Our Hiking Blog: food

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Trail mix, Gorp or Scroggin - hiking snack food by any other name!

What is the best snack food when hiking?
Yummy nibbles to keep up your energy?
Easy food to eat while hiking, bushwalking, mountain climbing or treking?

No matter where you live or what you call trail mix you probably have a favourite "snack" food you take hiking.

Wikipedia describes trail mix as the ideal snack food for hikes, because it is lightweight, easy to store, and nutritious, providing a quick boost from the carbohydrates in the dried fruit and/or granola, and sustained energy from the mono- and polyunsaturated fats in nuts

We have been modifying our scroggin over several years and in this post describe how we put it all together and prepare our scroggin for each hiking trip.

The "rules":
- cut up your treats into small pieces for different taste sensations
- avoid anything that melts or goes too soggy
- avoid anything too sticky (makes big chunks) or soft (breaks up into small pieces that are hard to grab)
- there are no real rules - just add what you like to eat

The recipe:
This is just a sample of the type of snacks we use in our scroggin, mix and match it to your taste.
- Liquorice all sorts cut into quarters
- Liquorice twists or straps cut into 2-3 cm (1") lengths
- jelly beans
- snakes - cut up
- jelly babies
- dried fruit such as apricot, pear, sultanas, raisins, currents etc
- chocos
- Liquorice chocolate coated bullets
- yogurt balls
- M&M's
- smarties
- Nuts - peanuts (we use unsalted or EVERYTHING gets salty), cashews, almonds etc BUT nothing with shells

Our scroggin, mixed and ready to bag

The amount:
- We take 100grams (about 3.5 ounces) or a small ziploc bag per person per day (this has gradually been reduced from about 200g as we now tend to eat less).
- We count the first and last day in the trail as one bag
- On a 5 night hike we take 5 bags (half for first and last day)

How we buy it all:
- We work out how many nights we are hiking - for example, 4 nights, 400gms each, two of us, total required 800gms! Our last trip we needed 1.6kg or 3.5 pounds!
- off to the supermarket and head to the confectionary / health food/ nut / dried fruit sections
- graze around for 30 min or so deciding what looks good (best to eat BEFORE you go there)
- start adding bags of goodies to our basket, writing down the net weight of each bag
- once we reach the required amount / weight we usually throw in an extra bag or two to get some more variety
- head off to the checkout and nearly faint at the cost..... junk food is expensive.

The packaging process:
- get a large bowl or container
- open packets, cut up large pieces and add to bowl
- beat off the children and hungry animals
- mix together by hand taking care not to eat too much
- depending on the amount you have decided for each day, weigh or fill bag with required amount
- share the leftovers with the kids

Seven days of scroggin for three people - bagged and ready to go

Advantages:
- we love the convenience of a pre-measured amount each day
- you don't eat all your scroggin in the first few days
- your get a real energy boost nibbling on high sugar food each hour or so

Disadvantages:
- You can add some serious weight to your pack if you are hiking for a few days, for example, seven nights, 700grams (1.5 pounds) of trail mix.
- you can get sick of the same tastes each day - think about putting a mix of different items in for different days if you are out for more than a couple of days e.g. nuts and jellybeans or bullets, snakes and yogurt balls in one bag. Experiment.

We would love to hear what you take as trail mix or scroggin or gorp. Leave us a comment so others can read them and use your ideas on their next trip.

Other ideas:
The Food Network - Trail Mix
Skipper's Scroggin recipe

Hiking the Overland Track - the downloadable book

Searching for advice on hiking the Overland Track in Tasmania?

Want good, simple tips from experienced bushwalker's on how to plan your Overland Track hike?

Are you having trouble organising the walk from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair on the Overland Track?

Is coordinating the Overland Track booking, transport to Cradle Mountain, your flights and getting home again just too confusing and complicated?

Frank and Sue at Our Hiking Blog announce - "The Overland Track" e-Book updated for the 2009/10 season.

Yes, we walked the Track in September 09 and have updated the book for this hiking season.

