Food
AMS is known for providing our participants with delicious food!
Unlike the weather, food is one of the things we can control in the backcountry. At AMS we often joke that “we eat our way up the mountain.” That’s because after the fourth day of a multi-day expedition, anticipating a tasty meal can be a strong motivator to get you to the next camp. We are very aware that freeze-dried meals lose their appeal after a couple days, so we drastically limit our use of them. Instead, AMS opts for providing freshly made pizza, burritos, hash browns with bacon and cheese, Mediterranean pasta, and couscous with olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Our menus reflect years of fine-tuning quantities, ingredients, and seasonings. Our food-packing operation is a sight to behold; guides put meals together and lay them out for accuracy in our large designated space. We schedule regular deliveries to maintain our food supplies, and our wall of commercial refrigeration preserves freshness. These details, and many more, combine to make AMS’s answer to eating right the most comprehensive and successful of any mountain guide company.
At AMS, we believe the best approach to satisfaction is in giving you a choice of what you want to eat. When you contact us with your dietary needs, we accommodate those needs. Your guides pack and freeze all the breakfasts and dinners a couple of days prior to your expedition and include any special requests. (See Note, below) Field rations stay frozen until we are ready to load the plane for the flight to the glacier. In this way, perishables such as cheese and bread stay fresh even if unflyable weather causes delays.
What you eat for lunch is especially important, because feeding your body a steady stream of calories requires that you snack throughout the day. Our solution is in letting you choose what drinks, trail, and lunch foods to pack. After your equipment check, we take you to our food room, where we store over 100 different items to choose from. We calculate how many pounds of lunch foods you will need per day, and you start filling our hanging scales with items you like. If you prefer hot Tang to hot chocolate, you can choose that. If the entire group does not drink hot chocolate, then there won’t be any. This method has proven to be both wildly successful and the best way to insure individual satisfaction. AMS is the only guide company that offers personalized lunches because of our top-notch food room and storage capability.
Note: Please contact AMS if you have any dietary restrictions, peculiarities, or allergies. Our meals can be prepared to easily accommodate anyone with specific dietary needs, but we must be aware of this in advance in order to prepare appropriately.
Food was awesome, awesome, awesome!
—Kotova Olge
The food room is a sight to behold and a great resource for all participants. Well fed climbers are happy climbers…
— Amy Peterson
AMS has very competent guides…we were very organized and the food is equivalent to a 5-star restaurant.
—Naria Musallam
On Denali, Foraker, and other big-mountain expeditions, what we eat on any given day depends on 1) where we are on the mountain, 2) what our climbing strategy is, and 3) how far we are into the expedition. Lower on the mountain, we pull sleds and carry bulkier foods. After the first week, we are careful to pack less perishable foods. Often, people have a decreased appetite at higher elevations, so the food is compact, palatable, and easy to digest. Rations must adjust with the ebb and flow of the expedition, so when we have to get out of camp quickly we have food that is quick to prepare. When we have a rest or storm day, we take the time to prepare more complex meals.
Breakfast
Typical breakfast foods: hash browns with melted cheese and precooked bacon, pancakes and maple syrup, almond granola, and bagels or English muffins with cream cheese and strawberry jam. We usually save the hot porridge meals for summit day.
Dinner
Dinners start with a with hot soup, which aids in hydration and helps everyone acclimate well to higher elevations. Main courses include: rice and bean burritos, chicken and rice, rice noodles with peanut sauce, pasta with red sauce, hamburgers, veggie and chicken stir fry, and yes, even pizza! Vegetarians are easily accommodated. Every other day we include a dessert.
Lunch & Drinks
AMS’s lunch and drink strategy highlights how serious we are about precise rationing. In an effort to bring exact quantities, all expedition members pack their own lunch food, as well as hot and cold drinks for the entire expedition. We utilize an exact packing method and carefully guide you through this process in our food room.
AMS has been packing lunches this way for many years; it’s a strategy that works to reduce waste and ensure your satisfaction.
AMS is an amazing and very well-organized organization. Best thing: they also take care about the diet for the mountains. Would love to have a trip to Denali again next year.
—Saachi Soni
During your AMS course you will learn to cook and prepare all your own meals. AMS provides all of the hearty and nutritious foods for your course. (Don’t be surprised if you don’t lose any weight on the course!) Preparing food and water is a key component to winter camping, and students will learn to make tasty meals. Course rations are packed bulk-style, and each tent group cooks for itself from AMS ration bags issued on the first day on the glacier. Each cook group is supplied with a camp cookbook, and your instructors offer cooking tips. Instructors and students cook several meals together, then student groups prepare meals for themselves.
Proper hydration is encouraged from the time you arrive in Talkeetna until the time you return home. AMS goes by the adage: “hydrate or die.” Mountaineering courses will be on snow for the duration of the course, and all drinking water must be melted from snow. Wilderness courses get water from clear lakes or running streams and treat it with iodine tablets and a filter.
Choosing AMS proved to be the right decision. Guide experience, meal prep, itinerary all contributed to our team’s ability to achieve a summit in a year when most teams did not.
–Brad Skorepa
