Kitchen M’s Half Dome Energy Bars

While thousands of dietitians headed to sunny San Diego for the annual conference over the weekend, I was headed to the harsher sunny weather of the wilderness – in Yosemite National Park. Why? Well, the story goes back to a few months ago…

It was a typical Wednesday night in June. After I came home and had a dinner, I turned on the TV and was watching the local news. They were covering a piece on fraud where jerks were buying out Yosemite’s Half Dome permits and re-selling them on Craigslist and eBay at absurd prices. They normally cost $1.50 per person. Forget absurd. The permits are transferable, but certainly not (legally) re-sellable. I’d never even considered getting top of that monstrosity that dominates the Valley floor. I’ve gone up the Upper Yosemite Fall trail twice and once to Vernal Fall. It’s enough for me. I’ve even been hauled to higher elevations than Half Dome in the Sierra Nevada. But that was still leisurely over the course of a few days. While they were showing short clips of people delicately negotiating the steel cables on Half Dome, it seemed rather easy and I happen to blurt out “I can do that.” A HUGE MISTAKE!

The next second, my husband’s eyes got wide. “Really!?” he said. “We are going. I’m gonna get us permits.” I took a deep breath and forced a smile.

Next morning at 6 am when I was getting ready to go to work, he was already up in front of his computer. It was too early in the morning for me to even think what he was doing. But by the time I left the house, apparently he had already acquired the permits.

I was seriously out of shape back then. Running just one mile took my breath. So he setup a training program to follow. We were running longer and longer and harder. Some weeks I failed. Some weeks I made progress. We trained for almost exactly two months before the actual hike. When I tweeted “(The difference between) Running to running uphill is like jalapeno to habanero (in my lungs),” was right after we finished training for the last week.

We arrived in Yosemite Valley at the end of Thursday. We started hiking two minutes before midnight. It was pitch dark, a good kind of dark where the moon and stars stood out in the night sky. Needless to say, I was impressed by human eye ISO control. But even then, we couldn’t have gone anywhere without those goofy, dorky looking headlamps on our foreheads. The headlamps were tremendous help, but they also show you creepy things that you may not normally want to see come out at night. I spotted a few wolf spiders, scorpions, and fresh evidence of a bear scraping on bark. That freaked me out. I was not scared of going up on the cables, but the thought of being eaten by a bear gave me shivers.

We didn’t see anyone. I guess it’s abnormal to hike the middle of the night. About one third of our way up, we saw two moving points of light coming towards us. It was around 2 am. An old man with a pole and his assistant (?) carrying everything were coming down. That relieved my fear of encountering a bear for about an hour. By the way, if you didn’t know, they had a record breaking number of deaths in Yosemite this year and apparently someone had just died from Half Dome a couple of days before we left, too. It was an actual climbing accident from the other side, so it didn’t make the headline news. Still I tried not to think about it, but it kept creeping back to mind while heading up. We didn’t take many breaks, partly because I was scared of stopping and just wanted to get out of the darkness as soon as possible.

After we made it to two thirds of our way up, a big group of (maybe 10-15) young hikers passed us. They were like soldiers: intensely focused, all in one single line, almost perfectly spaced between each other, marching their way up in perfect pace without a single word. I figured if we stayed closer to them, our chance of getting eaten by a bear would be significantly reduced. So we followed them.

But they were fast, and we were lugging all my camera gear, tripod, three pound body, and all my prime lenses. By the time we could see a huge dark shadow of a mountain against the sky, I saw their headlamps moving zigzag on the sub dome and soon they reappeared on the far side, on the cables. Actually this was the moment that I’ll never forget. It was so beautiful that I had to stop and watch until each and every one was over the top. I took a few pictures there, too.

We made it to the bottom of the cable just in time for the sunrise. Blues, purples, oranges, spilled over Half Dome and the Valley. We waited for the sun to be completely up to start climbing the cables.

The cables. It was not as easy as I had imagined. I literally had to pull myself up for the entire 400 ft. As you might have guessed, I had not been working on my upper body, especially my arms and hand grips. My arms tired very quickly and my palm started to cramp around midway. Thank goodness we had gloves. I could've easily slipped off the cold bare steel if I didn’t have them. The view of the Valley from the top of Half Dome was interesting. It seemed strange to see El Capitan from a higher perspective and seeing only the shadow of Half Dome, which supposedly I was now on.

