Caffeinated climbing

Some of us just have to have that chemical jolt in the morning, but what to do on summit day when the team is ready to leave and there’s no time to brew a cup of coffee?  Caffeine withdrawal headaches are no fun anywhere, especially in the mountains.  Here’s a few ideas.

1) If you have an espresso maker at home, try this: make a few shots at home, let it cool, then transfer to a small plastic container with a solid lid.  In camp, all you need to do is boil water, pour in the ‘spro, and you have coffee to go in a few minutes, without fiddling with grounds, filters, and presses.  If you lack a home brew espresso maker, just stop on the way to your climb and get a few shots to go.

2) Bring along a few tablets of No-Doz, Vivarin or other caffeine tablets.  These tablets typically have 200 mg. of caffeine, as much as a decent cup of coffee.  This might keep your headache away and give you a little giddyup as well.  (Note that caffeine has a few side effects that make it not a good choice when climbing, among them making you urinate more.  Use sparingly at altitude.)  Another possibility:  Bring some instant iced tea mix and mix it with your water.
Thanks to Mazamas Bill McLoughlin and Joe Whittington for contributing this Tip

3) If you do have more time in camp, fire up a pot of “cowboy coffee”.  Leave the fuu-fuu camping espresso maker at the store - to make real camp coffee all you need is good ground beans and a pot.  First, boil some water - a tall and thin pot is best. Once the water reaches boiling, stir in the desired amount of coffee grounds (coarse grind is best), remove from heat and cover. Let the grounds sit for two to four minutes. Remove the cover and pour a small amount of cold water over the surface of the hot coffee. Immediately give the container a solid whack or two on the side with a spoon. The cold water wants to travel to the bottom of the pot and as it descends, it will take most of the grounds with it.  Take care not to agitate the pot too much as you may re-suspend the coffee grounds.

4) If you can handle instant coffee, some Asian grocery stores sell tiny packets of premixed creamer, sugar and instant coffee.  This is a very fast and convenient solution, if not the tastiest.

5) For early morning trailhead departures, canned coffee is a good alternative.  Check Trader Joe’s for some well priced triple espresso lattes, yummy!