How to Plan a Backpacking Trip

By Matt Pritchard

Food - Continued

If cold food just isn't going to cut it for you, then your options really open up for meal planning. As mentioned above, dry foods help you keep the weight down. Fortunately, many of these same foods, such as pasta and rice, are very calorie dense as well. Most of these foods require little more than boiling water to prepare. Ease of preparation should be a key consideration when planning your menu. Your preparation tools and area are all likely to be improvised, so don't push your luck with a complicated recipe. If you want the ultimate in simplicity, dehydrated meals are hard to beat. They usually require adding a specific amount of boiling water to a bag of mix and waiting 10-12 minutes for the food to rehydrate. Most of the brands out there offer a pretty wide variety of meals and quality has improved dramatically over the last decade or two. When we go the dehydrated route, we really enjoy Mountain House meals - made by the good people at Oregon Freeze Dry in Albany, OR. Below are some suggestions for cooked meals along the trail. Since lunch is rarely cooked, refer to the list above for lunch items.

Cooked Breakfast Foods

Fixing Dinner in the High Sierra
  • Oatmeal, Malt-O-Meal, or other hot cereal
  • Couscous (flavored with cinnamon and honey
  • Dehydrated eggs

Cooked Dinner Foods

  • Pasta (add olive oil and spices to make it yummy)
  • Ramen noodles
  • Soup mixes
  • Instant mashed potatoes
  • Couscous
  • Rice
  • Beans
  • Lentils
  • Mac and cheese
  • Stove Top stuffing
  • Pasta Roni (or other packaged pasta and dried sauce mix)

Discuss food preferences with your group. Does anyone have any special food needs - vegetarians? What about food allergies or other medical considerations, such as diabetes? Be careful to account for every person in the group when planning out your food needs. Remember to account for some extra food for emergency situations. If all else fails and you are unsure if you've budgeted enough food to go around, do a simple check on the total number of calories of the food you are bringing versus the number of mouths that need to be fed each day. Your number should be 3,000 - 4,000 calories per person per day.

There are two general approaches to planning out your food needs. The simpler method is a meal-based system where you design a menu for the trip ahead of time and purchase food based on the number of mouths being fed at each meal. This system works well for shorter trips and makes it easy on the designated cook to decide on the meal.

The other system is a rationing or bulk-food system. This system is used by NOLS and has many devotees in the backpacking community. With this type of system, staple foods (flour, rice, sugar, etc.) are bought in bulk and packaged for use during the trip. There is usually no set menu ahead of time and meal preparation is based on the foods available and the recipes that can be recalled (or brought along) by the chef. The NOLS system requires some practice and skill to be used effectively and it is ideally suited for longer trips. It requires some creativity and cooking skill on the part of the chef, but it offers more variety, spontaneity, and some really good food. NOLS publishes a book called Cookery that covers the system in detail (including many recipes). It is a great system for those willing to make the commitment, but may be best suited for experienced backpackers. Another great resource is the internet. There are several websites and message boards devoted to backpacking recipes and cooking techniques. A simple Google search for "backpacking recipes" should yield excellent results

After you have planned your menu and made a trip to the store, you will need to repackage most of your food to make it easy to carry. So much of our food in the U.S. is packaged in boxes, which make it hard to pack in a backpack. Plastic bags are your friend. You can repackage awkward shaped products in ziploc-style bags to create a nice, compact shape. Remember to write the cooking directions on the bag with a permanent marker or cut off the side of the box with the directions and slip it into the bag. Some people like to put all of their individual food bags and packages into one single bag or stuff sack to keep things organized in their pack. The stuff sack can then serve double-duty as a hang bag if there are hungry critters in and around your camp.

Questions or comments about this article? Let us know.