FOOD!

"What do you eat on the trail?" is one question we get asked often. It's a BIG topic both on- and off-trail. Once we have been hiking for a few weeks our "hiker hunger" kicks in. Because we are hiking 20 miles each day, day-in and day-out often at high elevation, we burn between 4000-6000 calories per day! It is nearly impossible to carry enough food on our backs to feed that fire. One aspect is to carry calorie-dense foods (most calories per ounce). Another aspect is diversity; even your favorite food will start to sound awful after eating it for two months! A typical breakfast will be granola with powdered milk. Dinners included bean burritos, pastas, lentils. We don't each lunch in the traditional sense - we basically snack all day. Bagels, cheese, nuts, dried fruits, energy bars. And we don't skip desert! Lori usually has peanut butter with M+Ms and I eat a king-size Snickers every night before bed. And we still come into town hungry! So what do we crave in town that we can't get on the trail? It's all about the PB+J (Pizza, Ben & Jerrys)! It's the world's best diet: Eat all you want and still lose weight! Watch for a future post about how Lori is preparing, dehydrating and packaging our meals.