As soon as my brain registered that I had actually made it to the top, my stomach started to growl. It was time for breakfast. As far as food and liquid, all we carried during the entire trip were six energy bars and two liters of water. At this point, we only had four bars and one liter of water left. It may not sound that bad, but it was actually awful.

We pretty much expended all our energy going up. We needed much more food and water going down during the hot day. My stomach digested the energy bar like a piece of candy. I was already hungry in less than an hour. We tried saving the last piece of bar as long as possible but it didn’t make it even one third of our way back. And they were the same flavors (chocolate or peanut butter), which pretty much tasted the same anyhow. Of course, at that point, I couldn’t ask for too much, but I was secretly craving Onigiri.

Onigiri is probably the most popular traditional Japanese trail snack/food. If you’ve ever hiked with a Japanese person who grew up in Japan, you know what I’m talking about. It’s just steamed rice (typically seasoned with salty flavorings, like shiso, furikake, or other flavoring ingredients stuffed in the middle), pressed into a triangular shape and wrapped in nori. It’s so simple and requires no skill because if you can’t make it into triangle, round, or whatever shape you decide to form, it’s still acceptable. The nori on the outside not only gives additional flavor and texture, but also prevents your fingers sticking to the rice.

The problem with onigiri however is the weight. It can be quite heavy as you can imagine. Cooked rice is mostly liquid. You will be carrying densely packed steamed rice. I would probably collapse if I had to carry six onigiri on this trip. If you think I’m kidding, try putting four to five cups of steamed rice in a bag, put it in your backpack and walk around San Francisco all day. So, I came up this idea of combining Western energy bars and Japanese onigiri to make salty, savory Japanese energy bars. I only wish I had thought about it before the actual trip, but maybe it was meant to be.

Yes, there is a reason why energy bars are typically sweet, because the sweetness, which is usually some type of syrup, sugar, marshmallow, or honey, gives an extra boost of energy. But if you really need that much carb, I’d suggest taking a sugar gel. I think some people might appreciate having a variety of flavors other than chocolate or peanut butter.

It’s actually very easy to make and I made it quite healthful. It’s also gluten-free and dairy-free. I chose unsweetened brown rice cereal which is very light and similar to Japanese arare (rice crackers) taste. You can change the nuts and fruit to whatever you prefer, but I’d try to stay in the flavors that work well with Japanese seasonings. I tried using Goji berries but I’m probably going to use umeboshi (pickled plum) next time. I think pistachio adds a pretty green color as well and it has a unique flavor, but I’m sure other nuts such as cashews or pine nuts will work equally well.

Making homemade energy bars makes any hiking trip even more fun for you and your company. These bars are not sticky and they are wrapped in nori, so you can keep them all in one Ziploc bag. That way, you don’t need to carry a trash bag either. I’d love to hear what everyone thinks about these bars. While I continue to perfect the recipe, if you ever make one or come up with better idea, let me know how they work out for you! I'll post more photos from this trip, so keep an eye on my photo blog.

Recipe of the Day - Kitchen M's Half Dome Energy Bars

Ingredients (makes about 14 bars):

3 c. brown rice cereals, unsweetened
¼ c. pistachio, roasted, unsalted, chopped
½ c. almonds, roasted, unsalted, chopped
¼ c. Goji berries, dried
2 large egg whites
2 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp tamari (or soy sauce if you are not concerned about gluten)
1 Tbsp mirin
1 Tbsp cooking oil (non-flavored: i.e. canola oil)
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
6 sheets nori

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a 12-7/8'' x 17-3/4'' baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix brown rice cereals, both nuts and Goji berries in a large bowl. In another large bowl, whisk egg whites until formy. Add honey to the egg white and continue to whisk. Add tamari, mirin and oil and mix very well. Add sesame seeds to the mixture and mix well. Add cereals, nuts and Goji berries and mix well with a spoon.

Pour the mixture onto the lined baking sheet. Using a spoon or spatula, evenly spread the mixture and pack it to avoid any empty spot. If it’s too loose, try to compress them by pressing the top and pushing sides.

Bake it for 12-15 minutes or until the cereal mixture is dried and golden brown on the top. Let it cool at room temperature. Once cooled completely, cut them into bars and wrap them tightly with nori. Use a little bit of water to seal the nori.

To store, keep them in an airtight container or bag.