My Trail Diet Evolution
Food options are abundant for a thru-hike, and let's face it, hikers love to eat. The hiker hunger is real. Food is essential not only for valuable nutrition and energy but also for inspiring morale. Plus, it's delicious. You have to admit - food tastes better when you're tired, hungry, and have been on the trail for days.
For some hikers, dehydrating food and assembling tasty and nutritious meals in advance can be an important ritual in the thru-hiking process. For others, food boxes can be overwhelming, and resupplying-as-you go is simply a more relaxed, convenient, or fun option. And yet other hikers just eat what they can out of hiker boxes. There are infinite ways to hike a hike - and hiking your own hike is oh so important (HYOH!). There are also endless ways to eat on a hike (EYOH?). My on-trail diet and approach to resupply has changed and evolved a great deal over the past six years.
First Attempts - PCT 2014
I started my first long-distance hike on the PCT in 2014 as a green newbie with my physicist boyfriend, who later earned the trail name, Beaker (for good reason).
We tallied foods, counted calories, amassed spreadsheets, and planned our meals in advance. We calculated how much to eat based on caloric intake, shopped for three months' worth of food, and packaged resupply boxes.
We tried everything - grits, cream of wheat, oatmeal, pop-tarts, Nutty bars, Epic bars, Cliff bars, every other bar, Snickers, nut butter, Annies Mac and Cheese, Idahoans, ramen, rice, beans, tuna, chicken, salmon, etc.
I experimented with dehydrating some of my own fruits, made my own jerky, and added dehydrated veggies to everything.
I pre-assembled a lot of meals that I thought might be interesting and tasty - fettucini alfredo, pesto salmon pasta, tuna stroganoff, Thanksgiving dinner, rice with beans and cheese, quinoa and beans, and more.
The focus was mainly on prioritizing taste, lightweight, high caloric density, variety, low cost, high protein, and often real ingredients over preservative-laden prepackaged foods.
It only took one day on the PCT to realize the error of our ways and throw our plan out the window.
We didn't need so many calories to start off and not that volume of food. Our first night on the trail, we both had to dig midnight catholes because our bodies rejected the quantities of ramen we'd tried to pack into our bellies. We later learned that dried quinoa takes forever to cook and does not digest well.
Too much sugary food can be gross, so opt for savory; there is such a thing as too many Nutty bars. Also, lots of dehydrated bananas were gross - more variety is imperative.
The best approach is to keep it simple.
Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Besides, preparing all food in advance leaves no room for whims or on-trail cravings. We ended up donating a lot of the food we'd prepped to hiker boxes. Even with these unanticipated issues, there were a lot of positives from our approach. We never went hungry, we had fewer in-town chores, and some of the food was great! I began to discover what foods I craved on-trail.
A Simplified Approach - Long Trail 2015
On the Vermont Long Trail in 2015, I relaxed a bit and didn't over-plan quite as much. I still favored prepping meals in advance, as sending ahead resupply boxes enabled me to maintain tasty variety and solid nutrition. I learned which meals I loved and ate more of that. For example, simple oats with dried fruit and nut butter taste good and provide sustained energy.
Cabot Seriously Sharp cheddar with crackers is fantastic and the perfect ode to the Green Mountain State. Vermont maple syrup is terrific and would fuel me to the nearest shelter to beat an afternoon thunderstorm. Thanksgiving dinner, mac & cheese, and Idahoans are reliable and delicious dinner choices, cooked best while sipping warm hot chocolate in a chilly New England drizzle.
My Long Trail strategy worked better, but I still had some fine-tuning to do. I discovered that baby food packets provide nutrients but taste strange, have a weird texture, and are heavy.
Snyders of Hanover Buffalo pretzel pieces are amazing, but an entire large bag makes me move like a sloth up a mountain. Nido milk powder may pack the calories, but coconut milk powder delivers the flavor. Plus, I was still erring on the too-much-food side - after all, you carry your fears and sometimes send your concerns ahead in well-packaged resupply boxes.
My hiking companion, Andrea, even busted me for packing way too much food. I was still over-prepping. I could benefit from taking it down a notch. While my Long Trail diet wasn't quite perfect, my food approach was improving. I'd eliminated a lot of the empty sugar calories that I had consumed on the PCT.
