Carry the minimum in food plus a safety stock. 

A very general statement out there is that an average pacing GDMBR rider passes through a town or two a day.  This wasn’t always the case, though.  At my pace, the longest stretch I went between towns (towns with a food source anyway) was about four days in northern NM, followed by several three day stretches.  My pre-ride plan was to carry dehydrated boil bag backpacker’s food that I would be resupplying via my bounce boxes.  I never really liked eating the freeze dried meals and ended up carrying way too many of them at the start, only eating one between the Canadian start and Whitefish.  I decided in Montana to carry only two of them as a static ‘two day safety stock’ and eat food that I could get a grocery stores otherwise.  The same two meals I left Montana with were still in my front back when I rolled into Silver City, NM.   I ate a few freeze dried meals along the way, one a tasty Pro-Pack lasagna I bought in Pinedale, Wyoming and actually ate in Colorado.  I shipped the rest of my bounce box supply home and now have a huge box of dehydrated food sitting in my closet that I will either try to sell or give to charity.

 Everything else I picked up at grocery stores along the way.   This varied from place to place.  I went into more detail in the route narratives, but it was generally prepackaged items that you boil water for, like rice, pasta, or dehydrated mashed potatoes and single serving SPAM.  For breakfast in the woodline, I usually ate three bags of instant oatmeal mixed with some trail mix and a single serving SPAM slice.  For mid-day meals on the trail, I would eat some fruit based trail mix, some sort of energy bar, jerky, and a few pre-packaged peanut butter or cheese cracker combos.  Basically, I was eating so well on the economy…I stopped caring too much about the quality of food between towns and just kept it simple, low hassle, and energy sustaining. 

Cook only when necessary; simplify cooking and cooking equipment.  

I am not someone who likes to spend time loitering in a campsite.  Part of my higher mileage strategy was to ride as far in a day as I could and another part was to avoid looking like an LL Bean catalog model.  I would settle in to a campsite just at or a little before dusk and attempted to be out of a campsite within an hour after sunrise.   Most of the time, I was pretty worked by the end of the day, putting up with the hassle of cooking simply out of necessity.  My cooking kit was simple, alcohol stove, fuel, one pot, one spork, a small sponge and a cigarette lighter. 

            Basically, all I would do in the evening was chef up some Ramen/Instant Mashed Potatoes/bag Pasta/Easy Mac and protein it up with a chunk of the single serving SPAM.  The water requirement was never more than two cups in the evening and one cup in the morning.  If I didn’t have enough water to rinse dishes, I swabbed the dishes out with toilet paper…of which I always kept in plentiful supply. 

Only gather water from reliable sources.  Carry reliable water before purifying.  Purify only if I had to. 

Availability of reliable water on the route has to do with a number of factors:

1. Pace (see McCoy Days vs. Non-McCoy Days comparison in Logistics)
2. Ability and willingness to carry good water over the risk of purifying.
3. How much water is used for cooking.
4. Analysis of the route and the terrain ahead of you.
5. Weather/seasonal conditions.

I carried four standard water bottles on the bike and a 128 oz reservoir on my back.  60% of the route I was able to travel easily just by topping off the water bottles only.  If my water supply was in question more than eight hours out, I left the source fully loaded.  If I needed to purify (I used KlearWater Active Chlorine Dioxide Water Treatment only and never had any problems,) I purified one water bottle ahead of running out.  If I reached a reliable water source with purified water in the bottles, I dumped the purified water out and loaded up on the reliable water.  I NEVER put purified water in the reservoir on my back, and I never needed to carry any more than two bottles of purified water on the route at any given time.  I always used the same two bottles as my "purified water bottles" going so far as marking those bottles as such.

As far as reliable water sources:

-I used bottled water from gas stations as a source a number of times.  If bottled water was available, I would buy it rather than use the bathroom tap.  See comments below about contaminated residental water wells.

-I never resorted to hitting up a farmhouse or vacant residence for water.  Growing up in a somewhat rural area, I appreciate folks desire for isolation and am well aware that firearms are in good supply out there!  Don't sneak up on anyone and never assume no one is home.

-There is also the risk of potentially contaminted residential water wells, I actually ran into this directly in Wyoming and central Colorado (Hartsel, hello! Sorry Christine!)  Luckily, in my case, some local samaritans warned me in time.  Just because water is coming out of a tap or well doesn't mean it is potable.  Ask, ask, ask!  More than one GDMBR tour has ended prematurely for this reason.   Here's a hint:  If you see a lot of "For Sale" signs in a particular area or what looks like nice land being offered dirt cheap...there is a good chance the wells might be contaminated or have a high alkaline content.

-As far as folks out and about on the route, I never hit up someone that didn’t stop to talk to me first.  USFS maintenance and ranger personnel were always generous.  Forest fire scout trucks were out in the northern part of the route due to the large number of fires, they wanted to know if I’d seen anything and always gave me water and food. 

-Huckleberry Hunters in Montana were a good water source as well.  Learn to identify a Huckleberry bush , remember where the bushes are if you see them, tell a Huckleberry Hunter and they will likely give you water and/or food.  Don't tell them where you saw other Huckleberry hunters though...there is some rivalry amongst the hunters that you probably don't want to be involved in. 

-Regular big game hunters are also a great source, but once again…I always waited for them to stop and talk to me first.  I'll say alcohol could be a factor in dealing with some (not all) hunters, especially in the bigger groups, and leave it at that.   

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