The Adventure Eating Diet

Over the years, traipsing around the globe, a pack on my back and a map in my hand, I've honed the art of something I like to call adventure eating. In the woods, in the mountains, or even on a train from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps, this style of eating -- which involves quick and convenient calorie consumption, no cooking required -- has saved me time and money, and it has alleviated the headache of constant food preparation at times when I could be doing something much more fun.

Take climbing a mountain, for example. During the aforementioned Bavarian sojourn, which necessitated hiking on the Zugspitze, the tallest peak in Germany, I procured a small cache of bread and brie from the breakfast buffet at my village hotel, built four ad hoc sandwiches, wrapped them in napkins, and headed out the door. The hearty bread and thick, creamy brie cheese, plus two German chocolate bars and some water, satiated and sustained me for the entire day, allowing me to go ultra-light and fast through the tumbling alpine bliss.

Lately, I've become more scientific about adventure eating, reading nutrition labels, counting calories and divvying food up in baggies for per-hour and per-diem ratios. For big adventures, including overnight mountain climbs or marathon backpacking ordeals, I eat at least once an hour and consume 4,000 to 5,000 calories in a day. Each little baggie of food -- which I keep accessible in the hip-belt pockets on my pack -- contains at least 300 calories, and I simply make sure to empty the contents of one packet into my mouth every hour.

Specific food stuffs I've come to rely on include cashews, pecans, pepperonis, croutons, beef jerky, dried fruit, candy bars, Oreo cookies and Pop-Tarts. All of these items meet the adventure-eating-diet criteria of being easy to eat, high-calorie and non-perishable. They are also all quite yummy, which has become an increasingly important factor for me.

Energy bars and gels are fine for short events, I've concluded. But for anything longer than one day my taste buds and tummy start to reject energy food, causing me to eat less, to go slower, and, in many cases, to bonk into helpless bouts of delirium.

Drinking your calories is a big part of the adventure-eating diet, as well. My favorite liquid meals are developed by the likes of Hammer Nutrition LTD, Abbott Laboratories and Novartis Nutrition Corporation. The latter two companies, which respectively make Ensure Shakes and Boost Drink, cater more to the health and geriatric markets, and less to adventurers.

But Boost and Ensure are perfect for anyone who needs quick, good-tasting, easily-downable calories. Both products are sold at your corner grocer. They cost about $1.50 per 8-ounce bottle and embody similar nutritional specifications, with about 250 calories per serving, 5 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs and 10 grams of protein.


Boost

On the trail, I'll often drink a chocolate Boost or Ensure to wash down a handful of cashews or croutons. It's a three-minute meal, several hundred calories rich, that I can eat while hiking. Energy comes immediately from this kind of nutritional shot in the arm.

More well known among athletes, Hammer Nutrition LTD's Perpetuem drink (www.e-caps.com) has been crucial for me on several adventures. Two scoops of this powder supplement mixes with water to make a fueling shake in your bike water bottle. The creamy orange Dreamsicle flavor, which costs $2.29 per serving, goes down easy and provides 260 calories with 54 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of protein, and 2 grams of healthy, adventure-diet-approved fat.


Hammer Pertpetuem

Performance Flip-Flops

The proverbial flip-flop sandal just barely passes for a shoe. It offers little support and no toe protection. It's made to be worn casually, for comfort, convenience and little else.

But a new breed of flip-flop sandals designed by companies like Keen, Chaco, Teva and Mion have upped the ante. Indeed, these sandals, which include toe guards, Vibram rubber soles and adjustable webbing straps, provide admirable performance without losing on comfort.



The Keen Antigua


Of the four flip-flop models I put to the test last month, the Keen Antigua Slides were my top pick. They are tight on the foot, yet comfortable, with stationary webbing straps and an oversized rubber toe guard. It's a simple, effective design.

The Antigua Slides (www.keenfootwear.com) have compression-molded foam midsoles for comfort and support. Rubber outsoles provide good traction on wet and dry surfaces. At $40, the Antigua Slides are also the bargain of this batch.



Mion's Slack Tide Thong


Second in line in my test was the $80 Slack Tide Thong from Mion (www.mionfootwear.com). Though the sandal's space-age look was not my favorite, its overall comfort and performance was on par with the Keen Antigua Slides.

Like Keen, Mion includes a generous toe guard to protect your piggies from errant rocks and roots. It has an outsole that grips well when wet. The company's unique "Ergomorphic" footbed molds to the shape of your foot after a few hours of use.