Mixing it up - Arizona Trail 2018
In 2018 when I hiked the Arizona Trail, I sought out more variety, and this time sent ahead resupply boxes, but I also bought more food for resupplies in towns. After experiencing both longer and shorter backpacking trips, I was honing in on the best combination of flavor, energy, and variety.
I sent ahead some prepared meals - like my own "bare burrito" (dehydrated beans, rice, corn, cheese, onions, garlic, jalapenos, red bell pepper, kale, and spices), my fine-tuned breakfast oatmeal, and savory breakfast oats. I sent ahead more dehydrated fruits and veggies to supplement what I could pick up in towns.
I ate more organic foods like Patagonia Provisions and Kate’s Real Food bars, Wild Zora snacks, and Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee. I brought plenty of electrolyte mixes for the arid climate like Skratch, Nuun, and Tailwinds.
I must say my food was delicious and nutritious. I found myself eating a lot of lunch burritos filled with cheese, tuna, or salmon with olives or hot sauce, also ramen with dried seaweed.
The resupply combination approach enabled me to supplement with food in towns when I craved variety or needed more trail mix or energy bars once the hiker hunger kicked in.
Yet, I still felt that I could relinquish even more planning control. I envied the hikers that had not prepared food at all but still had successful thru-hikes.
Winging it - Appalachian Trail 2019
When I hiked 500 miles through New York and New England on the Appalachian Trail in 2019, I threw planning to the wind. Forget resupply boxes - I wanted to try the eat-as-I-go approach as an experiment in going-with-the-flow. I wanted food freedom and whimsy. After all, trail towns dominate the AT, and food opportunities are abundant along the way. I didn't plan any meals and just ate what I could get in towns. This minimized my pre-trail prep time, which was great. I ate a lot of Knorr rice sides with tuna or chicken, ramen, prepackaged oatmeal and granola, energy bars, trail mix, cheese, and crackers.
It was easy, but I discovered that the nutrition content and flavor of my meals was frequently lacking. In stores, there was usually a greater variety of junk food but fewer healthy options.
I had over-corrected my previous mistakes! I missed my favorite oatmeal mix - chock full of goodies like dried coconut, cardamom, and freeze-dried berries.
I wanted my flavorful curry couscous with nuts and raisins or my spicy bare burrito.
I wished for my Nong Shim brand ramen and seaweed instead of the boring ol' Top Ramen.
And where were all those tasty dehydrated organic veggies and interesting spices?
It was exactly what I expected.
I wasn't excited about my food as much and found I rarely looked forward to my meals, but I survived just fine.
It was bad, but not all bad. I did glean a few new habits on the AT that worked well and I'll continue on future hikes. I was starting to appreciate a simple trail mix. My new coffee approach favored a small jar of instant Medaglia d'Oro Espresso dumped in a quart-sized zip-lock in place of individual coffee packets. I also realized I didn't need to mail essentials (like crackers, peanut M&Ms, or trail mix) ahead when I can easily buy them in town - and often for less than Seattle prices, all while supporting local trail town economies! It was nice to be able to instantly satisfy trail-food cravings without having too much food or having to donate excess food to a hiker box.
Looking ahead - What I've Learned
My on-trail diet and approach to resupply have fluctuated with each of my hikes.
I now know not to calorie count or overeat - no more over-planning or over-prepping.
I'll pass on the baby-food packets, the Nido, and the Top Ramen. I'm honing in on the best balance of what to eat and how to get it. I've savored so much tasty trail food. Mistakes have been made, but luckily most of them have been edible. On my next thru-hike, I will do a bit more advanced planning than I did on my AT hike if possible but won't sweat it if I can't. I'm excited about my next adventure - I know I'll pack a few of my favorite things in my food bag, like my fine-tuned breakfast oats mixture, granola, instant coffee, powdered coconut milk, a variety of bars, chocolatey trail mix, tortillas, cheese, flavored tuna packets, "bare burrito", ramen with seaweed and veggies, hot chocolate mix, Nuun, and probably a Snickers or two. The perfect blend of healthy, nutritious, fun, and fabulous.