How to store food for backwoods camping?
Posted: July 12th, 2010 | Author: Mitch | Filed under: Camping Recipes | Tags: algonquin park, canned foods, fish fillets, fishing, Hunting, steaks | 5 Comments »Me and some friends are going back woods camping in Algonquin Park for about 4 days. I want to know how we can store meat like steaks and fish fillets. We aren’t going to be hunting (maybe a bit of fishing), and will be hiking about 20km (12 miles) everyday.
How can we have meat to eat, without having to depend on canned foods and dried out meats?
Thanks.
Precook and seal the meat in vacuum packed packages these will last several days. Somewhat like what mre’s are. Hillshire farms smoked sausages are great for backpacking you can add the meat to any meal including those freeze dried bland backpacking meals. As for fish eat what you catch, and don’t keep more than what you can eat. Here is a link for menu planning suggestions.
http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/planning+menu.html
On another note Algonquin Park is a very popular destination and requires permits for the back country. If you don’t have your reservations in for the back-country campsites you better do so quick.
http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/campcan/interior.html
Those are about you only options as far as fresh meats go. Unless you feel like carrying bags of ice around. Or you could eat what you catch or kill. Freeze dried meats aren’t so bad though.
If you can accept the extra weight, I’ve got two full days out of this:
Buy thicker steaks, or pack several smaller ones together. Place in plastic (Vacuum-heat seal bags work the best, otherwise a heavy zip-lock and squeeze out all the air). Then freeze. Once frozen, wrap in several layers of newspaper and finally a layer of aluminum foil and another plastic bag. Place the entire pack into one of those cheap, insulated, soft lunch bag/boxes. and pack in the middle of your clothes or roll-up in your sleeping bag. If you have any concerns about juices leaking from the meat, use a third bag for insurance.
If hiking with the pack toward direct sun, it may be helpful to drape a towel, sweatshirt, or other item to block the sun.
I’ve done this in temps around the mid 80′s and always had slightly frozen meat at dinner time on the second day of hiking. I’ve never tried it, but I’d bet a dry-ice pack included in the insulated bag or box would add at least a day.
A nice Rib-Eye after two days of hiking cant be beat!
Hope this helps, have fun.
you cant get away with meat for that long on the trail…what i usually do is pack frozen hot dogs or hamburgs and eat them right away on the first night–this way you get at least some good food on your trip–the rest of the time its non meat food but you can hopefully catch some fish and have a few meals out of those…fyi, those Hillshiore farms summer sausages dont require refrigeration until they are opened so you can bring one of those out
Freeze all the meat together into one big chunk. The bigger the chunk the longer it’ll stay frozen for. Wrap it in a bunch of HEAVY DUTY aluminum foil, and put them in an insulated soft lunchbox with bottles of frozen water. This will stay frozen for at least 2 in mid 80′s weather. After about 2 days, you might want to add a couple of those dry ice packs (the kind you got from the nurse in elementary school). Try not to open the lunch box unless you really have to.