backpacking food

Backpacking food for a weekend

Although my plans for this weekend have been changed by the weather – I had already packed my backpacking food for the trip.

The original plan was to have lunch in Coniston and then walk up the Old Man of Coniston and find somewhere to camp out for the night. We would be back in Coniston for lunch on Sunday.

Backpacking food for a weekend - packed

Backpacking Food

This menu is for a short weekend and suits my appetite – you should consider your food needs and the terrain you are travelling through when planning your menus.

Trail snacks
Food for during the day. We were planning to stop and make a hot drink on the way up at Low Water.

  • Dried cranberries
  • High cocoa chocolate
  • Boiled sweets
  • 2 in 1 coffee sachet

Evening meal
It takes just over a litre of water to make up all the components of the backpacking food in the evening meal.

  • Cup a soup with crackers
  • Tin of tuna with tomato sauce and crackers (if I was hungry I can eat these on the trail)
  • Mug noodles with spiced seed sprinkles
  • Chinese hot sesame dessert
  • Cappuccino

Breakfast
Tea and biscuits in bed first.

  • Breakfast biscuits and jam
  • Crackers and marmalade
  • Dried fruit
  • Fresh ground coffee (this is not shown in the photo – I carry it in a small Nalgene pot)

Extras

  • Black coffee sachet
  • Hot chocolate sachet
  • Sugar packets
  • Chrysanthemum honey tea – can be drunk hot or cold
  • Packet of tissue, hand wipe and rubbish bag
  • Backpacking brew kit – tea for the weekend

Backpacking food for a weekend - packed

backpacking food packed – the brew kit is not in this bag – the cranberries go in my pocket

Water
I was planning to carry my Travel Tap bottle and a 1l roll up Platypus bottle. At the start of the walk I would have about 300ml in the Platypus – and the plan was to fill all my bottles using the Travel Tap at Low Water before continuing up to the summit. This should be enough water for the wild camp. On the way down I would collect some more water if required.

Wild camping water

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Annotated Kit Photograph

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1 Aluminium foil wind shield – wraps in close around the stove for really windy weather
2 Stove board/stand – it protects the grass and makes a stable base for the stove.
3 Half aluminium wind shield – I bought a wind shield, cut it in half and removed a panel to make it fit better around this stove and mug
4 Vargo Triad XE Alcohol / Fuel Tab Titanium Stove with a copper mug support
5 MSR Titanium mug – mug and cooking pot
6 Aluminium lid for the mug
7 & 8 Small Beaker with lid – second mug when the titanium mug is being used as a pot. The lid makes it a useful storage jar and it is just big enough to rehydrate a 65g pack of noodles in.
9 Small Brew Kit
10 Army style tin opener
11 25ml bottle of dried milk
12 Refillable gas lighter – it has a stronger flame than a disposable lighter
13 2x fuel tablets – emergency fuel
14 Methylated spirits- in a clearly marked bottle – packed in a ziplock bag to protect the other equipment from leaks.
15 Washing up and Hygiene
– Alcohol hand cleaner – hygiene is essential when camp cooking
– 20ml Multi-purpose bio-degradable soap – for washing up, cleaning clothes or person. I decant some into a shampoo bottle that I got from a hotel
– 1/4 Pot sponge
– Hi absorbent cloth – for drying up
– Kitchen cloth
16 Plastic Cutting board – this is made from a plastic wall tile cut in half – 5cms x 12cms. Some kind of chopping board is often overlooked, having something to cut on saves other bits of kit, lids or plates getting damaged. I have several of these tiles in my camp box when one gets too badly scratched up I will replace it.
17 Victorinox Camper SAK – cooking knife, tin and bottle opener as well as an all round camp tool.
18 Paper towels in a small ziplock bag
19 Small LMF spork – this is a double ended utensil with a real fork at one end and a real spoon at the other. A true spork is not very good at getting the last drops of gravy out of a bowl or for hooking up a forkful of noodles.
20 Camp folding spoon and knife
21 Three section spice pot/shaker
22 GSI pot lifter
23 LMF ferro rod and striker
24 Spare gas lighter
25 1oz Single Malt Whisky
26 Stuff sack that holds most of this equipment
27 1l roll up water bottle with sports top for easy pouring
28 Selection of small pots and bottles to carry, dried milk, peanut butter etc
29 Coffee maker/tea strainer
30 Air tight canister for fresh coffee
31 600ml bowl with a clip on lid – this is large enough for the meals I make, but it also serves as a container for transporting more fragile food whilst walking.
32 1m square lightweight tarp – for putting on the ground and making a clean cooking area

Not shown in the photograph

  • Tea bags and sugar packets in the brew kit
  • 58 Pattern British Army water bottle
  • Plastic food bags with wire ties used both for food storage and for packing rubbish out

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Be Prepared!

