Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Stashing Food and Water Along Trail

Just guessing but had the energy bars been stored in the required food container the bag might not have developed a hole.

If you are coming up from Guitar Lake your food should be in a bear resistant canister. Therefore, this should not be an issue. We all leave energy bars or GORP in our packs from time to and sometimes we pay the price for doing so. Heck, I left all my breakfast food out of my canister at Trail Camp earlier this year before I headed up to the summit. I made some marmot's year.

When I leave my pack at this location I am bringing my hydration system and all my trail foods either in my pockets or in the summit pack. If a day hiker leaves his pack here with all his food in it he risks pack damage and loss of food.

This thread does remind me of a big no-no that I violated this summer without knowing it was illegal. I was doing the HST to Whitney Portal and then turning north on the JMT to Yosemite. I didn't eat my 1 day of emergency food on the HST so I stashed it in the bear box at Crabtree while I took 2 days to go to the Portal and back to get my resupply package. I had no idea it was illegal, but I came back two days later and picked it up as planned.

It wasn't that I didn't want to lug 2 pounds of food in an mostly empty pack to the Portal, but my resupply load was 44 pounds. I doubt I could have fit so much as a single extra granola bar in my pack.

Jeff:
I did the same thing this past summer on my loop, and didn't find out it was a no-no until 4-5 days later when I was still 2 days away from it. I left 3-days worth of food in the bear box at Junction Meadow in the Kern Canyon. Ranger Cindy at Roaring River then told me that was not allowed because of the volume of people coming through. Basically, if everyone stashed in the bear box there would be no room for those who were passing through. Made sense to me, and next time I'll plan a resupply so I don't have to take nearly as much at once. I was really glad the food was still there because, worst case scenario, the ranger coming through would have taken it back to his/her station, which in this case was Tyndall Creek. FAR out of my way to go pick that up!

But the original question on this thread seemed to do with just stashing food along the trail, no bear or other protection at all. I still think that's a REALLY bad idea. If you take a minute to actually plan out what you need for the day/days/weeks, you won't overload it and it won't be a burden. Even if you're crazy like me and make some chicken pasta with white wine reduction sauce or other insanity...

-L

Another problem with leave food in places like the Crabtree bear box is someone might take it thinking that someone left their extra food.

I mentioned I had some extra food and was told by someone with a lot more experience than me at the time to leave it in the Crabtree box for someone who caught short.

I would not do that today.

Fuji- you're planning a one day trip up the MMWT,correct? Assuming that this is a warm weather trip, and with the average round trip time of 13 hours, it would seem senseless to me that one would need to cache anything along the way. Eat, drink and be merry to your heart's content before the start. There are 12 good water sources along the way, so you can refill all the way to switchback 23 above Trail Camp. The Israelis in the 6 day war in 1967 learned that to survive a constant march in the desert their army stopped to drink 1 liter of water every hour. They stayed hydrated while the Egyptians collapsed.
Lesson learned- refill regularly, and tank up with 2 liters at the switchbacks for the summit push. No need to stash food anywhere. Sub sandwiches, power bars, granola and your favorite sweets don't weigh all that much. If you time it properly you can get back to the Portal store for a cheeseburger and fries to replenish those missing calories that didn't get in your daypack.