Chocolate-Cherry Peanut Butter Trail Bars

Chocolate-Cherry Peanut Butter Trail Bars

Makes 6

Adapted from Laurie March’s A Fork in the Trail

1/3 cup honey
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup natural peanut butter
2 cups natural flake cereal
½ cup dried cherries
1/3 cup slivered/crushed almonds
½ a high-quality dark chocolate bar (Green & Black’s Dark 85% passed my criteria)

Heat the honey and brown sugar in a saucepan and simmer one minute (not longer, or bars will be brittle). Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine well. The chocolate will melt to form a coating.

Coat the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square pan with vegetable oil. Scoop the mixture into the pan and pat down evenly. Freeze for 30 minutes. Transfer the pan contents to a cutting board and allow to return to room temperature, then cut into bars.

*Brown sugar’s degree of processing is debatable, but hey, it’s less processed than regular sugar. Honey would have been even less processed, but the entire honey bear is too damn heavy."

Recipe Courtesy of Simple Food Healthy Life​

Omlets in the Field

So I read this great little blog post the other day about making omelets in the field.  So your first thought might be what is so new about this.  Right, simply whip up your eggs, add the ingredients, and put it all in that lovely little non-stick frying pan you have.  Simple, nothing new, works like a charm.  Well, what if you are going ultra-light and you don't have a skillet?  I know I don't carry one most of the time, so making omelets the old fashion way is out for me.  Alas, help is on the way.

This beautiful little post that I read describes the following steps towards omelet nirvana sans skillet:

• Gather your eggs and ingredients
• You need a single zip lock baggy, preferably the heavier kind
• Crack your eggs into the baggie and whisk
• Add your ingredients (onions, garlic, peppers, etc.)
• Close baggy tightly
• In your pot of boiling water, place the baggy in the pot, and let cook for 10-20 minutes
• Remove the bag and empty the now perfectly formed omlette onto your bowl, add salsa and consume

Note, I have tried similar things to this and you must be careful that their is enough water in your pot and that the flame is not to high.  If you don't, there is the possibility that you will melt the plastic bag and whatever is in it, in this case your omelet, will come gushing out.  So, bon apetit, let me know if this works for you.  I am stoked to try it out on my next adventure.

Water Purification, Chemicals or Filter?

This is a question that any backcountry paddler is faced with.  As we leave the confines of civilization we are confronted with one of the key challenges of long distance paddling.  That is, how am I going to get my water and how am I going to make it safe to drink.  We can live without lots of things, but safe drinking water is not one of them.

For my 1700 mile solo trip through the San Juan Islands, British Columbia and SE Alaska I was confronted with these exact questions.  For my trip, after much research I opted to go with the filtration method as my primary purification technique and then Aquapure tablets and boiling as my backup methods.  Before I describe my experience with filters, let me just say that in the future, I will use chemicals, so read on to learn more.

After all my research it appeared that filtration was the best, safest, and most reliable way of purifying water.  I acquired a MSR Gravity Filter and must say that it performed admirably (read my review).  In 147 days I only once had a clog that required back washing, so my overall experience was very good with filtration.  I was able to safely acquire and drink all the water that I needed, never experiencing any issues or bad tasting water.  You might then ask, if you had no problems, then why change?

Well, the issues become more of logistics and ease than with the actual filtration technique.  You see, to use a filter you on a long distance kayak trip you must deal with a number of issues, some of which can be quite complex.  The first issue is that quite often you will not be in a location where you can afford to sit and filter the water at the exact source where you acquire it.  This means that you must then wait to arrive at camp before going through the filtration process.  While the gravity filter worked great, it did require you to have an object high enough to hang everything.  This was quite often a very difficult process, especially in the rocky, tree less environment of Glacier Bay.  So this was another obstacle to getting your water to a drinking state.  Lastly, while I only had one backup of my filter, it was enough of an issue to cause me to re-think how I would deal with a broken or damaged filter.

Even though the gravity filter worked as described, the ability to have drinking water available in the most efficient and timely manner became my overriding goal.  Thus, the move to chemicals solves a great deal of these problems.  First, you can simply acquire your water strait into your Dromedary bags.  I carried three bags, 2/6/10 litre bags that I used for different purposes.  The 2 litre bag was filled on a daily basis with water that was to be used for cooking, thus using boiling as my purification technique.  The 6 & 10 litre bags were used interchangeably based on the frequency of water sources. That is if I was in an environment where water was readily available, I would use the 6 litre bag.  If water was getting scarce, I would use the 10 litre bag.  The move to chemicals meant that at the source, 90% of the time I could simply grab my water, quickly apply chemicals, and then get back into the boat and move on.  Within the allotted amount of time, the water was ready and I was good to go.  By the time you arrived at camp, there was no filtration to be done, and your daily supply of cooking water was simply ready to use, thus not taking from your precious drinking supply.

The chemicals I used were the Aqua Pure tablets, which I cannot recommend at all.  They left a disturbing taste in the water, and if boiled, caused a strange foaming to occur.  However, I was able to use the chemical called Pristine (sold in Canada, the US version is Aquamira) and it worked fantastic.  I was privlidged to paddle with some Canadian guides who shared this with me and their experiences with it were 100% positive over a number of years of use.  Due to this experience, I will be swithching to 100% chemical purification and leaving my filter at home.  This has the added benefit of not only freeing up space but also of removing one more  peice of gear that could potentially break.

To recap, this is my preferred approach:

1. Carry multiple size Dromedary bags. They fold up nice and small when not in use
2. Use a 2 Litre  bag for your daily cooking water
3. Use a larger bag for your drinking water
4. Use Aquamira for your primary purification
5. Use Boilinig for your backup purification

Aquamira Water Treatment