A Mountains to Sea Trail Update

It seemed like spring would never arrive a few short weeks ago, but now we're midway through February!  I've been feeling like I'm doing a good job at my New Years' goal of unplugging more, but at the same time I always like to update my readers as to what is going on and what our progress is on thru hike prep.  Major progress is being made and I'm super excited to share it with you guys!

Menus are finalized!

While for long hikes I'm a big fan of resupplying on the fly, for shorter hikes (1000 miles or less) I prefer to make our own meals.  It's a lot easier on a trail like the AT to resupply in towns or at gas stations, even for those with special dietary needs.  However, when you're on a smaller trail like the Benton MacKaye or the Finger Lakes Trail, doing your own resupply boxes ahead of time is pretty clutch to making your hike work better for you.  Since we're only doing about 45 days on this trek, I decided to go ahead and plan a menu and resupplies.  Here's a small sampling of what we'll be bringing!
 

Breakfast: Fig Newtons, Poptarts, and homemade granola with coconut milk for NoKey; breakfast rice, couscous, oatmeal, and homemade granola with coconut milk for Sprinkles. 
Lunches: Shelf stable bacon with mustard on bagel thins, pepperoni sandwiches, dry hummus and crackers or fresh veggies if we can find them. Homemade granola will work for a sweet lunch as well. 
Dinner: Staples like trail mac 'n' cheese and my favorite Thai Style Ramen always make an appearance, but this time I'm going to make some new dinners like Prosciutto with Peas and unstuffed peppers.  I'm even attempting a chicken piccata recipe!
Snacks: We are going with Lenny and Larry's cookies and RX bars on this trip, with an assorted mix of candy bars in there to keep it interesting!

Drop box locations are still TBD

I honestly just haven't done the research on where I want to send boxes yet.  I've got a pretty good idea of where we'd LIKE to send them, but I still need to narrow that down.  One thing we definitely know is that we'd like to stay at The Pisgah Inn if at all possible and will probably resupply there if we can!  We had lunch here for the first time last year on our 5th Anniversary and fell in love with the place.  It doesn't hurt that it's smack dab on the MST near Asheville. 

Mixing it up a little

The Mountains to Sea trail is so much fun to me because it's not a strict thru hike if you don't want it to be.  In fact, there's a paddling route you can do by kayak and you can bike the road sections (and beach!)  I'm having a lot of fun planning our canoe trip portion and trying to figure out where we can drop our bikes for the last section of trail.  

Planning a thru hike, since I've done it a few times now, is actually a lot of fun for me.  When I first set out onto the AT it was so incredibly overwhelming to plan even my resupply stop at the store, but now that I'm better at estimating my mileage and my appetite I find it almost exciting!  Being able to plan out a trip and know your needs is a great feeling.  

Have you ever planned a distance hike? Did you have to make any changes on the fly? What was your favorite and least favorite part of planning?

Soul Food - A Trail Recipe

While some hikers love easy, no cook dinner options I happen to be one of those hikers who just loves a hot meal, no matter how hot it is outside! To me, a hot meal can really end my day on a good note.  Was it hot and nasty today? A good meal makes me feel better.  Cold and drizzly?  A hot meal warms me up and sends me to bed happy.  Now, imagine you’re having a tough day out on the trail and you open your food bag to see that you left yourself your absolute favorite dinner for tonight.  This moment can not only change your day, it can sometimes change your entire outlook!  One of those trip altering meals I had on the Benton MacKaye Trail was this one - Soul Food.  I adapted it from the book Lipsmackin’ Vegetarian Backpackin’ and it was definitely one we think about even off trail!  If you wanted to take this meal to the next level and you aren't vegetarian, you could even add in chunks of summer sausage!

