Well, we agree. Sometimes one day is just not enough time for running in the mountains. And we are not alone in feeling this way. Multi-day runs have been growing in popularity for years, and the Inland Northwest has more than enough trails and mountain wilderness to accommodate these trips.

Multi-day run trips are a combination of long-distance trail running and backpacking, commonly called “fastpacking.” Once figured out and properly prepared for, it gives you the best of both worlds: more time outside and more ground covered than your average weekend running or hiking trip.

Fastpacking Essentials

Planning:When preparing to spend several days in the wilderness and away from access to goods and services, a bit of planning can go a long way. This planning extends to drawing out a route, checking any up-to-date weather and trail conditions pertinent to your location, deciphering camp spots and water sources, learning about potential wildlife encounters, meal prepping, and packing appropriate gear.

Nutrition:Just like any other endurance activity, keeping yourself properly fueled is essential for having a positive experience and staying safe. More pronounced than with backpacking, carrying all of your food and water on your back during a run can be cumbersome and painful if not approached strategically. Although it will take time to figure out which foods will prove best for your body and your backpack, dehydrated goods like oats, powdered potatoes, or packaged freeze-dried meals are a good place to start. In addition to your regular run-fuel items, dehydrated foods will work as pre and post-run meals that won’t weigh you down.

Hydration:Consider your access to fresh water sources along your planned route. Bring a filter or purification tablets along with your pre-filled bladders and bottles. Having enough liquids to maintain your hydration for the duration of your trip is key, especially when accounting for your increased need from perspiration and food prep.

Apparel:Just like with backpacking and trail running, having the right clothing for any condition you’re likely to encounter allows for a more enjoyable experience, no matter what the Inland Northwest weather throws at you. Additionally, having a change of clothes for your non-running hours offers a little reprieve from your sweat-covered t-shirt and shorts while you rest.

Gear:First things first, you’re going to need a backpack. Your pack needs to be big enough to hold everything you need, while still being comfortable enough to run in. Brands like Ultimate Direction and Solomon make fastpack-specific packs, designed to hold between 15-25 liters of gear while distributing the pack load between chest, shoulder, and side straps. These packs have a multitude of pockets and can expand and collapse as you need more and less space.

Next, you’ll need equipment for camping. Collapsible cooking pots and burners or small jet boils offer hot meal options and are worth packing if you have room. Weather depending, simply tie a tarp above your lightweight sleeping bag or hang a small hammock for tree-dense areas. If there’s rain in the forecast, carry your lightest tent and fly.

Other essentials:Put together a small first aid kit, just as you would with backpacking and running, including essentials such as bandages (large and blister-sized), antibacterial ointment, athletic tape, benadryl, sunscreen, aspirin, baby wipes, and an irrigation syringe. Other useful items to consider include small amounts of rope, bear spray, a headlamp, toilet paper, instant coffee, trekking poles, spork and knife, a portable cell phone charger, and a map.

Favorite Spots for Fastpacking

The good news is you can fastpack anywhere you’d through hike, but as you’ll be running instead of backpacking, you can cover more ground. Hikes that would usually take 3 to 4 days can be finished in 2 days, depending on your fitness level and comfort in long distance running. 

Hells Canyon, Idaho

Style: Out-and-Back

Distance: Up to 40 miles

Length: 2+ days

Run along the Snake River on the Idaho side of Hells Canyon on this picturesque out-and-back. With riverside campsites along the way, run out as far as 20 miles before setting up camp. When morning comes and the light hits the valley differently, it will feel like a new run on the way back to your car.

Long Canyon, Idaho

Style: Out-and-Back

Distance: 28 miles

Length: 2 days

Run through an old growth forest and along a rushing creek North of Bonner’s Ferry and just below the Canadian border. Trail #16 is remote, with creek crossings throughout the spring and into the summer, and is often used by equestrians. There’s a rugged campsite just before mile 14.

Salmo-Priest Loop, Washington

Style: Loop

Distance: 20 miles

Length: 1.5 days

Outside of Colville, WA, it doesn’t get much more remote than the Salmo-Priest Loop. Boasting old growth forest, the Salmo river, and = mountain views, this trail is amazing.

Kettle Crest Trail, Washington

Style: Point-to-Point

Distance: 44 miles

Length: 3 days

Run along the ridge of Eastern Washington’s highest peaks, through sage-brush meadows, along wildflower paths, and gain almost 8,000 ft as you traverse the Kettle Crest Trail. As to not miss any of the spectacular views, we recommend this trip as a point-to-point by shuttling your vehicles with friends.

The post Backpacking for Runners: A Quick Guide to Fastpacking appeared first on Out There Venture.