Review: Frank & Sue have just released their downloadable eBook, 'Hiking the Overland Track'. I've had a read through it and it is an excellent resource for people who are looking to walk the Overland Track, and I highly recommend it particularly for people who are not experienced bushwalkers, or who are not familiar with Tasmania.
It includes a wide variety of topics to help people get organised for their Overland Track walk - Nik- Bushwalk Tasmania forum

Why write "the book"?

For several years we have been answering our readers questions about many aspects of "doing" the Overland Track. We felt there was a great opportunity to create a downloadable book covering all the different areas of planning and undertaking the walk that we have learnt on over the 12 Overland Tracks we have completed.

In addition to all the topics you can read on Our Hiking Blog, we have added several thousand more words, graphics, tables, links and ideas to the downloadable version and packaged it into one document.

By purchasing the downloadable book, you can either print it or read it online via Adobe with it's great search facility.

Review:
- The best walk in Australia — our #10 best trek in the World — is Tasmania’s Overland Track.
- John & Monica Chapman self-publish the best guidebook for the OT. (Chapman’s guidebooks are the best in the world, in fact.)

- But personally I prefer the just released Overland Track eBook (PDF format) by Frank & Sue Wall.
And DIRT CHEAP for 18,000+ words and heaps of photographs
Brilliant.
This is exactly the kind of information I need when planning a major hike.
Rick McCharles - besthike.com

Do you need to know:

What hiking gear you will need?
What food to take?
How to organise your meals?
How to get the start of the walk and home again?
What are the best transport options?
What first aid kit you need?
Can you walk the Overland Track solo?
How hard is the Overland Track?
What is the best way to get to Cradle Mountain?

This sixty + pages Adobe PDF file with 18,000+ words and heaps of photographs is now available to download for A$14.50

Download the FREE sample of the Overland Track book here and get a "feel" for the guide and format

The sample contains:

The full table of contents
Sample sections from the book
Some background on the book and us.

You are just required to provide your name and email address and the sample file will be emailed to you immediately.

The full Overland Track eBook contains several chapters such as:

Planning your walking dates - juggling flights, booking and transport (including a tool showing how we work out all the option)
What are the best transport options? Is the cheapest the best?
Best Overland Track walking resource
Menu and food planning (including a great tool to help make it easier)
Clothing - what will I wear?
How to save weight, your feet and your back OR what to chuck out before you leave.

In most sections of the eBook there are special tips that are highlighted, or bolded. These tips are drawn from our experience of many trips along the Overland Track and have made our life much easier and each trip a great success.

Here are a small sample:

Tip: If you are using public transport and want to complete the Overland Track in the cheapest and easiest manner – fly into Launceston and home from Hobart

TIP: We are prepared to pay the additional cost for this type of service. The Public transport option can be very time consuming

TIP: the trick we find here is to ensure you have measured portions for each day at probably 20% more than we would eat at home. Put them in a pile and count em off, 6 breakfasts, 6 bags.

TIP: Remember unless you plan to eat it, what you start with in your pack on the Overland Track, will still be on your back at the end

TIP: Even a cheap headlight is better than a torch. It leaves your hands free to cook or read or hike in the dark if you are really slow. You need something, there is no power or lighting on the Overland Track - yep - NONE (not even to charge your camera battery)

TIP: Take a waterproof jacket - No, NOT a poncho, no, not a spray jacket, a WATERPROOF coat - it rains (and snows, and sleets) a LOT in Tassie

Click here if you would like to purchase the Overland Track downloadable book.

NB: The Overland Track eBook is designed to use in conjunction with John Chapman's book Overland Track - which we believe is THE recommended guide for this fantastic world heritage hiking experience.

Yes, Chapman's book is THE one you should study from cover to cover BUT the Overland Track eBook adds value and is a bit of fun (we hope), for example.

What is the best way to get to Cradle Mountain?
A REALLY detailed gear list, including honest comments on why or why not you should take each piece of gear
What to do if you meet a naked German whilst swimming in Lake Windemere! (depending on if you are male or female, and the swimmer is male or female, the answer is open......to.... your.....interpretation (or mood)........)
What do you do if you see a tiger snake (hint, first step, stop walking)

Read the reviews of the book if you are still not sure - we think they are pretty good!

