I recently ran into a friend I hadn’t seen for a few years.  While we were catching up, he let slip that last year he had dropped out of the world to hike the Appalachian Trail…all 2178 miles of it.  Thoroughly impressed, I asked all the questions he had probably answered a million times:  Was it hard?  Were there bears?  How did you convince your wife to let you go?  But when I asked what surprised him the most, he thought for a second and then said “I ate as much as I wanted all the time, and I still lost weight.” 

Whenever he got into a town he would stuff himself silly with whatever fast food was around and then top it off with at least a gallon of ice cream—right out of the carton with a long-handled spoon he carried with him the entire trip.

Now I am not suggesting that hiking is the best way to lose weight…although if you have an extra six to eight months free it’s probably not a bad way to go…but it did drive home the idea that hiking can burn up the calories, even if you are not walking from Georgia to Maine.  In fact, there is something about being hungry in the woods that make you less worried about minimum daily recommended allowances and concentrate instead on filling, quick, satisfying, but mostly filling. 

As a result, I find that when I go out, I do spend more than a few seconds plotting, planning, and packing food, even for the day.  Rest stops, especially those organized around food, can rapidly become a highlight of the day, and you want to make sure to get it right. (Only two more miles uphill and I can stop for second breakfast).  As always, there are millions of hiking/backpack references to turn to for tips, hints, and advice to help you with things like preparation techniques and ingredient lists, but I have found for most hikes, the simpler the better.

Bagels and tortillas are great, especially with peanut butter, jelly, butter, or some combination of the above.  They pack easily, don’t spoil, and they don’t smoosh too bad. (Sandwiches with regular bread usually end up looking like pop-art coasters.)  I like food that doesn’t require anything resembling a fork or a knife.  In fact, that seems to be a common theme with the food I bring time and again: it’s very hands on and once eaten leaves very little evidence: pretzels, cashews, peanuts, or fruit like apples, oranges, and raisins.  I especially like fare that can be broken up into sections, it helps me dole out the good stuff just when I need it the most.

One thing I stay away from is the cult of ‘hiking’ or ‘outdoorsy’ food that I strongly suspect was dreamed up by marketing masterminds located in industrial-sized food preparation facilities hundreds of miles from the nearest evergreen.  For example, there seems to be varieties of energy bars in quantity and variation grossly out of proportion to the number of people I typically see on a trail at any given time.  To say nothing of their impressive cost, those things seem like cheating: hiking out to experience nature in all its splendor to then snack on the world’s most processed, pre-packaged and predictable block of food yet created by modern science.  (M&M are, of course, perfectly acceptable.)

I am the same way with energy drinks, deep purple liquids usually feel somewhat out of place in the back country.  Plus if two liters of water leaks all over your pack, it’s not so embarrassing at the trailhead.

Someone wise once said that the trail is no place to stick to your diet.  Eat some, or eat a lot.  You’re going to leave most of the calories on the trail anyway. 

You don’t even need to make reservations for some of the best places.