Bringing busy people locally-crafted, healthy food is a worthwhile but lofty goal. But the unstuffed Italian pepper meal lives up to the challenge. It packs a pleasant, peppery heat, along with a delicious medley of herbs. Even the ground beef tastes well seasoned and of high quality, combining a home-cooked, from-scratch taste with a just-add-water level of ease.

The pork harvest bowl is another successful culinary experience. The wild rice and pork pair deliciously with roasted Brussels sprouts and caramelized onion, while the balsamic vinegar and hint of orange add a delightfully complex flavor. It’s as easy to imagine stashing a few of these meals at work for the days when you don’t have time to prepare lunch as it is to imagine bringing them along on a multi-day backpacking trip. In fact, if you’re tired from a long day’s trek, these meals may be the best thing you’ve ever tasted in the great outdoors. That’s because Bushka’s founder, Deana Del Vecchio, came up with the idea for her company while preparing to hike the Laugavgur trail in Iceland. Dismayed by most of the prepackaged food options, she decided to make her own freeze-dried meals and dehydrated snacks that don’t suck. She succeeded on her trip, and—lucky for the rest of us—she’s sharing her R&D by making her delicious concoctions available to the masses. //

[Feature photo: Bags of Bushka’s ready to re-hydrate. // Courtesy of Bushka’s Kitchen]

The post Freeze Dried Meals for the Speed of Life appeared first on Out There Venture.

Laura Talaga, age 32

Trails: “Triple Crown” – Appalachian Trail, 2007 (March 2-Sept. 20); Pacific Crest Trail, 2013 (April 25-Sept. 14); Continental Divide Trail, 2015 (April 25-Sept. 6, flip-flop). Trail name: Beads.

“I had a lot of backpacking experience growing up [near the AT in northeast Pennsylvania], and in college I was an outdoor education instructor. So I thought I knew what I was doing,” Talaga says about her thru-hike along the Appalachian Trail (AT) as a new college grad, accompanied by her partner and her dog. “I started out with a 45-pound pack. But throughout the entire AT, I started shedding gear and found out what I really needed.”

Talaga moved to Chewelah, Washington, in October 2012 for her dream job, and the following year completed her solo thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). “That’s when I moved from a more traditional approach to what I call ‘comfortably light.’ My base weight is more like 15 to 20 pounds,” she says. In addition to working in Chewelah, Talaga is head veterinarian for the Spokane Humane Society. Each of her hikes were fundraisers for animal rescue organizations.

Hiking solo, she says, was “liberating but also made me address my fears…decision making is a different experience. I felt vulnerable. It was challenging to trust my instincts and decisions.” On the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), while hiking northbound into Colorado and confronting dangerous snow conditions, Talaga chose to leave the trail and go around the snow while other hikers continued. She headed to Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin, and then “flip-flopped” by hiking the CDT southbound from the Canadian border – a “decision I was proud of – listening to my gut, rather than going with the crowd,” she says.

Food: “I like the nutrition of having my own fruits and veggies. I dehydrate food from my garden and the farmer’s market. [While long-distance hiking] I don’t cook.” She used to carry a stove and fuel, but then found it easier and more lightweight to “just rehydrate things.” She enjoys the simplicity: she puts food in a jar with cold water and carries it as she hikes to eat throughout the day – cold oatmeal, veggie hummus, coconut curry couscous, ramen noodles with spicy peanut sauce, and veggies. “I eat a Snickers bar before bed because I have been eating healthy all day,” she says.

Advice: “You don’t know what you can’t do until you try. There is no purpose in waiting,” she says. “I am not some spectacular athletic person.” Other than being reasonably fit, she says it’s not really possible to train for a long-distance hike. She hikes no more than 10 miles a day during the first week and then slowly increases daily mileage.

What she’s learned: “Perspective for all aspects of life. All things do pass. If today you’re uncomfortable, tomorrow you might not be. You realize how small and insignificant your problems are in the world.”

Tim Plaza, age 38

Trails: “Triple Crown” – Appalachian Trail, 2012 (March 11-July 1); Pacific Crest Trail, 2013 (May 6-Aug. 30); and Continental Divide Trail, 2015 (May 20-Sept. 1). All solo thru-hikes. Trail name: Tribhu (“tree-boo”).

For the AT, Plaza’s first backpacking trip ever, his pack weighed 30 to 35 pounds. After moving from the East Coast to Portland, Oregon, with plans to hike the PCT, he invested in ultralight gear, for a base weight of eight pounds, and 18 to 23 pounds with food and water. His high-mileage hiking pace is fast. “I love going four miles an hour for 16 hours a day,” he says.