We are offering a 100% money back guarantee on the Overland Track eBook. Yes, if you don't find your A$14.50 was well spent, we will refund the whole amount. No hassles, just the cash back.

We are that confident it will help your planning and enhance your trip heaps! If you buy the Overland Track eBook and you think it is a heap of rubbish, immediately send us a grumpy or nice email and we refund the full amount into your account within 24 hours (unless we are away bushwalking, then we we do it on our return) Again, no hassles or question, just the cash back.

What is an eBook? Wikipedia have a definition of course: An e-book (for electronic book: also eBook) is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. In the case of the Overland Track eBook - the file is an Adobe PDF document with the advantages of being able to read it on your computer or other electronic device or printing it out to read at your leisure.

Food - a menu for 9 days hiking

Lightweight food for a 9 day hike?
Making sure you are not bored with your hiking meals?
Some great ideas to keep you fuelled up on an long bushwalking trip?

What food to take on an extended hike is always something that challenges us before a trip. Balancing weight, freshness and variety all make for interesting discussions as we plan our menus. We are always on the lookout for new or well written information about hiking food so please contact us here if you would like to contribute.

Photo by Super Starfish ..dining outdoors

Tasadam, from the Bushwalk Tasmania Forum ,submitted an excellent post on that forum regarding the food his wife was taking on a 9 day walk on the South Coast Track in southern Tasmania. The link to the full topic on the forum is here.

We asked Tasadam if it was OK to reproduce the menu and he was happy for us to make it available for "Our Hiking Blog" readers.

We did the South Coast Track in March / April 2006 and this is the link to our posts. If you want to read Sue's reflections and check out the pictures, have a look.

This is the list of food Tasadam's wife took on the walk and his thoughts:

Breakfast - x 9
Her normal cereal which is Fibre Plus - 60 gram serves which is a cup full. Weighed into individual Multix medium sized freezer bags (these are the best and lightest bags).
Milk powder - 9 x 30 gram bag fulls, cheap & nasty Coles freezer bags, tied into a knot then the tails cut off. All together in a Glad sandwich bag.Also, 20 tea bags, a quantity of milk powder in a bag for extra cups of tea, and a small bag of sugar.

Total for 9 x Breakfast with mentioned extras = 983 grams. 109 grams per day.

Dinner
The expensive freeze dried single serve bags that you get in the bushwalking shops. Approx 110 grams total.
Also, a quantity of dried beans and some cuppa soups.

Total for 8 dinners plus extras = 1047 grams. 131 grams per day.

Lunch - a bit more tricky but still managed okay
Mountain Bread, 8 sheets plus bag = 250g.
Thickly sliced cheese enough pieces for each day= 274 grams
Stick of salami = 317 grams
Semi Dried tomatoes in a sandwich bag with oil drained off = 88 grams
Mango chutney in a food tube as a spread = 109 grams
Carrots * 2 - cut into quarters (1/4 carrot per day x 8 days) = 220 grams

Total for 8 lunches = 1258 grams or 157 grams per day.

Nibble bags
8 bags of nibbles consisting of dried fruit (fruit cake mix - sultanas, raisins, fruit pieces etc), dried apple, scroggin (bushwalkers mix from Wholesome house, Deloraine - I swear by that stuff), Dried banana, sweetened dried banana, dried apricots.

Total = 983 grams or 117 grams per day

Extra food -
Full packet of GingerNut Snaps = 270 grams
Half a 200g block Toblerone chocolate (one piece per day) = 110 grams
Bag of cashew nuts = 100 grams

She also had 3 x 75 gram portions of Sustagen powder to make 3 x half litre energy drinks = 225 grams.

Total extras 705 grams or 88 grams per day average.

Total food weight for 9 breakfasts, 8 lunches and 8 dinners plus all the extras = 4976 grams.
Total per day = 608 grams.

And she carried a chicken salad roll for a couple of hours on the first day to have a luxury lunch.

Total weight could be cut down by -
Losing the carrots - new daily total 580 grams
And talking only half a packet of biscuits New total 563 grams
And lose the sustagen powder (if it's not your thing) New total 555 grams.

