More food

I was asked about what we will be eating while we are on the expedition, so I thought that I would share with you what a typical day of trekking, base camp and on the mountain food is like.


When we are in Kathmandu we will be eating well. There are so many different restaurants there...even a pizza place called Fire and Ice that I am sure we will visit at least once. The other highlight is our free meal at the Rum Doodle restaurant, and I just can't wait....just to be there again and look at our Yeti footprint that is hanging there.


Once we start trekking we will likely be staying in tea houses. There is always one big room where everyone gathers and they are all set up the same way. Deep benches along the walls that are covered in blankets, and in front of the benches are tables. The tables are not like here where you can put your legs under the top, but rather they have sides so that it is difficult to sit and eat with your food on the table, plus the tables are quite low so I usually just bring the food onto my lap and eat from there.


A typical breakfast is oatmeal or tsampa a form of cooked breakfast, sometimes pancakes are available and eggs if you like. The eggs are usually hard boiled, and are served by themselves....no bacon and eggs with potatoes and toast here, it is just eggs! Lunches are usually noodle soup or fried rice or potatoes if we stop to eat. The sherpas usually only eat two meals a day - breakfast and supper only so sometimes we eat a granola bar that we carried with us and keep on going. Supper on the trail is always great, because we are done for the day and can now rest and relax, and if we feel like splurging we may have a bit of water to wash our hands and face. The meal always starts off with soup to help with the rehydration, and my favourite is garlic soup. Main course offerings are fried rice with egg or cheese or veggies like carrots or boiled potatoes with cheese or veggies. The best however is dal bhat. Lentil soup poured overtop of steamed rice, and frequently a bit of veggies like carrots and cabbage. This is the best, and everyone makes it just a bit differently. For desert almost every tea house serves apple pie and I have never seen so many different ways to serve apple pie!!! Yummy after a long day!


I am thinking that at base camp the food will be similar to to when we are trekking. We will have a choice just like when we are trekking, but usually rice or potatoes that can be served in a multitude of ways.


For on the mountain things will be a bit different. We have chosen food that doesn't require cooking, but rather just some rehydrating. For example breakfast is oatmeal. Domhnall has the packaged kind while I have made my own mix. A bit of oatmeal with some cream of wheat, chia seeds, hemp hearts, slivered almonds and cranberries with a dash of cinnamon and bit of powdered milk and brown sugar. For an extra special treat I added a few white chocolate chips to a few bags! Yummy!!!


Lunches will be on the go, meaning we will not stop to boil water, so that means a granola bar or sharing a chocolate bar. This is all that we usually have so that we don't have to stop.


For supper we have quite a selection. It will always start with soup to which we can add any of the following: dried veggies like corn, peas or green beans, sundried tomatoes, dehydrated roasted peppers, onion or garlic flakes or even some dehydrated parmesan cheese. If we are making this our meal we also have some tuna or salmon that we may add. As a main course we could choose from a selection of purchased dehydrated meal, or a couple of my own such as lemony lentil bisque with dehydrated feta cheese or a curried Indian stew with sweet potatoes, peppers and chicken. All the meals have to be rehydrated by just adding boiling water as we will not be carrying up any extra fuel to cook with, so that means no pasta or anything else that needs cooking.


For an extra special treat we may have a desert. I have some pudding mixes that we only add cold water and powdered milk and shake in our covered cups until it thickens. To this I may add some reconstituted berries and then topped off with some dehydrated angel food cake for a bit of crunch.


If all of this sounds a bit decadent....well it is! Eating on the mountain is so important to keep our strength up. Due to the lack of oxygen we often feel a bit nauseated and not very hungry because our bodies do require oxygen to digest our food. For this reason I try to bring foods that I enjoy in the hopes that I will eat a bit more. When I really don't want to eat, my last resort food choices are Pringle's chips and a few bites of beef jerky!


This is what we will be enjoying while we are gone. Please send in your ideas for anything else....I still have a couple of days before we leave to dehydrate!!!!

Food preparations

Here are a few pictures of what I have been doing today, the before and after pictures of dehydrating frozen veggies. These will be added to the soup mixes to make them more hearty. I also dehydrated some parmesan cheese for flavour.

