Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike Prep Series: Food and Water

Intro

Part 1: Gear

Part 2: Thru-hike Food and Water

Part 3: Training

Part 4: Planning, Navigation, and Cost

Food and water rank among the most pressing considerations many prospective thru-hikers have on their minds:

“How much food do I need to carry?”  “What kind of food should I bring?”  “How much water?” 

I will give my advice on this, but it is really something each hiker will have to fine tune for themselves as they get underway.

How Much Food Do I Need To Carry?

The answer to this question depends on several variables:

• Number of days between resupplys
• Daily mileage
• Terrain / elevation gain and loss
• Weather conditions
• Pack weight
• Body type / gender

First of all, figure out how many days you will need to get to your next resupply. This will determine the number of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks you will need. Your daily mileage, terrain, pack weight, and physical makeup will influence the number of calories you need to include in these meals and snacks.

It’s good to get a general idea of how many calories you burn every day without any real physical activity – your baseline (see here). As a 6-foot adult male with an athletic body type, I burn about 3,000 calories per day by simply existing. With a full day of hiking (8-10 hours), I will burn anywhere from 7,000 – 10,000 calories. As you can read here, the type of terrain, pack weight, and gender will strongly influence the number of calories you will burn on a given day.

It will be difficult to ingest all of the calories you will burn every day on your thru-hike. I lost 45 pounds on the AT and started the trail without much fat to lose. Ideally you want to make sure you are ingesting enough to stay healthy and maintain your energy levels.

You will likely be putting in lower mileage when you begin your Appalachian Trail thru-hike. This will provide you with a good on-ramp to learning what your body needs.

When I put my food together for every resupply, I chose food items by meal and simply multiplied the quantity by the number of days. Then, I picked my snacks that I could chip away at until the next resupply. I counted the calories and determined if it was adequate for the estimated daily calories I would burn.

Example of what I may eat on a standard day on the AT:

• Breakfast: 2 Clif Bars, Oatmeal Packet, Scoop of Peanut Butter

• Snack: Granola Bar, Trail Mix

• Lunch: 2 Clif Bars, 3-5 Scoops of Peanut Butter, ~5 Oreos, Trail Mix

• Snack: Granola Bar, Trail Mix, Clif Protein Builder Bar

• Dinner: 1.5 Boxes of Mack n’ Cheese with Tuna Packet and Olive Oil added, ~5 Oreos

Estimated Total Calories: ~5,500 – 6,000

Before you start the trail, make sure to have your first leg and resupply figured out so that you know how much food to bring. Otherwise, it’s easy to over-pack food as if you were preparing for the apocalypse. Northbound from Springer Mountain, the first natural stop is at Neel Gap (~35 miles). Add an additional 9 miles if you are doing the Approach Trail. Depending on your fitness level and your pack weight, this leg will likely take you 3-5 days (again, depending on whether you do the Approach Trail).

From that point, you will be able to start figuring out your food needs as you go. Generally, I would shoot for 3-5 days between resupplys.

For a food bag, I recommend getting this 13L Sea to Summit Dry Sack – it’s big enough so that you shouldn’t have any space issues and you won’t have to worry about any water getting inside. I wouldn’t worry about bringing a bear canister on the AT, but you will need to hang your food bag to keep it away from any black bears that wander into camp, and perhaps more importantly, mice.

What Kind Of Food Should I Get?

Again, I will give some advice to answer this question, but each hiker will need to figure out what works for them.

Not All Calories Are Created Equal

In general, I will say to avoid excessive amounts of sugar. Once “hiker hunger” sets in, it is very tempting to get loads of candy and chocolate-covered everything when resupplying. As I note in 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Hiking the AT, this will bite you! While I have nothing against having some sweets in your food supply, too much sugar leads to energy crashes, mood swings, and headaches. Just don’t do it.

Carbs are easy enough to find in various food items, but make sure you are getting plenty of fats and proteins too.

Some of my food staples were:

• Peanut butter – it seems heavy, but actually has a very efficient calorie to weight ratio. Loads of fat and good protein
• Clif Bars – Lots of good carbs, protein, fat, and vitamins
• Clif Builder Bars – Good protein source
• Trail mix
• Banana chips
• Pasta with olive oil and tuna (while we still carried a cook set)

Really, just try not to overdo it on the sugary and overly-processed foods. It’s hard to eat super healthily on a thru-hike, but you can at least avoid eating garbage day in and day out.

When you are in town, make an effort to eat some fruits and veggies (also noted in 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Hiking the AT). Your body will thank you for it. Yes, eat your heart out at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, just make sure to include a salad in there.

How Much Water Should I Carry?

The general rule of thumb is to carry 1/2 liters of water for every hour of hiking. With that said, I rarely ever carried more than two liters of water at a time. Water is abundant on the AT and you typically will not have any issues finding a good water source by referring to your guide book. Even though I rarely depleted my water before having opportunity to refill again, I liked filling up my two liters at water sources to be safe and so I could drink freely.

Just be sure to remember to check your guidebook when filling up water to see where the next source is. I should note that although I only used it once or twice, I also carried a 1-liter ultralight bladder for extra storage if needed for a total water capacity of 3 liters.

How Careful Do I Need To Be About Treating Water?

Officially, you should treat all the water you drink. Giardia is real and people do get it along the AT (and perhaps other stomach bugs). I would recommend the Sawyer Micro Squeeze water filter, Aqua Mira drops, or a pump filter such as the Katadyn Hiker Microfilter (a bit heavier, but having the hose to extract water from otherwise inaccessible sources can be really useful). Note: You may also want to bring a “scoop” (if you are not using a water filter with a hose) in order to access shallow water sources that may be inaccessible with the mouth of your water bottle. Cut-off the bottom third of a Gatorade bottle and that will do fine.

While I officially recommend that you filter every source you drink from, I admit that I did not bother filtering my water from many sources – those being natural springs. You will find many springs all along the AT that gush ice-cold water from deep in the earth – and it is delicious! Just be aware of the risks of drinking untreated water.

So there it is- my thoughts on food and water prep for the AT thru-hike. What are you favorite meals or snacks while you are hiking? Do you normally carry a cook set or keep it simple? If you have any questions or ideas please comment below!

Stay tuned and be sure to subscribe for more posts in our Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike Prep series!

Happy Hiking!

— Motown