Soul Food - 1 serving

1/2 heaping cup brown rice, dehydrated and cooked in veggie stock
1/3 cup of precooked and dried black-eyed peas
2 tbsp onion soup mix (here’s the recipe I use, but you can use store bought Lipton brand)
1 tsp onion flake (in addition to your soup mix!)
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp parsley flake
1/2 tsp cajun/creole seasoning
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp bacon bits/TVP
1 pack Cholula hot sauce
Optional: Slices of summer sausage

At home: Add all ingredients to a zip top bag and seal.  Shake to combine evenly.  Add one pack of Cholula hot sauce to the bag before packing.  

On trail: Pour contents of the bag into your cook pot, minus the hot sauce, and cover with water, leaving approximately 1/2 to 1 inch of water extending over your ingredients.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Take off the heat, add sausage if you'd like, and let meal sit for 5-10 minutes.  Check the texture of the beans for doneness before adding hot sauce and digging in. 

Sweet Breakfast Rice - Trail Recipe

Breakfast recipes on the trail can be hit or miss for some people.  While some hikers prefer to walk and eat, others prefer waking up with a full breakfast to keep them going in the morning.  Before I became a distance hiker I wasn't much of a breakfast eater.  After I got into my trail routine, however, I quickly realized that if I wanted to have any kind of energy before noon I needed to eat a few times in the morning.  In 2015, when we were setting out to do our thru hikes around the east coast, it was very clear that I'd need to make breakfasts for myself as NoKey definitely falls into the "walk and eat" category of backpackers.  I found myself focusing on flavors I loved and that's where this recipe came from.  

Back in the day, well, back in 2008 when I first started backpacking, there was a brand of commercial foods called Enertia.  They had an amazing breakfast I loved called Cherokee Rice Pudding and it was a sweet breakfast you could eat hot or cold.  I knew when I was setting out to create breakfasts for myself that Cherokee Rice Pudding would need to be recreated.  Sadly, Enertia was bought by Coleman several years ago and the food brand was phased out.  Since I couldn't find the ingredients online I recreated my own special version of Sweet Breakfast Rice. 

Sweet Breakfast Rice (2 servings)

1/2 home dehydrated basmati rice, cooked in vanilla almond milk before drying
1/4 cup dried tropical fruit of your choice (I love to mix it up!)
2 tbsp slivered almonds
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

At home, mix all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl making sure to evenly distribute all flavors.  Split in half amongst two zipper bags and seal. 

On Trail: Add ingredients to your cook pot and bring to a boil.  Let sit until cool enough to eat or until you reach desired texture.  

Breakfast Couscous - Trail Recipe

Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day.  I don't always eat it first thing when I get up, but I can promise I eat a proper breakfast of some kind every single day.  Trying to get in a healthy breakfast while out on the trail can be tough, especially with all the convenient grab and go options out there.  Getting ready for my Tahoe Rim Trail thru hike in 2017 has me prepping lots of easy breakfast options and breakfast couscous is a quick and easy go-to that I enjoy both on the trail and when I need to grab something quick to take with me.  

Breakfast Couscous (2 servings)

1 cup whole wheat couscous
1/3 cup dry coconut milk
2 tbsp brown sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 nuts of your choice (slivered almonds are my favorite!)
1/4 dried fruit of choice

At home: Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl and stir to combine, paying attention to the brown sugar as it has a tendency to clump.  Once all items are mixed, split into two portions in zip top bags.  Seal. 

On Trail: To eat cold, add cold water to your couscous before going to bed - just enough to cover the couscous by about an inch.  Seal the bag and squish it to mix.  Eat cold in the morning.  If you'd like it hot, add couscous to your cook pot and cover with water, about an inch to an inch and a half over the mixture.  Bring to a boil, remove from heat, stir, and let cool.  

Trail Mac 'N Cheese - Trail Recipe

There are fewer meals hikers love more than Mac 'N Cheese.  When I was thru hiking on the AT, Mac N Cheese night more often than not meant a box of the cheapest stuff at the store without any milk or butter to make it more delicious.  Then, you’d wipe the pot clean with whatever kind of bread you had to clean it up.  Mac 'N Cheese is a fun comfort food, but when you’re making your own meals with nutritional factors in mind a box of the cheapie stuff just won’t do.  Here’s my recipe for Trail Mac that will definitely leave you wanting more!