Wouldn't want to go too much more extreme than that - lots of energy burnt up when walking.

EDIT - A bit of follow up from Tasdam.
The sundried tomatoes weren't such a hit, still too sloppy...
The bushwalkers mix of nibbles, there are similar bags of stuff you can buy in the supermarkets - easy to spot - with the nuts etc in the fruit and veg section. Pre-packaged in a 400 gram bag. Walnuts, almonds, sultanas, dried fruit, seeds - I think they are pumpkin and something else, etc you get the idea. But I think I prefer the stuff from Wholesome house more... It tastes "better". This stuff keeps you regular too. I find about 100 - 120 grams a day is enough.

Many thanks to Tasadam, we think it is one of the best food lists for a multi-day walk we have come across.

Just a reminder to checkout and join the Bushwalk Tasmania forum. It is an excellent resource for anyone who loves (or dreams about) walking in Tasmania. There are also some fantastic pictures that have been posted by the members there showcasing some of Tassie's most beautiful wilderness scenery .

Hiking Food - drying a curry

Our next hike is into the Walls of Jerusalem in Tasmania for a three nighter with a small party of friends. It is planned as a relaxed, pre Christmas trip, where the distances are short and we will be base camping for two nights. This will allow us to take some nice food and maybe a glass or two of wine or muscat as a treat.

There are seven of us so we have decided to do our own food in couples and a three. This is because the hiking cooking pots are quite small so a meal for more than 3 is difficult to fit in the pot.

We are planning on having curry one night so
last night we purchased a Daal Makhani (mixed lentils, butter, cream and spices) and a Chicken Korma (creamy sauce garmished with fresh coriander and almond flakes) while we were out for dinner. Today we have been drying them in our Fowlers Vacola Ultimate Dehydrator. Fowlers don't seem to have a website, but these units are readily available in "large department stores" and on the web.

The beauty of this unit is that it has fruit leather trays. This allows any moist/ runny curry to be spread out evenly for drying. We have four trays with 3 fruit leather trays so 3 different meals can be dried at once.

Preparation
The chicken in the curry was made from thigh meat. It is basically a sauce with pieces of chicken floating around. Through previous experience we know that the chicken (read any meat here) must be diced finely to dry OK , BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY to rehydrate properly.

So, (I suggest using kitchen gloves here) I diced the cooked chicken pieces from the curry into pieces that were no bigger that 1.5 cm * 1 cm * 0.5 cm. Yes, that small. I then remixed the chicken into the sauce and spread it evenly on the drying tray.

The Daal, (pictured above ) which consists of lentils and kidney beans in a curry sauce is REALLY easy. All that was required was spreading on the tray as the lentils and other beans in it are quite small.

Drying the Curry
The drying process is simple. Just let the dryer blast away with hot air and remember to stir the curry and move it around on the tray every 2 hrs or so. This is because the pieces tend to dry on the outside and ball into little clumps. Moving it around , breaks up the clumps and allows the dryer to do its stuff.

The process takes about 10 hrs + (because there was so much liquid in the curry sauce) so I always try and start it early in the morning on a day we plan to be home. If you forget you have left it on, it does not really burn, just goes REALLY crunchy!

I have mentioned Freezer Bag Cooking before and reinterate, it is the best resource I have found on the Web for information about drying hiking food. There are step by step instructions and excellent photos. It is well worth a look.

To the right is a picture of the finished product, bagged up and ready to go. The consistancy of the chicken when it is dried correctly is like soft rubber. Because there was a lot of oil in the curry, the texture is a bit "slimy", so rubberised slime MAY be the best way to describe it! Keep it refrigerated until you head off and it should keep well. We usually dry food about one week before we go so between drying and eating, the time never exceeds 2 weeks.

Rehydration
Complicated process here!! We have discovered the best way to rehydrate the meal is, as soon as we hit our overnight camp site, we boil the billy and have a cuppa. We use the excess boiling water and cover the dried meal in the cooking pot. We put the lid on the pot and leave it sit for about an hour stirring occasionally. As the meal rehydrates , we add more water, stirring to ensure all the dried meal gets access to water. If the rehydtrating process is slow, or we want to eat, we gently heat the meal, stirring and adding water as required. We try and allow at least an hour for rehydration, two is better. Being gentle is the solution, not boiling the meal while it is rehydrating, but gently heating it to allow full hydration.