The Chaco Zong


Chaco's $75 Zong flip-flops have adjustable webbing straps, a toe loop and a buckle to cinch the sandal tight. The Zong is essentially a full-blooded Chaco sandal, with a rugged Vibram outsole and a solid, supportive footbed, just without the heel strap.

The Zong is the most heavy-duty sandal in this review. It is built to last for years, and like other Chaco sandals the Zong can be re-soled if the traction wears down. Fans of Chaco sandals (www.chacousa.com) will immediately love this model.



The classic Teva Guide Thong


Finally, the $60 Guide Thong from Teva is a basic flip-flop design equipped with an over-the-foot strap that is tightened with a spring-loaded metal buckle. This sandal, unfortunately, did not fit my foot very well. The top strap did little for my particular foot shape, and the sandal slipped off too easily as I trotted along.

Regardless, the Guide Thong is worth considering. Just be sure to try it on at a store to see if it fits. Teva (www.teva.com) includes a tacky rubber footbed and a high-friction outsole for increased traction on sand, mud, pavement and turf.

Map Extravaganza

In preparation for a trip to Utah last month, I went purposefully overboard on the procurement of maps. To scout new wilderness I'll often purchase a few United States Geological Survey (USGS) quad maps and maybe buy a guidebook or two. But for my Utah trip I needed more.

Indeed, my goal -- to scour a large chunk of eastern Utah in preparation for the Primal Quest adventure race -- was a project that would call into service several cartographic companies and at least two U.S. Government agencies.

To start my search, I went online to get contact information for the Bureau of Land Management's Utah office. The BLM (www.blm.gov) is an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior that oversees 261 million acres of public lands, including a good share of the land in eastern Utah.

Map offerings from the BLM vary from topographicals that cover hundreds of square miles on down to specialized recreational maps that focus on a single trail. One map, titled "Utah's Colorado Riverway Recreation Guide," for example, is essentially a brochure on boating a stretch of the Colorado River near Arches National Park. The bureau's map of Moab, in contrast, is a 1:100,000-scale look at a 50-mile-wide area.

Most BLM maps are free at regional offices. I called up the main branch office in Salt Lake City and the agency dropped a packet of maps and brochures in the mail for me to peruse.



National Geographic's Moab Map

The U.S. Forest Service (www.fs.fed.us) was another great source for free or low-cost cartographic information. Like the BLM, the Forest Service's offerings included large-scale overviews as well as close-ups. Huge National Forests like the Manti-La Sal are put on paper in the oddball 1:126,720-scale, which provides sparse detail. Another map, "Arapeen OHV Trail System," is a detailed brochure and trail map where a mile measures about two inches on the page.

One caveat with the government-supplied maps: Many are outdated. Some of the maps I received from the Forest Service, for example, were last revised more than 10 years ago. USGS quads are often outmoded, too, with information garnered in the 1970s or even earlier. Land formations, rivers, lakes and major roads should be correct and literal on these older maps, but trails, county roads, property boundaries, city streets, and other features may be inaccurate or absent altogether.



A Close-up of the Nat Geo Moab Mab

On the private-sector side, National Geographic's Trails Illustrated maps were handy. These full-color maps are printed on waterproof paper and include several scale representations of an area as well as three-dimensional views, all on a single large sheet that folds down to the size of a state highway map.

The Trails Illustrated maps (www.ngmapstore.com), which cost $10 each, cover National Parks, recreational areas, islands, coastlines and mountain ranges. BLM and U.S. Forest Service land, with updates on roads and trails, are included in the series as well.



MyTopo.com will send custom maps to you...

Trails.com, an online repository of map data and downloadable guidebooks, is good if you have a specific activity in mind. Say you want to bike Moab's famous Slickrock Trail. Just type in "slickrock trail" in the site's search engine and a downloadable guide will pop right up, available for purchase as an Adobe PDF file that you print out at home.

Free trial memberships are available on Trails.com, or a yearly subscription that includes 50 trail downloads and unlimited access to the site's topo maps cost $50.

Mytopo.com has a searchable online database of USGS topographic maps and satellite photos. This slick site lets you search, scroll, zoom in and create custom maps in just a minute or two. The company then prints the map on waterproof paper and ships it out within two days. Prices range from $10 to $30 per map, depending on size and paper type.