Food for haul road

[Wireman07]

For the guys that are flying from the lower 48 to hunt the haul road, do you pre ration your meals by day and fly with your food for the hunt. Or do you buy everything up there? I'm heading up next year, and will most likely hike out 5 miles. Thought it would be handy to have everything already rationed per day and vacuum sealed then if you head out 5 miles and hunt for 4 or 5 days all you gotta do is grab 4 or 5 bags. Curious as to what the rest of you do for food. Thanks fellas!

 

[jdinville3]

Following, curious to see if people fly to Alaska with it or buy once there.

 

[Htm84]

Plenty of places to buy food in Fairbanks. Even a Costco. Unless you have to eat special food I’d just buy it there. Less shit to check or have to carry on a plane. Bag fees are crazy anymore.

 

[mb6355]

Walmart, Sportsman's, Meyer's, and others all had Peak Fuel, Mountainhouse, and other meals for basically what it costs in the lower 48 plus no sales tax. Just did the trip 3 weeks ago. Buy it all there and organize it all before leaving Fairbanks. Another tip, stay at the Aurora Inn in Prudhoe Bay on Sunday night to refuel at their prime rib dinner. $150 per night all meals included.

 

[FranklinBluth]

Walmart, Sportsman's, Meyer's, and others all had Peak Fuel, Mountainhouse, and other meals for basically what it costs in the lower 48 plus no sales tax. Just did the trip 3 weeks ago. Buy it all there and organize it all before leaving Fairbanks. Another tip, stay at the Aurora Inn in Prudhoe Bay on Sunday night to refuel at their prime rib dinner. $150 per night all meals included.

Also recommend the Aurora. We came out of the field after a week of dehydrated meals and happened to stumble into Chinese buffet night. I actually came home slightly heavier than when we left for the trip and I blame the buffet 100%.

 

[LongWayAround]

I have done three trips up there and brought the majority of my food each time. I didn't find it inconvenient to have in one of my checked bags and I like knowing exactly what I have.

If you are renting a vehicle anyway, it's just one more errand when you get there and probably not a bad play.

 

[Nick Muche]

Kinda risky to rely on there being any freeze-dried for sale in Fairbanks.....in August/September. Also, if you're eating freeze-dried on a haul road hunt (minus the rifle hike), you haven't planned very well. Bring real food.

 

[YellCoAR]

If you look in the grocery store there is a lot of choices that are not the high priced package meals. You can buy Velveta cheese and shells (all you need is water), Smoked sausage, hot dogs. The single packs of tuna, chicken and BBQ. Flour tortilla shells, ramon noodles lot of choices. Just take out of package boxes and put in zip lock bags. The zip lock bags can then be used for many other things. I even made fresh blueberry pancakes while out on the tundra( of course I had make my own blueberry syrup).

 

[jdmaxwell]

Fly up with ours already packed ready to go.

 

[Wireman07]

Thanks everyone, I'm going to bring my owb food for the days I stay out overnight. Once we get to Fairbanks I will buy the rest of the food for just hunting off the road.

 

[PRSHunter]

I'll just chime in here with Three Bears being a decent option most folks will overlook if they're not familiar with the area for at least Peak and Mountain House meals. Three Bears is a grocery store chain you can find in the major AK cities.

 

[HuntPrepared]

Utilizing the online order, pick up in store options that stores offer lately is a handy timesaver and can help you make sure you don't miss anything in a rush. While there is plenty of water to filter/ purify I recommend bringing some jugs from town as a time saver. Less time filtering water = more time hunting.

 

[VernAK]

Kinda risky to rely on there being any freeze-dried for sale in Fairbanks.....in August/September. Also, if you're eating freeze-dried on a haul road hunt (minus the rifle hike), you haven't planned very well. Bring real food.

I'd sure have a couple Costco Rotisserie Chickens in the truck.

 

[thayerp81]

I'm in the same boat for planning next year. I'm going to see if I can call ahead to one of the stores and repurchase freeze dried stuff and have it waiting for us, we'll plan to pickup fresh food for the first few days.

 

[BoDarville]

Also recommend the Aurora. We came out of the field after a week of dehydrated meals and happened to stumble into Chinese buffet night. I actually came home slightly heavier than when we left for the trip and I blame the buffet 100%.

I ended up at the Auruoa for a couple of nights, once when we were waiting for better weather to fly to camp, and once the day we got back. It was a welcome hot meal and shower. The place is a bit industrial like the rest of Deadhorse (aptly named, what a depressing place) , but squeaky clean. A quick warning, the worker staying there start early, so don't plan on sleeping past 4-4:30 as the hallways get a bit noisy with the traffic.

Thanks everyone, I'm going to bring my owb food for the days I stay out overnight. Once we get to Fairbanks I will buy the rest of the food for just hunting off the road.

We had the bulk of our dehydrated stuff ship straight to the hotel and sorted through it with the rest of the gear while packing the van and RV for the drive up the road.

 

[Behlftball]

Buy up there. Fairbanks is civilization

 

[Nontyp]

A few yrs ago we went up there and the MH/Peak selection was very low mid Sept. I would think about shipping to the store.

 

[thawk8541]

Great info in this thread! We're heading up in Aug and will bring some stuff and stop at the grocery store in Fairbanks.