We will serve this with some "Continental" rice (whatever flavour works for you). It is so easy to cook, light, filling and cheap.

This type of hiking food is quick to prepare, very tasty and an easy meal. Will go down well with a red!

More hiking food ideas with a vegetarian flavour

Vegetarian hiking food?
Tasty vegetarian treats from an experienced hiker and bushwalker?
Simple vegetarian food ideas for a multi day hiking trip?

Clare give us her ideas to keep any vegetarian happy with a full stomach on a hiking trip.

Clare, our eldest daughter, is in the second year of an Outdoor Education degree. She has done a lot of walks over the last two years and before that she worked at Wallangarra Outdoor Education Centre taking young people hiking in the mountains of East Gipplsand. Click on "Read More" to see her ideas

BREAKFAST:
I'm a cereal girl and just measure it into which ever bowl I'm going to take
so I can see how much it looks like and then put that in a zip lock bag.
Other ideas that people from uni use: A guy I know hates muesli so took
bagels on a ski touring trip, eggs, dehydrates baked beans apparently come up
alright, porridge, Burcher muesli as well

LUNCH:
Wraps (those taco types, they don't get too stale too fast, I like the taste
and they fill me up a bit more)
Then in them I add:
Tuna
I carry a block of cheese, just slice it up out there
sprouts (cheap and don’t go bad fast)
carrots
fresh beetroot
Avocado
sweet peas
tomato
dip of some sort
really what ever I feel like when I'm at the supermarket

DINNER:
I take fresh food which is different to Mum and Dad, I'm a vego, and love fresh veggies, so depending on the length of the hike I take as much fresh as I can.

Korma:
In a film canister I add together, 1 tsp of ground coriander, 1 tsp of
ground cumin, 1 tsp of chilli flakes and 1/2 tsp of turmeric.
I take a sachet of tomato paste
1 sachet of coconut milk powder
onion/garlic
array of vegies and dried mushrooms

fry up onion, garlic and spices, add mixed up coconut milk and tomato paste,
then add any vegies. Cook until vegies are desired texture. Serve with
couscous or rice.

It's really light

I have also just started taking a packet Tom Yum soup with rice noodles and
adding fresh vegies to that.

Pasta and pesto with parmesan cheese is an old fav and again I just add some vegies.

I did an 18 day bush walk at the start of the year and it was amazing to see
what people ate, some people ate dehydrated spag bol for every second night, some
had fresh veggies and cheese for the whole time ("It's fine just cut the
green bits off, I think a lot of people would pay for this cheese"),
I generally had each meal three times, once a week.

One girl just dehydrated fresh vegies and combined them in lots of different
ways (carrot, zucchini, and capsicum in one packet and broccoli, beans and
carrot in another for example), then each night she would add different
sauces, spices, pesto, or herbs to create different meals with different
grains.

I suppose there are just some other ideas using fresher ingredients. It is up to you what you enjoy or how much effort you want to put into preparation and cooking.

Related Posts
Hiking Food- a menu for 9 days
Dehydrating a curry for a multi day hike
Meal ideas for the Overland Track and other long hiking trips - Part One
Meal ideas - (Lunch and Dinner) for the Overland Track and other long hiking trips - Part Two

Food preparation for the Overland Track - Tasmania - Part Two - Lunch and Dinner

Stuck for meal ideas for your next hike?
Can't decide what to eat for lunch or dinner while you are hiking?
What is the best and lightest food to take on a bushwalking trip?
How can we make sure food lasts on a multi-day hike?

Lauren emailed us asking for suggestions about organising food for a group of six who are undertaking the Overland Track in Tasmania next February.

In our previous post we discussed some simple planning ideas and posted our basic menu for breakfast and snacks for hiking.

