone having to carry their own shit instead of having any communal bags/barrels.
Click to expand...

well all food for us is communal, so it's not really "our own shit".

And the one luxury we do like is to have good food, and I love cooking on a campfire, so i don't really go for the traditional freeze dried / dry pack canoe trip food. Don't want to be stuffing nice steaks into my backpack really. You can even get a small cooler in there to keep any meats and dairy fresh.

And it's just nice to not have any worries about your food getting crushed or soaked or messed up at all, not to mention not having to hang it high for bears.

of course the ultimate cutting board, and canoe trip tool in general, is the frisbee. cutting board, fire blower, plate, bowl, bailer....you name it, frisbee does it.
 
zeke said:
well all food for us is communal, so it's not really "our own shit".

And the one luxury we do like is to have good food, and I love cooking on a campfire, so i don't really go for the traditional freeze dried / dry pack canoe trip food. Don't want to be stuffing nice steaks into my backpack really. You can even get a small cooler in there to keep any meats and dairy fresh.

And it's just nice to not have any worries about your food getting crushed or soaked or messed up at all, not to mention not having to hang it high for bears.

of course the ultimate cutting board, and canoe trip tool in general, is the frisbee. cutting board, fire blower, plate, bowl, bailer....you name it, frisbee does it.
Click to expand...
yeah if I'm on a multi-day hiking trip, then I pack as light as possible for food. if I'm on a canoe trip, happy to bring some extra weight to have tastier meals recognizing that we will barely have to carry it around.

I do like food barrels, even if I don't own one. but you really need a minimum of three people for one to be worthwhile. and carrying it kinda sucks.
 
zeke said:
well all food for us is communal, so it's not really "our own shit".

And the one luxury we do like is to have good food, and I love cooking on a campfire, so i don't really go for the traditional freeze dried / dry pack canoe trip food. Don't want to be stuffing nice steaks into my backpack really. You can even get a small cooler in there to keep any meats and dairy fresh.

And it's just nice to not have any worries about your food getting crushed or soaked or messed up at all, not to mention not having to hang it high for bears.

of course the ultimate cutting board, and canoe trip tool in general, is the frisbee. cutting board, fire blower, plate, bowl, bailer....you name it, frisbee does it.
Click to expand...


Okay, not going to lie, my mind is kind of blown with the frisbee idea. That’s brilliant.

And we did the communal food route for a bunch of years, but aside from resulting in an extra bag/cooler/barrel that someone has to carry, it almost always ended up with us bringing way too much food.

So we ditched that and went with everyone handling their own food, which for us at least works much better. You also end up with better variety, since everyone’s usually got extra food from their own meals and snacks that they’ll share around with everyone.

Also agreed on having good food. I will have dried stuff for my breakfast (oatmeal) and lunches (freeze-dried meals), but I’ll always bring a some bacon or ground meat to add to my freeze-dried lunches, and for my dinners I’ll have a steak or two, some sausages, corn on the cob, rice and stock (frozen into cubes) to cook up the rice with.
 
Wayward DP said:
yeah if I'm on a multi-day hiking trip, then I pack as light as possible for food. if I'm on a canoe trip, happy to bring some extra weight to have tastier meals recognizing that we will barely have to carry it around.

I do like food barrels, even if I don't own one. but you really need a minimum of three people for one to be worthwhile. and carrying it kinda sucks.
Click to expand...

they do have mini food barrels too.
 
LeafGm said:
Okay, not going to lie, my mind is kind of blown with the frisbee idea. That’s brilliant.

And we did the communal food route for a bunch of years, but aside from resulting in an extra bag/cooler/barrel that someone has to carry, it almost always ended up with us bringing way too much food.

So we ditched that and went with everyone handling their own food, which for us at least works much better. You also end up with better variety, since everyone’s usually got extra food from their own meals and snacks that they’ll share around with everyone.

Also agreed on having good food. I will have dried stuff for my breakfast (oatmeal) and lunches (freeze-dried meals), but I’ll always bring a some bacon or ground meat to add to my freeze-dried lunches, and for my dinners I’ll have a steak or two, some sausages, corn on the cob, rice and stock (frozen into cubes) to cook up the rice with.
Click to expand...

go-to three-night menu:

Breakfast:

Morning 1: Scrambled Eggs and good Bacon and homefries (thin sliced potato with garlic, onion, and spice)
Morning 2: Oatmeal, snacks
Morning 3: Pancake flipping competition

Lunch

Day 1: eat before going
Day 2: wraps and sliced meats / cheese, snacks
Day 3: wraps and sliced meats / cheese, snacks
Day 4: eat after leaving

Snacks: Jerky, Jerky, Jerky, nephew loves protein bars, some friends love their trail mix though imo it's actually a shitty trip food

Dinner:

Night 1: Biggest Steaks we can find. sauteed onion/musrooms/peppers side. One more veggie (asparagus this time).
Night 2: easier meat. maybe some marinade chicken with veg. or fresh fish if we catch it. or sausage or whatever.
Night 3: Gnocchi with sauce. Gnocchi packs much better than pasta. doesn't break and way more filling. also cooks in no time. Sauce is a bottle of passata with garlic, onions, and whatever leftover meat and veggies there are, with some garden fresh basil

Emergency Rain/Disaster Meal: Giant hot dogs

Drink: Gatorade crystals.

Alcohol: Bearface Whiskey my current go-to. it just fits.

Coffee: Moka "espresso", but instant in a pinch.

Dessert: Shitty delicious non-melt S'more packs
 
Wayward DP said:
yeah if I'm on a multi-day hiking trip,
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this is where i'm definitely a wuss.

I love a good portage and all but lugging around a giant pack for days through the forest is just not my thing at all. My bro keeps wanting to do the big hike and i just don't get the attraction.
 
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