What mandatory items do YOU carry in your pack?

What a great thread...

Fire starter - try cut up squares from old bicyle inner tubes. Noxious but impossible to put out once they're going.

Cliff Bars are good enough for me. They don't get as tough as Powerbars do when its cold. Really there are lots of options for snacking. Dehydrated cherries and almonds are a current favorite. Taking stuff you'll eat when you feel crappy or exhausted is important, even if its not ideal performance nutrition.

Making a bunch of climbers sandwiches is a great idea - less time packing usually means more skiing or more sleep. Packing is just a dead weight loss. If anyone has novel ideas on that, let me know.

Thanks for the ideas.

Nutella on just about anything...even a rock!

Any type of trail mix.

And when its cold a thermos with broth of sorts or hot coco w/ some xtra love.

Oh yeah and Guiness(s).

Snickers? Payday bars? Swedish fish? I'm still on the lookout for the perfect energy food for cheapskates.

I read somewhere that those Gu type things are better when they mix sugars, so you can absorb the overall sugar load faster. I.e. mix sucrose and malt sugar. The article reccomended very expensive little sugar gel bombs. My solution - malted milk balls! They taste good in addition to being pretty cheap. Combine with Fig Newtons for another cheap-but-tasty non-malt sugar.

Snickers - it has more fat than almond joy and hence more calories for its weight! A Stanford study found it a better meal replacement for athletes than Power Bars.

Ah, the power of the internet.  This statement didn't make a lot of sense to me - it sounds like another urban legend.   I looked for some Stanford study confrming the claim. All I found was a casual "study" done by the Stanford student newspaper comparing Power Bar-type snacks with "sugary snacks".

daily.stanford.edu/article/2004/4/1/ener...rFoodsOrSugarySnacks

It certainly isn't a valid study as implied above. Snickers are mentioned, but the fomal "conclusion" is that energy bars are better. Can anyoone provide some references backing up the above claim?

I'm happy to learn that I am on the right track!
My basic pack from bottom to top:
First aid kit w/ space blanket and glow stick
extra gloves, hat and down vest
water bladder
avy gear
cell phone
Guinness (1 or 2 cans depending on the tour)
snickers bars, gogi berries, baged tuna fish
multi tool, duct tape zip ties and straps

Many/most of the things that have been covered above.   I also carry a small bivy sack on all but my shortest of tours… 18 oz and about the size of an immature cantaloupe.

Snow Bell: re. glow sticks.... Did you know that there's headlamps that weigh about the same as a glow stick?   For the longest time the headlamp was the one part of the Ten Essntials that I never carried on single-day tours.  But now I carry one of those super-tiny BD ones, just for the off-chance of having to do an unplanned bivy.  Some people promote carrying a full-size headlamp so that, if need be, you can use it for skiing out at twillight.  I'd rather just plan my day so that if at all possible I wont be skiing out in the dark, thank you very much.