We now move on to lunch and dinner ideas

Lunch
We take dry biscuits and mountain bread, although our daughter likes to take taco type wraps. Up to you but , again, work out BEFORE you leave how many biscuits or wraps you will eat for lunch and only take that many. Share out the mountain bread and try and use it up fairly quickly, after you open it, as it drys out and becomes crumbly really quickly.

We try and take fresh ingredients for lunch. This would included:
- Tomatoes (one per day between two)
- Avocado (one or two)
- Red onion (two)
- Coleslaw (the pre-made stuff from the supermarket in a bag- lasts really well)
- Cheese (usually a crumbly tasty and some sliced edam)
- Ham (sliced in a peel pack) which we eat first
- Salami - either a piece of slices in a peel pack - eat it last

That is basically it. We have tried lettuce (goes soggy too quickly), sprouts (gave them up for the coleslaw), capsicum (went off too quickly), carrots - bit heavy etc

We also take film canisters packed with coleslaw or mayonnaise, peanut butter, chilli sauce and vegemite.

In winter I always take one soup for each day which I sometimes have for lunch or on arrival at camp. Sue would take four. In summer I would still take 2 or 3 because we have had snow there in December and hot soup is a great energy boost.

Dinner
Depending on the number of days and the expected weather we would take 2 or 3 "fresh" meals. On our last trip in July we took 3 as we were confident the temperature would be OK for fresh meat to keep. In February I suggest 2 fresh meats would be prudent (although I have listed 3 here).

We always get our meat vacuum packed. This stops getting the rest of your food or gear contaminated with blood and should increase its unrefrigerated life. MOST of the time we freeze the meat for a few days before we leave and take it to Tasmania frozen (wrapped in newspaper in the middle of our packs) We can usually find a freezer at our hotel or hostel where we can keep it frozen until the last minute. Recently we found out about a good butcher in Launceston and got our meat vac-packed there the day before.

I will list a sample menu of what we might eat for dinner over 6 nights. Obviously there are many variations and other ideas that work. Our food is pretty simple so we can cook it quickly. My desire is for bulk i.e. I want to be filled up, Sue is keener on nice tasting stuff!

Day 1
- Good hamburgers or vegy burgers
- Some of the coleslaw,dressing and chilli sauce
- Fresh bread rolls (pretty light and won't get trashed in pack that quickly, or they can just be secured on the outside of your pack for the first day)

Simple fare for the first night, especially after that first grunt up Marions Lookout with a full pack!

Day 2
- Fillet steak (why not the best, no use carrying fat)
- Pepper sauce (readily available, dry stuff, just add water and heat)
- Dehydrated potato (Deb)
- Peas and corn (dehydrated)

Day 3
- Sausages and onions
- Devilled sausages sauce (or any alternative you may like...we use it the gravy to make the Deb tasty!!)
- Dehydrated potato (Deb)
- Peas and corn (dehydrated)

I know the Deb potatoes and peas and corn are a recurring theme here but we can put up with them and they are easy to prepare. You could substitute couscous, pasta or quick cook rice for the "potato".

Day 4
- Smoked Chicken breast (sold in vac packs or individually)
- One of the quick cook pasta or rice meals , something creamy is best

We cook up the meal and then add diced smoked chicken breast. Usually plenty with one breast per person, maybe 2 large ones for 3 people.

Day 5 - Tuna Casserole
- One packet of "Alfredo" per person (single serve)
- One sachel of tuna per person
- 1-3 hard boiled eggs
- Peas and corn ( keeps some left overs from other meals)

Cook Alfredo as per instructions (we don't worry about adding marg) either adding peas and corn at the start or cook them seperately. Add tuna and eggs at the end and warm through. Yum.

Day 6 Spaghetti Bolognaise or Chilli Con Carn or a Chicken Mince based Casserole

This is where a food dryer is excellent. I won't go into too many details about drying here because this link Freezer Bag Cooking is the BEST resource I have seen on the web for drying food for hiking.

The instructions on the site are excellent and I am sure you could use an oven at low temps to achieve the same results. Have a try at drying some leftovers and then rehydrating it. Gives you some practice for the real thing. I would suggest you spread the sauce/casserole on a couple of layers of oven proof baking paper on a biscuit rack that sits on a tray in the oven. This lets the air circulate. Freezer Bag Cooking has some great before and after pictures so you can check you have not made gravel!!