“I’m incredibly low-maintenance. I don’t need a lot of luxury items, and food is the same way. I have always been of the mindset that because of the amount of exercise I’m doing, I can get away with eating some unhealthy food,” he says. He purchased the “highest calorie, highest fat, lightest, most convenient foods available” from grocery stores and gas station mini-marts along the way. For the PCT, he only sent himself a few resupply boxes, and he used a stove to prepare simple meals. After the PCT, Plaza began working for REI. He moved to Spokane in 2015, transferring to the Spokane store where he’s a sales manager and outdoor instructor.

Flip-flopping on the CDT: When Plaza arrived in Colorado on June 20 after a month of hiking through New Mexico, there was 275 percent of snowpack due to late-May snow. “I attempted 40 miles in three days, and it was the scariest three days of my life – avalanches, shelves of snowpack breaking away near me,” he says. So he “flipped” to Waterton Lake in Glacier National Park and hiked southbound to where he left the trail in Colorado.

Why he loves the backcountry: “The connection with nature…something resets and evens out [in the brain] when you’re away from human noise and surrounded by nature,” says Plaza, who has college degrees in psychology and has worked as a therapist. “I’m just a completely different person than I was in 2011 – ever aware of my ego — because of all that time for reflection. [Being in the wilderness] is probably the best form of therapy that I’ve ever experienced.”

Advice: Talk to other long-distance or section hikers, and get properly fitted for a backpack and footwear. Most of all, “Don’t think of it as one long trip. It’s a series of three- to 10-day backpacking trips all strung together. It’s like any long-term goal in life: if you break it down, it’s attainable.”

Lauren DeLand and Travis Nichols, both age 34

Trail: Currently hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, started on April 23; projected to finish on Sept. 22, 2016. Follow their progress at fivemonthstonowhere.com. For this story, they were interviewed by email and phone while in Mammoth Lakes, California.

“We’re not backpackers,” admits Deland. “Hiking was always the way to go do something else.” Their primary pursuits include backcountry skiing, rock climbing, and trail running. But hiking the PCT was percolating as an idea for a few years – “a trip that would challenge us, make us grow,” DeLand says. DeLand and Nichols celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary on the PCT on June 20. For a couple that first met in a Wilderness First Aid course at Eastern Washington University, hiking 2,633.5 miles together is just another outdoor adventure. “It’s all about the journey,” says Nichols. After Nichols was granted leave from his job with the Spokane Regional Health District, he and DeLand began an intense five-week period of preparation. (Nichols also works as a buyer for Mountain Gear and DeLand is a massage therapist.)

Goals and strategies: “Our goal for the first day was no blisters. The goal for the second day was no blisters, not dehydrated. The goal for the third day was no blisters, not dehydrated, and no sunburns. Repeat. This strategy worked well and got us through the desert that is Southern California,” writes Nichols and DeLand in an email. “The most important motto is ‘hike your own hike.’ We hike late while most hike early. We sleep more and walk faster than our peers. We camp high and dry while others camp low with plenty of water. Every time we have made our own decision, it has worked for us. The lesson is to listen to your body and the trail and to make the decisions that are right for you.”

Backpacks: DeLand’s and Nichols’ base weights are 21 and 18 pounds respectively, with an average of 40 and 56 pounds with food and water. (They’ve chosen to carry comfort items to improve sleep.) They arrive in towns every five to seven days to pick up resupply boxes, and they take “zero days” as needed – rest days with no hiking mileage.

Food: “One of the guiding principles of our trip was personal health. We are focused on a no-added-sugar, real-food diet. We are eating rehydrated chia seeds for breakfast, dried fruits and nuts for snacks, tuna for lunch, and grain and rehydrated vegetables for dinners. We are grateful for the quality sustained energy. Both of us have lost about 16 pounds and stabilized in weight, although our bodies are still reshaping to adapt to the demands of constant movement.”

Leave no trace: “We appreciate more how even the softest forms of recreational use, especially trail building and hiking, have a significant impact on wilderness. It is foolish to think that anything humans leave our fingerprints on is still in its original form. There is no reason to ever leave toilet paper in a wild space, even under eight inches of top soil. We have become disgusted by the high level of impact from human waste disposal at cherished camping areas.”

