PCT Food

 Food is a huge topic of conversation for any long distance like, especially while on the trail. Thru-hikers either stop in towns along the way to pick up food, or have someone mail  resupply food boxes to them in route, or a combination of both. Opinions can be very strong towards either tactic, but personal preference is the ultimate determining factor.

I'm choosing to resupply with mail drops for almost the entire PCT. I like being able to know that I will be eating things I enjoy during my whole trip. I have come up with a decently varied menu to prevent growing tired of the same old meals.

Some of the food I dehydrated, including pinto beans, refried beans, black beans, peaches, diced potatoes, salsa, pasta sauce, corn, lentil soup and applesauce.  Can you tell whats what?

My cabinet of dehydrated food and home-brew.

I have been dehydrating food for months to try and get enough for my 4.5 month diet of about 5,000 calories a day. That is about 150 days x 5,000 calories/day = 750,000 calories to be consumed throughout the trip.

Dehydrated food can be stored for years, if certain precautions are taken and certain elements eliminated. For long term storage, dehydrated food must be kept away from moisture, oxygen, heat and light.  To try and achieve this, I keep the jarred food in a cabinet I previously used to store my home-brewing stuff, as beer doesn't like light either.  I also try and cram as much food into each jar as possible to eliminate air, and use oxygen absorber packets to remove what air is left.  I store them in my basement because not only is it convenient, but it is also the coldest part of my house.

Dehydrator with dehydrated applesauce.

I have several goals when it comes to my food. The first is to carry calorie dense foods that are high in fat. The best that I know of in this category is olive oil, at 251 calories per ounce. I have been making hot chili pepper infused olive oil for a few years now, and I use it on most dishes at home.  For the trail I made 180 ounces (about 1.4 gallons) of this spicy oil, and I'm very excited to carry it everyday on the trail (separated into 10 oz containers of course).

My spicy olive oil in a
Naked Juice bottle.

Dehydrating such a massive amount of food is a huge task.  I am someone who is always working on some kind of project, so dehydrating food has been (mostly) a fun, ongoing project; especially because I'm obsessing about the trail anyway.  However there are some items that I found are a good enough deal to buy in bulk already dehydrated.  Of course this depends on if your chosen food is in season or not, or if they are possible to dehydrate.  I have not attempted to dehydrate any dairy products, as they often don't keep well when done at home.

This is all of the dehydrated food I have bought so far, dotted with my hot oil.