Trail Mac - 1 serving

1/2 cup macaroni of your choice (does not need to be precooked!)
1/4 cup dehydrated veggies
1/2 tsp dried onion flake
1 tbsp + 1 tsp cheese powder
1 tbsp full fat powdered milk
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp red pepper flake

At home: Add the macaroni, dehydrated veggies, and onion flake into a sandwich size zip top bag.  Add the cheese powder, milk powder, and spices to a smaller snack size zip top bag and mix to combine.  Seal the smaller bag, add to the larger bag, and seal.  

On trail: Add macaroni to your pot and cover with water (just to the tops of the pasta).  Bring to a boil, stirring every few minutes to avoid sticking.  Cook pasta to desired level of doneness and stir in the contents of your spice/cheese packet.  Let meal sit, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens.  

Recipe: Hiker Crack Cookies

It's near the end of the hiking season and you're out on a backpacking trip.  Your stomach is growling and you know it's time for second breakfast, but all the foods you've been eating since springtime just don't sound appealing anymore.  Hungrily, you'll stuff a protein bar in your face while you walk and struggle to swallow.  Sound familiar?  All hikers tend to get tired of the same flavors of bars season after season, but I'm here to help!  My recipe for Hiker Crack Cookies will help get you through the rest of your season and are actually pretty good for you too!

These cookies are delicious all on their own, but on the trail I do step it up one more notch and add a filling.  When peanut butter or any other butter of your choosing (cookie butter, anyone?!) is added they make amazing sandwich cookies!  When I'm at home I dip them into yogurt or slather them with coconut butter as icing - even fruit spread is great on them.  Eat just one cookie and you'll see why we started calling them Hiker Crack!

A plate of deliciousness! 

Hiker Crack Cookies (makes 4-5 dozen)  //   350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

Ingredients:
3 room temperature eggs
1 stick (1/2 cup) room temperature butter
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 cup nut butter (I've used all combinations of almond, cashew, peanut butter, and even Nutzo!
                             You just need it to equal one cup total)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup hemp seed (you can also use pumpkin, sunflower, or sesame seeds!)
1/4 cup chia seed
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I prefer the minis - you can get more in there!)
1/2 cup of currants/cranberries/raisins/blueberries - your choice!  Mixing is fun here too!
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup of almond flour or oat flour* 
3 cups rolled oats

Instructions:
1) Cream together the butter and both sugars until smooth and pale in color.  Slowly add in the eggs one at a time until mixed.  Add in your nut butter mixture until smooth, followed by your vanilla.  Scrape down the bowl.  Finally, add in the salt and baking soda and mix until smooth. 
2) While the mixer is going, put your hemp seed, chia seed, chocolate chips, dried fruit, coconut, almond/oat flour, and rolled oats in a mixing bowl and stir with a fork to evenly combine ingredients. 
3) Slowly add the dry into the wet ingredients until just combined.  
4) Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour - this is crucial or else your cookies will spread out and be very runny in the oven!
5) Preheat the oven to 350.  Using a tablespoon, drop the cookies onto the sheets and space them at least an inch apart.  
6) Bake for 10-12 minutes.  When they are just starting to turn golden brown on top, pull them out of the oven.  In my oven the bottom rack heats faster and I make sure to rotate my trays halfway through cooking.  Your oven may vary, so watch them closely on the first batch!
7) Let the cookies cool slightly before moving them to cooling racks. 

*Oat flour is simple to make at home if you don't have almond flour!  All you need to do is take 1 cup of rolled oats and throw them into a blender or a Magic Bullet.  I find that 1 cup of oats is pretty close to 1 cup of oat flour and makes a great substitute in recipes. 

Do you have any go-to recipes for day hiking or a backpacking trip that don't involve your typical trail foods?  I'd love to hear about them.  Leave me a comment below or join the conversation over on Facebook!

One Summer, Two Hikers, Three Trails, and Not a Single Lipton Side in Sight!

An entire summer worth of food stretched out all over our spare bedroom!  Everything we will be consuming on our three hikes is here. 

I've finished!  A week ahead of schedule I have all of our food dehydrated, packaged, and ready to mail out to a friendly post office near the trail somewhere in the eastern portion of the US.  Thanks to a friendly hiker on Instagram I have also learned that Priority Mail Regional boxes will save me a FORTUNE!  Seriously, go to the USPS website and order your own regional boxes.  They're bigger and, for the BMT if we mail them from my parents house, we're going to save SEVEN BUCKS a box!

So, here's the breakdown of what I've made meal-wise for the summer:
Breakfasts: Sweet potato pudding, rice pudding, pizza grits, breakfast couscous, assorted Poptarts.  I also made a special breakfast drink out of Carnation Instant Breakfast, powdered coconut milk, and instant coffee.
Lunches: Refried bean burritos with salsa, dal with tortillas, sandwich thins with peanut butter/cashew butter or tuna, Poptarts
Dinners: Dal with rice, Hawaiian-style ham and pineapple rice, "soul food" with brown rice and blackeyed peas, mushroom stroganoff with egg noodles, mac & cheese, sloppy joes, Thai-style ramen. 
Snacks: Picky Bars, candy bars, trail mixes, dehydrated apple chips

We'll have enough dinners to get through the trail and we'll need to supplement still with the tuna packets and the peanut butters.  I don't have either of those meals planned for the BMT though, so the shopping for the tuna can wait until we're back in NY for the Finger Lakes Trail. I'm hoping that our portion sizes for the meals we've chosen work out alright.  The hardest part of planning all this cooking has definitely been the fact that the meal sizes all seemed to vary SO MUCH!  One recipe I made, the dal, called for serving 3 people.  I ended up getting 14 servings out of it with the measurements provided in the recipe!  I ended up with more dinners and less lunches due to these sorts of discrepancies, but hikers are great at adapting and if we end up having to cook lunches - so be it!

I had a few people ask me how expensive it was to do all these meals so here's the price breakdown:  I had budgeted approximately $400 for food and shipping and I'm happy to say that after we ship everything I will be under $400 for the entire summer.  That's for TWO people plus shipping!  For an average AT resupply, I was typically spending $25 to $30 per stop on just myself.  So, if we say that NoKey and I were spending $30 per person on our summer hikes, we'd be spending approximately $480 on food.  This, of course, assumes we'd be able to even get to a decent store on these trails!  The BMT goes through smaller towns than the AT - smaller towns which also see less hiking traffic than the AT and aren't quite resupply friendly.  Most of our options are tiny stores or convenience stores.  Those types of stores don't often carry much and are often insanely expensive.  Since I've done our food, I know we'll have the nutrition we're looking for, as well as the variety to keep us from getting sick of everything we're eating.  I know the Long Trail will have better resupply options on the southern portion so when the lunch/breakfast situations starts to look slim, we can supplement for a regular town resupply for breakfast items.  

I hope you've enjoyed seeing all the food prep I did over the past few weeks.  I'm very excited to get out and get hiking and can't wait to share the journey with you guys.  Happy Trails!