This is some of the rest of the food that we will also be bringing.

Snacks on the top and the soups on the bottom. I think that of all the food that we are bringing that the snacks are the most important. The plan for the food is while we are on the mountain we will have oatmeal for breakfast, snacks for lunch on the days we are moving, then soup and possibly a dehydrated meal for supper.

After a good breakfast, usually all I need to keep going for a whole day is one chocolate bar, so we are bringing lots of chocolate and a few other sweets to keep up our glycogen stores while we are on the move. We never stop for a proper lunch, but rather take small bites while we continue moving until we reach where we want to go. Once we stop and get settled, then we brew up for a proper supper.

In addition to what is in the pictures, we will also be buying some dehydrated meals. Not sure how many to buy as I find that I am usually nauseated up on the mountain, and that all I can usaully tolerate is soup and a few pringles chips. These we will buy in Kathmandu along with some noodle soup. We plan on bringing 20 days of mountain food with us just in case we are weathered on the mountain, but in reality we hope to be using a lot less than this.

Now that the food seems to be under control, I will continue on with packing the clothing and gear necessary. In the next few days I should be able to figure out how many bags I will bringing with me, and how much extra we will be paying the airlines to transport all of this to Kathmandu. I can hardly wait!!!!

Manaslu means "Mountain of the Spirit" and it comes from the Sanskrit word Manasa, meaning "intellect" or "soul".

It is an imposing mountain being a 3092m prominence it extends from crops cultivation area to the area permanently covered with snow and ice. The mountain's long ridges and valley glaciers offer feasible approaches from all directions, and culminate in a peak that towers steeply above its surrounding landscape.

There are about 6 different routes going up the mountain, and we will attempt the normal route. Many commercial expeditions estblish 4 camps on the mountian. We are not sure what we will do, but hopefully we will only establish 3 camps. Here is a view of the route that we will be taking.

Manaslu is the 8th tallest peak in the world at 8162 m (26, 781 ft), and is located just 40 km from Anapurna. The mountain's long ridges and valley glaciers offer feasible approaches from all directions and culminate in a peak that towers steeply above its surrounding landscape.

Here is a bit of information about our next objective - Manaslu.

Manaslu is located in Nepal.

As you can see, Manaslu is in a different part of Nepal, near Annapurna. We will land in Kathmandu then take a vehicle for a 5 hour drive then hike for somewhere between 6-10 days to base camp.

We have hired a company to take us and our gear to base camp, as well as base camp support. This means that they will provide us with a tent at base camp plus they will cook for us there. This is the minimal amount of support that we could get as we do need someone to stay in base camp to look after our stuff while we are on the mountain.

We are a team of two - just Domhnall and me, and the plan is no assistance from Sherpas to carry our gear up the mountain, do our own cooking etc on the mountain, and to do this without oxygen. This climb will be similar to the way we climbed Everest - going up and down to acclimatize and resting at base camp between trips up.

We are unsure how long this climb will take us. It all depends on how strong we are, how we are acclimatizing and of course the weather. We have allowed some extra time in Nepal, and if we finish early we have the option of either coming home early, or going for a walk about. I would love to head over to Portse to see Dawa's tea house, but that will take a flight then a three day trek from Kathmandu just to get there, so we will see.

Stay tuned, I will try to update the blog on a more regular basis prior to leaving, and once on expedition, I will be calling in on the satellite phone.

Training for Manaslu

We are just 3 weeks from our Manaslu expedition and I wanted to share a few pictures of us training this past winter. The training that we've chosen for this expedition is different than any other training we have done. Instead of spending all my time in the stairwell, we have been outside ice climbing. Moving as quickly as we could during the approaches to the climbs, sometime carrying extra weight in a water bladder, then enjoying ourselves during the climbs.

Last week we went up Mount Abraham. Domhnall was in the lead breaking trail after a moderate snowfall. The snow got deeper and deeper and I thought about offering to break trail, but I was having so much more fun relaxing behind. Finally Domhnall turned around and suggested that I break trail. I replied - sure, if you do dishes tonight. With a smile he said we were turning around! I broke trail briefly until I gave up!