Baggage

One of the bigger challenges of having only sporadic communication with Jamie is that he will provide some nugget of feedback, then hit the trail for a week with no opportunity for me to fine-tune my understanding of his issue.

Such is the case for the meal pouch bag issue I have been trying to address for, honestly, weeks now! You see, prior to taking off on this particular hike, Jamie's meals were all prepared and assembled into quart-sized ZipLock freezer bags. I have to say it always struck me as less than desirable to pour boiling water into a plastic bag like that. I mean, I KNOW they're food safe, but they are called FREEZER bags for a reason. All kinds of things could go wrong:

Micro-plastics!

Chemicals leeching into food!

Turtles with straws in their noses!

So, as we were making plans and getting ready for him to head off, I suggested that he should consider using a mylar bag, reasoning that they are light weight, fit for use, and (somehow) better. I'd like to think that Jamie agreed with me on ALL my points, but if I'm being honest, I think he pretty much only heard "light weight" and it was go for launch!

Nonetheless, we set about finding the perfect bag to use, ordering several contenders to subject to our Rigorous Testing Protocols™. That is to say, we (1) weighed and measured them, (2) poured boiling water into them again and again, (3) evaluated their capacity, and (4) ease of use. We eventually decided to use these Chamigon almost quart-sized gusseted mylar bags:

SPECS

Thickness: 4.33 mil

Size: 5.5" x 7.8"

Orientation: Portrait (for lack of a better

way to characterize them!)

Weight: 8 g

Now, as I said, we DID test these before using them on Jamie's CDT hike. They performed well. And just to give you some insight into just how focused Jamie's is on managing his "3 Key Principles" of hiking, I even modified his little food warming cozy to specifically fit this new style of pouch AND remove what must have been less than 10 grams of weight and just enough volume to allow the cozy to fit into his cooking pot with the other stove components. And boy, he was happy about it!

So, off he goes into the wilderness and prepares his meals in the typical fashion: adding boiling water to the pouch, sealing it up in the cozy to rehydrate, stirring it up and digging in. But somewhere along the trail a meal comes into camp that has a little more volume than our Rigorous Testing Protocols™ had allowed for earlier.

The result: Failure - Spillage/Overflow.

This is clearly suboptimal. Obviously, I accept the challenge and set out to find (again) the perfect bag. Slightly bigger, still small enough to fit in his cozy. Strong enough, but still thin enough that unnecessary weight isn't added. Ideally, a "landscape" orientation to facilitate eating more easily AND provide a bit more volume thanks to the gusset being on the long side.

I realize that this really doesn't seem like a very big challenge. You know how it works! You practically just THINK about some weird product, type the first letter on the Amazon search bar, and it amazingly pops up! There is no end to the abundance, it seems. I admit, I thought this as well, at first! But let me tell you, the obsessively ultra-light hiker food pouch market is apparently a niche market, if you can believe it!

I had completely exhausted Amazon's offerings with no luck. I moved on to internet searches for "mylar bag manufacturers based in us" and started plowing through the (surprisingly numerous) results to find anything close to promising.

It's about here that I start to worry about being put on some government naughty list. Here's a fun fact: The real growth market for these mylar bag manufacturers is apparently cannabis dispensaries! In addition, I'm making all these survivalist food purchases and sending regular USPS packages to the land of Walter White. Pretty sure that van driving by the house is surveillance.

In a couple cases, I reached out to a company for either more details on their product or (always hoping!) to find an outdoorsy type who might be buddies with someone in a position to waive their minimum for a custom order. No luck.

And then, out of the blue I come across one that has the absolute closest I've seen so far. That's right, they carry Matte Black Child Resistant Pouch Bags that basically meet the specs!

SPECS

Thickness: 4 mil

Size: 9" x 6"

Orientation: Landscape

Weight: 12 g

I was so happy to find these that I actually rush shipped them so I could check them out before I sent the next resupply! I should point out that the per unit weight wasn't known at the time I ordered. I had to weight them myself for that! But I did know and was a little leery of the fact that they were "child-resistant" bags.

You see, one of my previous contacts was with a company that sold "PharmaLoc" bags that were the same dimensions - smaller, even! I was oh, so hopeful. But holy smokes! Look at that thing! It's like the tactical gear of mylar bags! What in the heck is that lock?!? Fingerprint recognition? I assessed that contraption was likely to add more weight than was acceptable. Also, when I asked for the specific thickness (in mil) of the bag, they didn't answer that question, nor were they apparently enough of an outdoorsy type to check with their buddy about doing Pork Rind a solid...

So rush shipment in hand, I cracked the package open take a look at the potentially "perfect" bag. It so happened that I did this when some lovely, smart,  beautiful young (though definitely not children) friends were visiting. Ah! Real-life testers! Between the 4 of us, I think it would be safe to describe these bags as not ONLY child-resistant, but maybe even adult-resistant. Certainly adults without talon-like finger nails, at least. They are VERY tough to open.

"He's going to hate these!" - Jamie, I assume

But maybe it's just a matter of getting the technique down. Who knows. I'll mention it to him when I talk to him next, whenever that might be.

As the trail timing would have it, it was the next day. So I go into this whole rundown with him, explaining all the inquiries and assessments I've made, what I've found, etc. All the effort and energy expended to try to find "the perfect bag" and what does he say?

"Oh, I think these other ones are going to be fine... I just had one problem, but I've got it worked out now!" - Jamie, literally

Oh. Well. Good. 🫤

And just in case you are a data enthusiast like Pork Rind, well, here you go: