torley manor

I have been in the Laurel Highlands, yessir!

Here is a link to the set of photos, if you’d like the narrative of the whole 70 mile backpacking trip. It was a fantastic experience.

I hiked the whole Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail in a week, which meant short days (6.3 miles and 5 miles) on the ends, and longer (10-14 mile) days in the middle. It is hard for me to want to eat very much during a hot day, when I am sweaty and hot and my muscles are working hard. I am much more inclined to eat a lot later on when I am cooled down and relaxing at camp. So how and what do I eat?!

I brought a gasoline-fueled camp stove, so I could easily cook hot meals for breakfast and dinner. I also pre-measured all of my foods and put them into labeled plastic bags (lesson learned from prior backpacking “slop” dinners). So for breakfast every day, I cooked 1/2 c quick oats with a handful of dried cranberries, and made a big mug of black tea. No coffee for a week! And if you can believe it, no headaches from withdrawal, either.

At about the 4 or 5 mile point, I’d eat a luna or clif bar (I tried to get the highest-calorie clif bars I could find for the longer days). A few miles later, I’d eat a few handfuls of raw cashews with some rolled dried dates. It was a good way to get in a whole lot of calories without having to eat a lot (and carry a lot!). Raw cashews are a great backpacking food.

Then when I set up camp, I heated up some water for cleaning up and for making a cup of instant miso soup, which is a good way to get some salt back in your body after a lot of sweating. It was also really incredibly relaxing to take a hot sponge bath, change into a dry shirt, drink some hot soup, and read a book for a while. Some of the calmest moments I can remember living.

Then after settling in (stretching, filtering water, setting up camp, etc), I would fix some dinner. I’d cook up 1/3 c milled brown rice (which cooks very quickly and is so much more nutritious than pasta or instant rice) with 1/4 c “just veggies” dried vegetables. These vegetables are crazy space inventions — I thought they might be disgusting, but they rehydrate beautifully and taste just like normal vegetables. Incredible! Totally worth the outrageous cost, because it’s actually a LOT of vegetable matter, just dehydrated into a tiny size. Once those were cooked, I’d add about 1/3 c dehydrated refried beans and some water, and let it sit a few minutes, and then have a lovely piping hot serving of rice and beans! I made a dehydrated chili mix with the milled rice one night, which was also much better than expected.

You can get the nutritional information on the refried beans and the chili from the Fantastic Foods website (I got them in bulk at the food coop).

It wound up working a lot better than anticipated. I didn’t get sick of any of the foods, and (another lesson learned from previous backpacking slop dinners) I always carry salt and pepper with me so nothing has to be bland! I didn’t do a tally of total caloric intake per day, but it wound up being enough for me to be really comfortable.

If you have any questions about good vegan backpacking or camping foods or cooking, let me know! I love talking about it!