Sloppy Joe's - a tale of a hiker's quest

When you're hiking for a day, a weekend, or even for a month there is one thing every conversation will inevitably turn to - FOOD!  Usually more than once a day we would find ourselves hit with a hardcore craving for food, usually something so impossible to access in the small town resupply stores that the idea of it was absurd.  For NoKey and I in 2012, our food porn was all about Sloppy Joe's.  When we were hiking in Damascus, VA, we did what is called a slackpack.  This is where you leave the majority of your gear in town and take only water and food for the day.  Someone will drop you off and you walk back to your gear.  You can hike out of town, but still come back to town that night.  We did an 18-mile slackpack in 5 hours that day and we hiked back into town, starving of course.  We went to a place in town called Dairy King. The special that evening was Sloppy Joe's with tater tots.  We thought about getting them, but instead we grabbed a burger and a milkshake (blueberry and chocolate peanut butter, respectively) and vowed to go back to Dairy King before we left town the next day for what would undoubtedly be the best meal ever - Sloppy Joe's.  When we left town the next day we discovered it was Sunday.  Sunday's are the WORST DAYS on the AT because it often means all these small businesses are closed.  We fought back tears knowing we had missed our chance for Sloppy Joe's and we talked about them every night for two weeks. 

When we got just south of Waynesboro, VA we had to stop at Dutch Haus, a bed and breakfast/hostel where they would cook lunches and dinners for hikers.  I had the norovirus, meaning I was essentially quarantined in the basement.  It was on this day when I could eat nothing, nor hold it down, that NoKey got not only his two Sloppy Joe's, but also both of mine since I had paid for lunch but could not eat it.  Again, I had missed my chance for Sloppy Joe's.  It was heartbreaking in the mind of a hungry hiker.  The next 1600 miles consisted of the both of us talking about Sloppy Joe's.  We never got them again.  

This story, however, is about to get an incredibly happy ending!  In developing our hiker meals for the summer I came across an article on Chef Glenn's website describing how you can dehydrate your own ground meat.  I had an epiphany: I could make Sloppy Joe's.  We could eat them SEVEN times a piece over the course of the summer!  The food porn that kept us going on our AT thru hike could now become a reality!  While it doesn't look very pretty in the bags, it's going to be incredibly tasty in our stomachs this summer! (Scroll down for recipe!)

It's not pretty, but it will be tasty!

The first thing this recipe is going to require is that you cook and dehydrate your meat.  I chose a 93/7 Ground Turkey as fat is a big "no-no" when you're trying to preserve items.  I did 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs mixed with 1 pound of turkey meat before I cooked it.  This helped absorb any remaining fat and kept the meat incredibly dry for the cooking process.  While this isn't really ideal for most conditions, for dehydrating it is a must!  I dehydrated the meat at 145 degrees for 7 hours before it was completely dry.  

For the sauce, you can just use your favorite canned brand or you can make your own.  To dehydrate sauce, spread it in a thin layer over a silicone sheet or a piece of parchment paper on your dehydrator tray.  This dehydrates at 135 degrees for 8-10 hours.  After six hours your sauce should be dry around the edges and gelatinous in the middle.  You will take the sheet it's on, flip it upside down, and peel it off like a fruit roll up, placing directly onto the dehydrator tray.  Let it dry until it's crisp. When it's dry, break it up into smaller pieces and put it in an airtight container until you're ready to package your Sloppy Joe's!

Sloppy Joe "roll ups."  These might be good all on their own!

Sprinkles' Sloppy Sammiches - 2 servings
-1 lb dehydrated meat of your choice (using the information above)
-1 can dehydrated Sloppy Joe sauce OR 1 recipe worth of homemade sauce
-2 tsp dried onion flake
-1/2 tsp paprika
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
At home prep: 
+In two vacuum sealer bags, split the meat and the sauce leather evenly into two portions. Add 1 tsp dried onion flake, 1/4 tsp paprika, and 1/4 tsp garlic powder to each bag.  Seal them with the vacuum sealer.  (This step is important with dried meat to keep it from spoiling!  If not using within 1 month, keep it in the fridge). 
Trail Prep:
+Pour the contents of the vacuum sealed bag in your pot and pour over just enough water to coat the contents.  Heat the contents to a boil, turn off the heat, and cover.  Let it sit just enough to hydrate everything thouroughly.  
+Spread mixture evenly between two sandwich rounds and enjoy your trail Sloppy Joe's!

Bearded Brothers Bars - A food review on Appalachian Trials!