Challenges: “I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would,” says DeLand. “It’s a mental game out here. I had prepared for this to be a sufferfest, thinking I would be sore and miserable most of the time. But once we got into it, I realized it was easier than I thought it would be.” DeLand was diagnosed with chronic fatigue 14 years ago. “I’m thrilled with the results I’ve achieved [on the PCT]. Pushing my body to its limits has been extremely rewarding for me,” she says, including hiking up to 20 miles a day and summiting Mt. Whitney. “The biggest issue I have with chronic fatigue is that I still need a lot of sleep – 11 to 12 hours a night. We have to travel a faster speed and take fewer breaks so we make the same miles [as other hikers].” Nichols states, “We’re at a point now where it’s not too hard physically to get back on the trail. We’ve found that if we spend too many days recovering, we get used to the modern conveniences, like fresh water. It’s more of a mental thing than physical.” //

Amy Silbernagel McCaffree enjoys sharing stories that inspire people to be more active and adventurous. She wrote about the many lakes throughout the Inland Northwest in July.

The post Four Local Long-Distance Hikers and Their Unique Experiences on National Scenic Trails appeared first on Out There Venture.

“Eli and I are both attracted to the philosophical idea of ‘getting away’ from everyday life and being completely self sufficient with 20-25 lbs of stuff. This type of self sufficiency requires the ultralight backpacker to be very conscious and very present as well,” Anna says. “There is also something very appealing about going for a nice brisk walk in the woods as opposed to a slow, painful trudge.”

The one downside of the sport is the expensive ultralight gear, they say.

This husband and wife duo go on at least one summer ultralight trip together—usually to the Cascades and often to the Leavenworth area. Eli, who Anna says is more die-hard, goes on 2-3 summer trips. His most successful one so far was completing that same Snoqualmie to Stevens stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail in three days with his 58-year-old father. It was the first time Eli took no rain gear and used only a tarp for shelter.

One of their most challenging and comical adventures was hiking the Hatchery Creek Trail outside of Leavenworth in the summer of 2009. “The trail hadn’t been maintained in a long time, so there was a lot off trail, off map bushwhacking. In addition, we had one mishap after another, and by the end of the day we were both totally exhausted,” explains Anna.

The next day when they decided to jump over a relatively narrow section of a creek instead of taking off their shoes and fording it, Eli successfully made it while Anna did not. “My feet hit the edge of the bank, and as I tried to propel myself forward, my butt shot backwards and pulled me over into the stream,” she says.

In addition to backpacking, Eli and Anna rock climb and train for and compete in triathlons. In the winter, Eli snowboards and Anna likes to snowshoe. And they go day hiking and car camping with their four-year-old daughter.

Here is the gear they use to travel the trails in ultralight style:

BACKPACK: REI UL 30

SHOES: Eli – Salomon XT Trail-Runner; Anna – Merrel.

SOCKS: WrightSock CoolMesh, quarter size. “They don’t last more than a season, but they are doubled layered and really work well for cutting down on blisters,” she says.

TREKKING POLES: They each carry one—REI brand.

SHELTER: MSR Ventana tent – discontinued, but they say it’s the “best tent ever.”

SLEEPING BAGS/PADS: Eli – REI Sub-kilo bag and short Therm-a-Rest ProLite; Anna – LaFuma down bag and regular, self-inflate Therm-a-Rest.

CLOTHING: REI convertible pants and Under Armour compression fit shirts. “Moisture wicking is key,” says Anna. “We do not pack more than one shirt and one pair of pants. Quick drying clothes are a must because if we are out on a long trip—four or more days—you can rinse out your hiking clothes at night, and they will be dry by morning, mostly.” For nighttime, they wear REI MTS Long Underwear. “If we pack our lighter sleeping bags, the long underwear helps to cut down on any chill early/late season,” she says.

JACKETS: Eli – Marmot Pollyfill; Anna – Moonstone. She says, “It weighs close to a couple of pounds, but I don’t mind carrying the ‘extra’ weight if it assures me warmth (aka comfort) at the end of the day.” Instead of carrying rain gear, they find shelter if needed.

WATER FILTRATION SYSTEM: Sawyer Gravity Feed filter.

FOOD: Breakfast and lunch: Fuel Fudge—Anna’s modified version of a recipe from Lipsmackin’ Backpackin’: Lightweight Trail-tested Recipes for Backcountry Trips by Christine and Tim Conners. These two meals are “all about calorie intake and little bulk,” she says. She drinks Medaglia D’oro instant espresso, premixed with powder creamer. Snacks: Peanut M&Ms and Shotblocks. Dinner: dehydrated meals, usually Mountain House brand.

OTHER ESSENTIAL GEAR: Headlamps, Petzl for Anna, Black Diamond Ion for Eli; pocket knife; first aid kit; Kelty Triptease lightline for hanging food in trees; and Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap, which Anna says is “organic and completely necessary for anything, from cleaning camp utensils to washing a body.”

The post What’s Your Gear?: Eli And Anna Brown: Ultralight Backpacking appeared first on Out There Venture.