Sustenance in the Backcountry

Hike Your Own Hike

Pacific Crest Trail motto

The one consistent feature among thru-hikers is the diversity of gear and food. Katie and I embarked on a vegan diet for the month of August as we hiked the PCT through Washington state. With pack weight in mind we tried to maximize nutrition and calories per ounce of food. The second priority was variety. You can't anticipate how terrible or amazing something will be after you've eaten it for days on end. We found that vegan food on the trail absolutely met our needs to keep us fueled for 20+ mile days.

Here's a taste of what a typical night looked like on the trail. 

Alpine Vegan Kitchen: Episode 1

Let's dive into the details.

Here is one typical day of food: Breakfast (granola bag), three packaged bars, one bag of trail mix, and a dinner (shared between the two of us). It doesn't look like much, but this combo was enough to keep two 5' 3" (ish) ladies sustained for much of the trail!

The Breakdown

Breakfast:

We made a massive amount of homemade granola (oatmeal, raisins, ground flaxseed, brown sugar, cinnamon, etc. baked), then made some dehydrated fruit variations with blueberries + bananas and strawberries + mangoes.
Although delicious in small quantities, it was difficult to eat an entire dry bag of this in one sitting.

Breakfast favorite. Chocolate covered coffee beans with almond butter and trail mix variations! Tortillas are on the heavy end so we would try to nom those down early on.

Snacks:

Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. The best granola bar value I've ever experienced. Thank you for existing.

Winco provides an expansive bulk selection for trail mixes at a low low price.

After a couple of weeks on the trail we got a little sick of sweet snacks and definitely preferred the savory options. We also overestimated our enthusiasm for wasabi peas on the trail.

Dinner:

For the most substantial meal of the day it was important for us to pack that nutritional calorie loaded punch into every bite. Another priority was to prepare meals that would be "instant:" just add boiling water! Two of the major winners on the trail were: instant quinoa and nutritional yeast! Both of which have an awesome amount of protein.

Much of our dinner bulk came from the bulk section at Winco: instant mashed potatoes, instant hasbrowns (think texture variety), split pea soup, black bean soup

The rest was prepared with dehydrators - sourcing from vegetable gardens and pre-packaged/canned foods: Kale, chives, canned tomatoes, canned black beans & chickpeas, salsa, etc. (add creativity and methodical raiding of your parent's pantry)

Instant Quinoa! First cook as normal, allow to cool, then dehydrate!
SUCH EXCELLENCE IN BACKPACKING FOOD!

Dehydrated kale from garden

Dehydrated chives

A bag of prepared, thawed veggies from a huge bag at Cash and Carry

Black beans from a can

 Next, create your combinations! We switched it up as much as possible and filled a sandwich size ziplock bag to share for two people. It was always enough to satisfy the hunger.

Most of our meals for the month of August with combinations of the above ingredients.

Salsa - black beans - hashbrown - quinoa!
(Dehydrated avocado proved to be disappointing)

Chick peas - Nutritional yeast - mashed potatoes - split pea soup