The key to creating any meal for rehydrating is to use small pieces of ingredients. Years ago I dried 1cm cubes of chicken breast and they would probably STILL be rehydrating into now...they were TOUGH. Since then we have used minced chicken breast and it has been much more successful. The other key thing is that fat does not dry, so lean meat and correct preparation is important (see Freezer Bag Cooking)

To rehydrate, as soon as we have arrived at camp, recovered and had a coffee, we use some of the water we have boiled to cover the meal in the cooking pot. Wack the lid on, stir it every now and then and add more water (hot or cold) as your dried meal rehydrates.

Full rehydration can be speeded up if you put the meal on a low heat and keep a close eye on it, stirring frequently. We like to use hot water, cover and then chill out until dinner time.

Spare meal
All good hiking books and articles suggest taking a spare meal in case you are caught by bad weather. A small packet of macaroni noodles or other quick cook meal would not go astray. We have never needed one on the Overland Track because if we have been held up we just make a big effort on another day and skip a hut.

Alternatives
We freely admit this is a pretty boring list of meals, but we have been very happy with them for several years. It is almost a "no brainer" shopping and preparation wise. Our daughter, Clare, who is an experienced walker, has volunteered to write a piece on how she plans and prepares her meals. She is a vegetarian so her perspective and ideas may suit many other walkers. We look forward to her contribution.

Please don't hesitate to post a comment or further questions, it has been fun putting this together

Related Posts
Drying a Curry for hiking
Spaghetti Bolognaise - easy to dry and rehydrate on the trail
Hiking food - menu for a nine day trip
Vegetarian hiking food ideas

Food preparation for the Overland Track - Tasmania - Part One

We received an email from Lauren about a common issue for people who are infrequent multiday hikers, what to do about FOOD? We have posted the answer here so others can share our suggestions and post comment with their ideas.

In this first section we cover basic food sourcing, breakfast and snacks.

Question:
Greetings,
Although I have hiked the New Zealand Routeburn track in Jan 2004, it was a while ago and I have forgotten a lot about what food I took! In January a group of us are doing a 6 night, 7 day hike in the Tasmania Overland ( Cradle Mountain ) track.
Any lists or advice you may have regarding food, and even mental / physical preparation would be most appreciated.

Answer:
Food organisation for the Overland Track depends on a few things :
- Are there any "natural" pairings in the group who could cook together e.g. partners, carnivores or vegetarians?
- How long are you in Tasmania before you head off on the hike?
- Do you have access to a food drier?

Background
We generally fly down the day before and get organised so we can be walking by lunchtime the next day. It also gives us a mental space between home and hiking, like starting the holiday early!!

You cannot take fresh fruit and vegetables (and other specific items) into Tasmania, so if you need these items, time must be allocated for a shopping expedition. You MAY be able to get most of your fresh stuff if you arrive in Tassie early enough, and have flexible transport to Cradle Mountain. If you are arriving the same day you are commencing the walk, you need to be very organised.

If there are a few of us we generally organise ourselves into two or three people who will share meals. We find this the best way due to limitations on cooking pot sizes, the time it takes to cook larger portions and it seems to be an efficient use of fuel/burners. It also means on a six night hike you get to carry two meals each.

Packaging and storage

We remove ALL packaging that comes with the food and often combine packaging
We use a LOT of ziplock bags of various sizes
We both use a lightweight plastic tub to store perishables in our packs. The main reason is to stop food being damaged but it is also a convenient way to grab your lunch or morning teas stuff. This would include any fruit or vegetables, dry biscuits (that crumble so easily), coffee and powdered milk, that days soup and the fruit cake.

Below is a picture taken at Pelion Hut, the food tubs we use are pictured on the table. We like them, some of our friends don't

Meals

Breakfast - carry and prepare your own

Sue is a cereal girl and she measures her normal portion of cereal into a bag and has a store of dried fruit like prunes to add each day.