Check out my review of Bearded Brothers Bars over on Appalachian Trials right now!

Trail Magic and Trail Food Cravings

Yesterday we made a surprise trip down to the Finger Lakes Trail to pick up our friends Buttons and Bearwalker.  They're thru hiking the North Country Trail, 4500 miles from Vermont to North Dakota, and needed a ride to the post office.  Since New York isn't exactly hitchhiker friendly, especially when people aren't used to seeing them, they only had a short amount of time to get to their resupply box, which had their dog food in it.  Since Molly  had run out of food and the post office was closing soon, we rushed down to get them, getting them to the post office at 5:05 p.m.  Even though they closed at 5, the postmistress still allowed them to pick up their package!  We got to hang out with them last night and have hiker talk, eat large amounts of food, and look at all their gear.  It was a great time with them and we dropped them back off at the trailhead today.  

When we got home I was pretty hungry and, probably due to being in full on hiker mode for the day, was craving ramen.  Yes, ramen!  The cheap staple of broke American diets and thru hiker cuisine de jour.  Since I was whipping up a ramen recipe for us to take on the trail, I figured it would be the perfect time to test out the spice blend I was planning on using on our batch.  With the fresh veggies I added from the fridge,  I had a steaming bowl of hiker supper!

Ramen with broccoli, portobello mushroom, red onion, and carrot.  

Here's the trail recipe I developed tonight, and a photo of how nicely it all packs out to camp! (Links provided for hard-to-source ingredients!)

Thai Ramen, packed and ready to hit the trail!

Thai Ramen - 1 serving
1 pack ramen of your choice (chili lime shrimp would be perfect!)
1/4 cup dehydrated mixed vegetables
1 tablespoon powdered coconut milk
1/2 tablespoon powdered peanut butter
1 tablespoon cashews
1 True Lime packet
1 Sriracha packet
At home prep:
+In a snack-sized zipper bag, combine the cashews, powdered peanut butter, and powdered coconut milk.
+In a regular-sized zipper bag, pour in your dehydrated vegetables, place a ramen packet inside, and add the packet of True Lime and sriracha sauce. 
+Add the snack-sized bag to the large bag and seal
In Camp:
+Remove the bag with the coconut powder, peanut butter, and cashews.  Also remove the True Lime and sriracha sauce. 
+Break up the ramen in it's pack, then open it and pour the ramen and the vegetables in your cook pot.  Remove the ramen seasoning packet and cover the noodles and vegetables with the water level you chose for your soup. 
+Cook ramen according to package directions and turn off the heat.
+Add the ramen seasoning, powdered coconut milk, peanut butter, cashews, and True Lime packets.  Add sriracha sauce to your desired level of spiciness.  For best flavor, allow the mixture to cool off and let the flavors meld together. 

Two weeks of food done... only six more to go!

This afternoon, in between making my own bacon bits (yes, really!) and dehydrating more frozen vegetables, I was able to bag up 32 trail breakfasts.  This means NoKey and I have 16 days of breakfast all ready to pack up and mail!  

Breakfast Rice and Breakfast Couscous Ready to Go!

So, while it may  not look like much, these 32 meals were a big undertaking.  I did the rice dehydrating myself so we could use a brown rice instead of a minute rice.  When you dehydrate things yourself you not only control the quality of the ingredients, but you get a little more flexibility on what goes into the rice.  For this batch of breakfast rice, I actually cooked it in sweetened vanilla-flavored almond milk!  It gives the rice a nice subtle sweetness and the sugar energy hikers need at breakfast time.  I've posted recipes for the breakfast rice and couscous below!