I want to get plenty of overnight backpacking trips in the year, as practice for some future longer trips – The Speyside Way this summer and the Southern Upland Way summer 2013.

So whilst I have been sorting out the food this week for a trip with Jeremy next weekend I have put together a pack of food for a short solo overnighter, so if I decide to go at the last minute the food will be ready.

As I think the food pack will spend several weeks on the shelf the food had to have a good storage life – so no sausage or salami and the crackers have been double wrapped in cling film.

Menu

Trail Food
Spice and fruit oat cakes, white coffee and dried fruit and nuts

Dinner
Tuna in tomato and onion sauce, crackers, packet of noodles, tomato soup, sesame dessert, apple flakes, tea.

Supper
Hot Chocolate and biscuits

Breakfast
Tea and biscuits
Breakfast biscuits and portion of jam, 2x cereal bars, tea

Trail Food
Honey Chrysanthemum Tea and oat cakes and jam

Extra
Bag of Aldi chocolate buttons

The individual meals are packed in small ziplock bags and then these are packed in a larger ziplock bag.

The only things I need to add to this will be the tea bags and dried milk in my small brewkit – and it is ready to go.

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  • 1x Indian spiced tea bag
  • 5x tea bags
  • 3x sugar
  • salt and pepper
  • 20ml dried milk
  • 1x 500mg paracetamol tablet
  • 1x indigestion tablet
  • small refillable gas lighter – it gives a stronger flame compared to a disposable lighter

The case is an mp3 case bought at a pound shop.

Update
I have added an “army style” can opener to this pouch – as I have removed the Bantam SAK from my backpacking kitchen, so there is no longer a tin opener in the stuff sack.


I have been finishing this post, whilst waiting to go to a supplier to look at their Cloud Computing solutions, and looking out of the window here the weather is grey, wet and overcast so the above image may well be today’s “Photo of the Day”!

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Trying new backpacking food

Richard bought some different backpacking food to try out – we did not take it with us this weekend, just in case we didn’t like it. So I tried it for tea this evening.

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The food comes in a sturdy pouch, that will stand up and has notches for easy opening. You can cook it in a pot or in the bag and, if you pack a microwave you could use that.

I cooked mine in the microwave. Both Jeremy and I liked it. It was a good taste without being spicy.

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There was a good balance of lentils and beans to sauce. The 300g portion is a good size serving after a day’s walking, some crackers would soak up the sauce, or depending on your appetite noodles or rice.

Following this test we are planing to use these in future.

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Backpacking Food

I am backpacking this weekend with two friends – it is a try out hike before we go on a planned wild camp trip to the Lake District next month. It is only a short walk with an overnight stay so we need an evening meal and breakfast.

So it is noodles with smoked sausage and chocolate chip cake and custard for dinner, cereal bars, crackers and jam with fresh brewed coffee for breakfast.

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Backpacking Trip – Last Weekend

Weekend Trip to Woodhall Spa and day two here


When I got my Golite Jam pack I had planned to carry my sleeping mat inside – however my new sleeping bag does not compress as much as the previous one – so the sleeping mat had to be fixed to the outside.

Golite Jam 2

I used the top lid strap to hold the mat roll onto the pack and for extra security I clipped the elastic straps on the mat to the upper compression straps.

Before my next trip in mid April I am going to experiment with pacling the bag as I really wanted to travel with everything inside the pack.

I am also going to try and find a better (lightweight) compression sack for the sleeping bag and clothes.


The food for the weekend weighed 1.2kgs – of that the high calories/fatty foods made up – 150g sausages, 120g tinned sardines and 135g salted cashew nuts.

Saturday Mid-morning

Lightweight Backpacking Food

Saturday Lunch

Lightweight Backpacking Food

Canned Italian sardines in lemon olive oil – plenty of calories. With these I had crackers, chocolate oatcakes and tomato soup – I stored the complete meal in a ziplock bag and kept it in the pack’s external pocket so it was easy to get at.

Saturday Evening Meal

Lightweight Backpacking Food

When I arrived at the campsite I bought two bars of chocolate – so when it came to the evening meal I did not want the custard desert.

The small ziplock contains instant peach tea. I had two of the sausages that evening and saved two for Sunday.

Sunday Morning

The first thing I had was tea and biscuits whilst watching the sunrise from my sleeping bag – see here.

Lightweight Backpacking Food

The plastic bag contains a measure of Columbian roast ground coffee.

Sunday Trail Snacks

Lightweight Backpacking FoodI had the last sausage for lunch.


Resupply

I have bought in some supplies this week for my next trip.

Lightweight Backpacking Food

Lightweight Backpacking Food

Lightweight Backpacking Food

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