trail food | Going Wherever It Leads

Charlton Lake, Oregon, first thing in the morning, before a beautiful trail run, then quick swim –ah, camping life

This past weekend Not-a-Bear and I donned our trail names once again and headed to the PCT –this time as trail angels, and weekend car campers, at Charlton Lake in the Willamette National Forest, near Bend, Oregon. The lake and campsites that surround it are on a lovely stretch of trail surrounded by tall pines and dotted with crystal clear lakes. We passed through the area last year at this time (about a week later), and figured there would probably be a good-sized pack of this year’s PCT thru hikers to feed.

We were right! We lost count, but we probably saw around 40 hikers in the two days were we there. We grilled up 60 hamburgers, 32 hot dogs, and 2 veggie burgers, and doled out 48 cans of soda (grape, strawberry, and cream soda were the hits, and favorites of mine on the trail), 72 beers, 2 bags of applies, 4 giant bags of potato chips, sour patch kids, a bag of baby carrots, and lots of baked goods –basically everything we craved as hikers. We didn’t bring any food back with us and ran out earlier than we’d expected.

We had a blast! For those of you unfamiliar with trail magic, it is when strangers give unexpected food to hikers. This could be in the form of a cooler by a trail head filled with cold soda, or cooking up an actual

fun time feeding new friends

meal. It is something you don’t expect on the trail, but is always appreciated, and often the pick-me-up you need at just the right time. Our highest compliments of the weekend were from hikers who told us they were having a really bad day until they saw our signs on the trail for burgers and beers, and then things picked up. I remember feeling the same.

finally got to break out the hammock we got as a wedding gift, thought I’d have more time to relax in it, but we were quite busy with our guests!

We really enjoyed chatting with this year’s hikers and learning about how different the trail is compared to last year. For one thing, they got a lot of snow in the Sierras and had some miserable sounding stories involving miles of snowfields, ice axes, and micro-spikes. I am glad that wasn’t us last year! 2015 was an exceptionally low snow year, followed by a pretty high one this year. This led to more water in sections that were very dry for us, but also an increase in mosquitoes. We had a small smokey campfire burning all weekend to keep them down, but when you left that circle you certainly felt them, and many hikers came in with bug netting covering their faces. The bugs were long gone last year at this time.

For us it was nostalgic to be hanging with hikers again (I didn’t even mind the smell!), and fun to live vicariously for the weekend. For me especially it was really nice to feel like I fit in, something I struggled with most of my own hike last year. I finally felt like I earned my trail cred. It felt good to be able to give advice to this year’s hikers, share our stories, and listen to theirs.

Deschutes River, near Bend

It was a great group of hikers, and just a perfect weekend, topped by heading into Bend on Sunday for the night. Since we ran out of food on Saturday, we left a little earlier than planned and had time to check out some of the sights around Newberry National Volcanic Monument, like Lava River Cave, a cave created by a hollowed out lava tube, and some rapids on the Deschutes River. Then we spent the afternoon and evening exploring McMenamin’s Old St. Francis School, a Catholic School beautifully and creatively restored to a hotel, complete with a soaking pool, several bars and restaurants, and even hidden rooms filled with very cool art work.

one of many really cool pieces of art at Old St. Francis School Hotel, Bend

Now we are home, back to the real world, but it was a great mini-vacation.

Over-and-out,

Comet

P.S. If you’d like to see some of the things I’ve been up to check out The Passion Project, especially the profile of potter, Amy Hepner, a thru-hiker we met on-trail last year. Subscribe to read about another creative thru hiker I met in the next installment.

sunset, Charlton Lake

moon’s reflection

attempting to make instant mashed potatoes a little healthier

This past week, in addition to our usual training at the gym and hiking, we added trying out the food we will be eating on the trail. For the last 5 days, we ate the foods we will be taking with us, and cooked it on our camp stove, even ate it out of our camp bowls with our sporks.

Now, we did not eat as much food as we will be eating on the trail. There is no way we can pack in that many calories with our normal daily activities, no matter how stressful my last week of work got. (Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad.) So, we were just trying out the types of foods, to see what we really liked, what got old fast, etc.

Here’s what I ate:

Breakfast: protein granola bars

Lunch: Cheezits, peanut butter, cheddar cheese

our stove and cook pot

Dinner: instant mashed potatoes most nights, and one night instant mac and cheese, with the following mixed in for variety: turkey jerky, chia seeds, pea protein powder, green food powder (lots of wheatgrass, spirulina, and other veggies), freeze dried green beans

Snacks: freeze dried apples, snap pea crisps, peanut butter

Jason ate a variation of the same, only with beef jerky and bacon jerky (yes, that is a thing, very salty!).

Here’s what I learned:

me eating lunch in my car at work, peanut butter on cheddar, yum!

I still could eat Cheezits every day of the week, but I don’t like them with peanut butter.
I don’t mind a spoonful of peanut butter for a mid-morning snack.
I quite enjoy using slices of cheese as “crackers” for the peanut butter for lunch (Instead of Cheezits, because those are just too delicious to eat with anything else. I may have a problem!)
I much preferred instant mashed potatoes to instant mac and cheese (this may surprise many).
Jerky isn’t so bad mixed in with stuff.
Freeze dried green beans are quite good and soften up in mashed potatoes.
We learned the best technique to stir water into instant mashed in a bowl that it just barely fits into (add a little powder, add a little water, repeat until full).
I did like the taste of the green food powders I was trying out. I’ll get a large bottle of it to divvy out in our food boxes to mail.
mmm, dinner!
It takes about two days for my stomach to adjust to this new diet.
I’m gonna need a lot more snacks!

Another bit of training I’ve done that I haven’t yet mentioned is earning my orienteering badge –learning to use a compass, successfully read and better understand maps, and navigate a trail better. Jason is really an old pro at this, having earned his badge in boy scouts long ago, and can navigate quite well on and off trail in the world.

I, on the other hand, will admit, not so much. But I have successfully learned, I think, we’ll see; or hopefully, we’ll never have to see.

still lots of snow on our last hike! Though it’s finally starting to melt.

So, we have just about everything sold, stored, or packed into our car now. Next week we’ll be hitting the road! We’re driving to Oregon to drop off our car and stuff.

Fun stops we’re looking forward to on our road trip include the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, Badlands of South Dakota, and Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone. Stayed tuned!

Any recommendations of things to see and do, places to eat? We’ll be taking the northern route, a lot of I-90.

See you on the road!
~Catie

Round Top, Belgrade Lakes, Maine. If you look closely, you can see the snow flurries.

Going Wherever It Leads

Exploring motherhood and Mother Nature

Tag Archives: trail food

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