I had a friend who brewed up some of that cowboy coffee, along with some Chili Mac, up there at Post Corral Mdws, prior to going up into the LeConte Range. I had
a sip of one and half a spoon of the other. The rest quietly got dumped behind a tree, and I went literally crawling off the other direction picking wild strawberries.
Ever after, I kidded him about a dead bloated bear that had tried eating some leftovers behind that tree.
I know from the pictures that I drank my coffee out of a sierra cup at Post Corral Creek, but couldn't cross it (Fall 1982).
I also know the food was better... we carried in a courier box of food that didn't fit our packs... I think the box weighed 15 pounds... Not much trouble to carry a cardboard box for a few minutes... but in a couple hours we were looking for creative options with sticks on shoulders.
Do bears like coffee? Maybe that bear didn't die, it just galloped around in circles.
Seriously, "cowboy coffee" can be made to sound upscale if you call it "Turkish coffee" (or "Bosnian coffee" in St. Louis). It is good IF you have a sticky honey-filled baklava pastry that you need to counteract.
I like fresh-ground coffee, but decided that loose tea is simpler for the trail, and since the leaves are just more wet dead leaves, I send them to join their oak and pawpaw brethren quietly rotting on the forest floor. I like fruit-flavored teas, but those just seem too much like bear raspberry perfume, so I stick to the classic oolong, lapsang souchong, or green.
My nephew would never go on a big wall climb without a little hand-cranked coffee bean grinder and a matching little filter-brew kit. Have no idea where he bought it. One of his ten essentials.
To remain light, I may cut out decent food when backpacking, decent sleeping pad, a decent tent, decent lighting....but I never cut back on a way to make a decent cup of coffee!
Garrett
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hi nancyOriginally Posted by NancyP
Do bears like coffee? Maybe that bear didn't die, it just galloped around in circles.
Seriously, "cowboy coffee" can be made to sound upscale if you call it "Turkish coffee" (or "Bosnian coffee" in St. Louis). It is good IF you have a sticky honey-filled baklava pastry that you need to counteract.
I like fresh-ground coffee, but decided that loose tea is simpler for the trail, and since the leaves are just more wet dead leaves, I send them to join their oak and pawpaw brethren quietly rotting on the forest floor. I like fruit-flavored teas, but those just seem too much like bear raspberry perfume, so I stick to the classic oolong, lapsang souchong, or green.
the differnce between ottoman coffee and cowboy coffee is the size of the grounds and care
given to make it. ottoman coffee ( bosnian, armenian, greek, palestinian, turkish ) requires the coffee to be ground as fine as flour
( # 1 on a burr grinder ) .. you heat the grinds .. 1 tsp / demi tasse cup then add water and sometimes equal amounts sugar
or a cardamum seed to extrace the bitterness ... you let the foam rise 3 times .. never boil ...
then pour it out into the cups ... when the drinker is done ... flip the cup, turn it 3 revolutions
then a thumbprint after the wait ( some say the most important part ! )
then the fortune is read ...
cowboy coffee ... well its course ground, boiled / heated in the campfire and consumed without fanfare
i would hate to have to do the bear's fortune, unless it was yogi bear and boo-boo
" you will travel far and run into a pick a nick basket and an arm and a hand that is not a hand from
a pie on a window sill, i see a man wearing a tie, angry,
but you are smarter than the average bear and get away"
no fortunes with cowboy coffee, maybe the bottle passed around and stories ?
When I was packing stock, I'd keep my sleeping bag by the fire close enough to ease in a branch in every so often to keep the fire going through the night. A blue Mexican coffee boiler and about 1/3 pound of Yuban or Chock Ful O Nuts or Hills Bros added to water straight from a lake or stream was kept close at hand. It the cold, about a half hour before crawling out of the sack I'd reach across and put it on the coals to boil, then pour mug.
Ay carumba! Talk about a caffeine rush! I'd jump out of the sack, feed and water the critters, strike camp, get those panniers and top packs lashed down and the whole enchilada moving down the trail at warp speed all before pouring a second cup!
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
From the taste of it, I always figured that the secret ingredient to cowboy coffee was something the horses left behind.
Just a quick trip report ... awesome, amazing walk. I almost didn't go at all because of lousy forecast (the National Weather Service described a complex pattern which included the word "monsoon," and the peaks were socked in. But it was my last day in the mountains. I just drove to the trail head to take a look. And then I decided to hike to Static Peak Divide to take a closer look ... and kept going.
Some tiny format pics are here.
My route estimate was way off ... ended up being a 28 mile loop, which I think is the most I've chewed off in a day. Took 9 hours, 14 minutes.
I used everything listed above except the headlamp and the sandwich (forgot the latter in the fridge!). Luckily those gels are like filling up on gasoline.
The GPS on the phone was helpful in the Alaska Basin, where the trails were covered by snow. One of the trail junctions was completely covered, and the gizmo probably saved some time in finding the turn. To the phone's discredit, it's really hard to use in the rain. I started getting dumped on in the last ten miles, and had a maddening time answering my girlfriend's texts (I took an hour longer than anticipated due the extra 4 miles ... she wanted to know I hadn't been eaten by something).
Back in Brooklyn now, feeling a bit sore.
Edited to add:
Now in 3D on Google Earth! (right-click to download klm file. I love these toys ...)
Welcome back, and thanks for the abbreviated 28-mile day hike report – it's fun and instructive to see a pre-trip "Essentials" list like yours, then a post-trip evaluation about its wisdom and/or shortcomings.
If you made the same hike again – same conditions – would your list remain the same?
If I'm reading your posts correctly, you elected to leave behind #3 (or perhaps enough of it), #5, #6, #10 from the Mountaineers "Ten Essental Systems" list. Of course, there's nothing wrong w/ a well-planned trip calling for essentials that differ from a generalized list, esp. if they're designed to match a specific terrain – but I'm sure I’m not the only one curious whether your hike has inspired any modifications for "next time." (I'm mostly curious whether you carried a magnetic compass and paper maps in addition to your iphone and map software.)
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