I guess I am asking, how much food does a guy usually take? I will have a powdered drink like tang or something. I do not need fancy stuff and the dehydrated foods do not really appeal to me right now. Any suggestions you have would be great.

Sincerely,

Grams of Gorp

Dear Grams of Gorp,

I like to live by a rule of thumb on canoe trips: Pack 1.5 to 1.75 pounds of food per day per person.

That’s a pretty simple answer, but let’s look closer at the issue. First, head over to Kristen’s Guide Weight Loss Calculator and enter all your relevant data . I managed to come up with 470 calories per hour burned when walking at 3 mph. And for paddling, I’m in a 286 calories for leisurely and 386 for moderately paddling. That looks like I burn a heck of a lot more calories walking around than I do paddling, but I still don’t know how many I burn while backpacking.

So, I have to figure that out. First, I head over to to download a copy of Josh Madison’s sweet Convert software, because I’m going to need to convert my weight to kilograms for the next part of this answer. Downloaded. Enter pounds. Done. I’m 90 kg. Next, I’m going to head over to Fitnesslogs.com to look at their Calorie Coefficient table:

• General Backpacking: 0.117
• Canoeing on Camping Trip: 0.066
• Canoeing Moderate Effort: 0.117
• Kayaking: 0.083

These numbers are in calories burnt per kg per minute, and I want to know a per hour figure, so I have to convert these to calories per hour:

• General Backpacking: 631/hour
• Canoeing on Camping Trip: 356/hour
• Canoeing Moderate Effort: 631/hour
• Kayaking: 448/hour

And, of course, we want to know calories per day based on an eight-hour day:

• General Backpacking: 5048/day
• Canoeing on Camping Trip: 2848/day
• Canoeing Moderate Effort: 5048/day
• Kayaking: 3584/day

And, it might be useful to know calories per mile. Based on my paddling averages and hiking averages of 3mph for canoe tripping, 4mph for kayak tripping, and 3mph for backpacking:

• General Backpacking: 210/mile
• Canoeing on Camping Trip: 119/mile
• Canoeing Moderate Effort: 210/mile
• Kayaking: 112/mile

Now, let’s apply this little round about exercise. Your portage of 340 rods (double portaging means traveling this portage three times) is about 3 miles, so that’s going to cost you 630 calories. And that’ll take about an hour, which rings true in my experience. There probably won’t be many days on your trip that you portage that much. That’ll leave seven hours of paddling and you’ll burn around 2500 calories doing that. So, on the 340-rod day, you’ll burn 3122 calories.

So, now we know about how many calories that you’ll burn on an average day in canoe country. Next, we need an average figure for the average amount of calories contained in a pound of backcountry food. Phil Heffington has done a bit of work for us. He’s calculated the amount of calories per ounce of food, based on foods that are taken out backpacking. After looking over his chart, I’ve arbitrarily decided that the food I carry will average out 105 calories per ounce. This is 1680 calories per pound.

Going back to my rule of thumb of 1.5 to 1.75 pounds of food per day results in 2520 to 2940 calories per day. With the lower amount of food, I’ll fall into a calorie deficit of about 602 calories per day, but if you remember the first step of this exercise, I learned from Kristen’s Guide that I was 24 pounds overweight. On a six-day trip, this means that I’ll lose just over 1 pound. That means that I have to take 144 days of trips this year to get down to my ideal weight. Who would have thought that paddling could be a weight loss program.

Short Answer: Pack 1.5 to 1.75 pounds of food per day per person.

Download

Below is a Calories From Packed Food Worksheet based off of Phil Heffington’s work. It could use some improvement, like a checkbox system next to each item of food that is coming along on one page and those are transferred to another. Or a look up pivot chart or something. If someone wants to make those changes, please, do and send a copy.

• Calories From Packed Food Worksheet

More Calories Burned

P.S. But wait, there’s more. You’ll also burn calories in camp, cooking, and sleeping. For example, the coefficient for cooking is: 0.042. So, during an hour of cooking, I’d burn about 200 calories. So, when menu planning, you may want to boost your calories per pound or eat a really big Juicy Lucy Burger at My Sister’s Place when you get out of the BWCA.

Also, check out this article: Ration Planning NOLS Style.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: How Much Food Should I Pack

I am in the process of choosing an ultra-light canoe and becoming a little frustrated by the whole thing. There seems to be a lot of b.s. out there, especially from those trying to sell me a boat.

I’ve narrowed my choices to the Bluewater Tripper and the Quetico 17′. A few dealers have been telling the Souris River oilcans badly and that it is a problem that will worsen with age. The others have told me the Freedom Tripper is too small for the occasional 3rd paddler (in my case all 3 people are a little over 51/2 ft. tall with a total weight of about 400 pounds). The Bluewater people said they could easily move the front seat up 3 1/2 inches and the rear thwart back with no problems to give me added space. I’ve have also been told that with the narrow beam and hull shape the Freedom Tripper lacks stability, forget fishing they say.

I intend to paddle both in the spring”¦ Ahhh, who to believe?

If you have any opinion, I would appreciate hearing it. I must say I was happy to see you recommend both.

Yours Truly,

Confused in Canada a.k.a. Joseph

Dear Confused in Canada,

Buying a canoe can be tremendously difficult and it doesn’t help when competitive dealers get involved telling you all the bad points about a specific canoe model — these bad points may or may not even be true. I once knew a sales person who didn’t know anything about canoes, but when standing around a bunch of canoes, trying to sell them, he became a hardened wilderness tripper. Having managed sales people for many years and seeing many different types of salespeople, I usually try to take those that I’m talking to with a grain of salt. That is until they prove to me that I can trust them. I find it pretty easy to sort out the b.s. when you ask them about items that you know about to see what they say, and if someone is given me it, I take my business elsewhere.

As far as the specific claims relayed in your letter: I have no idea about oil canning in the Quetico. The user reviews on Paddling.net don’t list any problems with oil canning, and I know several BWCA outfitters use them. They’re popular, so I’d have to believe that if they oil canned like crazy, they wouldn’t sell in the numbers that they do and that the user reviews would list the problem, and the BWCA outfitters wouldn’t buy them over other better canoes. I don’t remember any bad oil canning, but it has been awhile since I’ve paddled one – I do remember that I really liked the way it paddled. You’re going to paddle it in the spring, so check it out then. Then if you were feed b.s. take your business elsewhere. I paddle a Freedom 17 cedar strip, which is the same as the Tripper. I don’t find it unstable, but you may feel differently. In fact, I couldn’t ever ask for a better design for flat water and mild river tripping. I love it. It’s a tight boat, and you may find it tough to fit three people in it. I’ve paddled it with three people and three packs and found it less than desirable. If you are going to be tripping with three people in one canoe, maybe the Explorer would be a better fit. Paddle that one also.

Your best bet is to wait until spring, paddle them, and don’t sweat it over winter. Instead, research some cool places to take your new canoe when you get it.

Bryan

P.S. Just last fall, Ilena and I fly fished just fine out of my Freedom 17.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Dear Nessmuking: Your Questions, Our Answers