I usually alternate between porridge and cereal. I eat about one and a half of those individual satchels of porridge so I combine them before we go or add some quick cook oats to the packet. I don't really cook the porridge, I just put it in my plate/bowl and pour boiling water over it and cover for a few minutes (stirring occasionally) . This is because in the past when I cooked this stuff, as per the instructions, the high sugar content burnt it solid on the bottom of the pot!!

We usually carry hard boiled eggs so I occasionally have a couple for breakfast.

We always use powdered milk and after determining the amount of made up milk we need for the trip (3 cups of coffee a day, say 1 cup of milk, plus breakfast etc) we then split the powdered milk into 3 or 4 bags. We only use one at a time as it gets sticky and the zip locks stop zipping!

HINT: the trick we find here is to ensure you have measured portions for each day at probably 20% more than we would eat at home. Put them in a pile and count em off, 6 breakfasts, 6 bags.

Snacks

We make our own Scroggin and take between 120 and 150 grams per person, per day. So for six nights we take 7 bags, and plan to use about half a bag on the first and last day. The calculation is simple, but scary, when you see the weight of junk required.

For us it would be 240grams / day * 7 = 1.68kg of scroggin.

We use ingredients that are not necessarily healthy but have a lot of short term energy such as M&M's, jelly beans, liquorice all sorts (cut up), bullets, snakes (cut up), some nuts and dried fruit. As we shop, we just add up the net weight of the packets we buy, until we get to our "target weight". We then take it home, cut up what is required and mix it in a huge bowl and then weigh it out and put it in small ziplock bags. Once the 14 bags are full the rest is eaten on the spot!!

We also take one chocolate or muesli bar per person per day and add a couple for spares. On your trip I would probably take 8 bars.

We usually throw in a fruit cake to eat for morning tea or when we get to the hut. Often it is only a dark fruit ,homebrand one, but sometimes Sue bakes a "real" one which is delicious. We calculate about one and a half slices each per day. Again, cut it in two, taking a piece each, eat one and then start on the other!

Drinks
Coffee is measured out by the spoon full, on a number of cups per day basis and, yes you guessed it, into a ziplock bag! Tea, again, how many cups a day each? Only take that many teabags.

I like "Tang" so take one sachel for each 2 days just for a change from water. Sue likes Gatorade and takes some in a bag This winter we took some hot chocolate as a treat.

In the next post we will cover lunch and dinners......

Related Posts
Drying a Curry for hiking

Spaghetti Bolognaise - easy to dry and rehydrate on the trail
Hiking food - menu for a nine day trip
Vegetarian hiking food ideas

Food preparation for the Overland Track - Lunch and Dinner

Food, glorious (hiking) food!

Planning a hiking menu?

Need ideas for lightweight hiking food to take into the wilderness?

What are some great meals you can take hiking?

We have stumbled onto a couple of wonderful sites about food....not just any food, but most importantly hiking and lightweight food!!....Oh the joy and pleasure of finding such great resources on the Net.

Sarah and Kirk at Freezer Bag Cooking are just like us, a couple who like to get out into the "Wilderness" - read bush here if you are an Aussie, and eat great food. The blurb on their excellent website says it all:

Freezer Bag CookingTM changes the concepts of traditional outdoor food. It offers simplicity, convenience and variety, then whirls them together with the philosophies of lightweight outdoor adventuring. The cooking gear needed is minimal, lightweight and can be bought, found or even made. Meals are prepared at home and put into zip top freezer bags. When ready to eat, the meal is prepared in and eaten out of the freezer bag. Mealtime becomes fast, effortless and cleanup is as easy as licking your utensil and sealing the zip top bag. Also, with meals portioned into individual freezer bags, making meals for multi-day trips, families or a group is painless.

One Pan Wonders is another great spot to check out recipes and other great information about drying food. I really like the before and after pictures that can reassure you that the food is not ruined (just dried) !

We are always trying to think of more interesting and lightweight food to take on our extended hikes so these sites are rippers...have a read and bookmark them for next time you are planning your hiking food.

I also noticed that both of these ladies were involved with a group called Trail Divas . They have set up a hiking site for women. Now I have walked with a couple of Trail Divas in my time and I reckon they would love to have a skim around this site and share some of their experiences about hiking in Australia. Check it out, good fun.