Breakfast Rice Pudding (adapted from Backpacking Chef Glenn) - One Serving
-3/4 cup rice of your choice, cooked in vanilla almond milk and dehydrated
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1/4 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 cup dried fruit of your choice (I mixed it up and did some tropical mix, apples and cranberries, blueberries and coconut, and currant with coconut)
-1 tablespoon slivered almonds
+At home prep - combine the first 3 ingredients into a labeled freezer bag
+Put the dried fruit and almonds into a snack-sized zipper bag; put this smaller bag into the bag with the other ingredients and seal, making sure to remove as much air as possible
+Trail prep - Remove the bag with the fruit and nuts and set aside.  Pour the rice mix into your cook pot and let it reconstitute for 5 minutes.  Turn the heat element on your stove up and bring to a near-boil. Just before boil, shut off the heat and cover.  Let it sit approximately 10 minutes.  Devour!

Breakfast Couscous - One Serving  
-1/2 cup whole wheat couscous
-2.5 TBSP milk powder (use whatever kind you like - I mixed whole, skim, and coconut powders for this recipe)
-1 TBSP brown sugar
-1/4 tsp HEAPING cinnamon
-2 TBSP slivered almonds
-2 TBSP dried fruit
+At home prep - Combine all ingredients above into a labeled plastic zipper bag and seal, getting out all air completely. 
+Trail prep - Bring approximately 3/4 cup of water to a boil and turn off the heat.  Carefully, add the water to your bag and seal.  Squish the bag around to make sure all ingredients get water.  Let it sit approximately 5 minutes.  Fluff couscous and eat. 

Logistics - the not-so-fun part of hike planning

Here I am, three days into my 'fun' employment and I'm going stir crazy.  Over the past few days, I've managed to spend several hundred dollars on pieces of gear we need for our hike and the beginning of our food budget.  I've spent the better part of last night and this morning preparing our menu.  Turns out sending yourself food is harder than I thought it would be!

On our AT thru hike and then working in the most remote part of Maine, we learned a very key piece of information for resupply - a good grocery store is really only a hitchhike away.  Sure, it might not be in the guide book, but if someone is willing to pick up a smelly hitchhiker, they're probably willing to give you information and a ride to the nearest real store.  Unfortunately, we also learned that sometimes these small town groceries just aren't going to cut it for trail food.  I've planned to dehydrate meals for the first two of our three hikes.  Even though the Benton MacKaye Trail is starting to get more popular, the fact of the matter is that it isn't as established as the AT yet and getting a hitch will probably be tougher.  On the Finger Lakes Trail, especially the eastern portion, towns and stores are nearly nonexistent.  Once we get to the Ithaca area we'll have an easier time getting resupply, but some of these places in rural New York have notations in the guidebook reading "skip the hitch, there's nothing here." (Seriously, it says that!)  

For our resupply boxes, I've done the math allowing for three weeks on the BMT and five weeks on the FLT, a total of 8 weeks of meals - three meals a day plus two snacks.  This means 56 breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and 112 snacks per person.  This is overshooting a bit, which means we'll probably have extras we'll bounce back home, but that's okay!  That means we'll have a bit of leftover for the more rural northern sections of the Long Trail.  I've devised a meal plan that allows for 8 rotating meals, meaning we'll repeat each 7 times during the course of the summer.  Not too shabby for hikers who are used to eating the same things over and over and over to the point of exhaustion!  

Right now, the logistics include making conversions.  Since I'm going to be cooking, dehydrating, and portioning our food, I have to make conversions as to not overbuy supplies.  For example - one cup of dried rice equals approximately 3.5 cups cooked rice, which dehydrates down into 1.75 to 2 cups of rice depending on a few variables.  Now, since the rice I bought comes in a 5 lb. bag, how much rice do I need for all of these meals...? Feels like high school  math, right?!  Since my head was starting to spin, I decided to take a quick break and write a blog post to update everyone on what we were planning.  I'm going to do a post in the future with all our meals and how they look in a few weeks when all the cooking is done.  

Have any of you done any dehydrating?  I'd love to hear how it went, how many extra meals you ended up with, etc.  

Food Review - Outdoor Herbivore Backpacking Foods - Appalachian Trials

Vegan and vegetarian backpacking meals packing tons of nutrition and great flavor.