Meals & Menus
Mountain hiking guarantees a good appetite! Everyone who hikes to Sturtevant will burn a lot of calories that need to be replaced. This is especially so in winter weather, when staying warm requires calories to burn. Here’s how to satisfy yourself, family, friends and groups.Preparing your food and menus must account for more than just the food itself: everything that goes to Camp is carried, either by pack animals or people-as-pack animals! So these characteristics very useful:
- Food that is lightweight, compact, with a minimum of packaging.
- Food packaging that can be compacted, recycled and packed back out; from best to worst, these are paper, cardboard, soft plastic (from plastic bags to foam egg cartons,) hard plastic, aluminum, (steel) cans, and glass.
- Packaging that is strong enough to protect food during the 2-3 hours of packing—which is just the opposite of the list above!
- Food that has a minimum of water (for example, instead of canned soup, soup mixes or the fresh foods to make soup; frozen orange juice instead of fresh, etc.)
- Food without a lot of byproducts and leftovers (grease, bones, etc.)
- Unpackaged soft foods, especially tender vegetables, like big tomatoes (cherry or Roma tomatoes do OK.) Properly packed, eggs are fine too.
- Food that has to stay frozen, such as ice cream; the pack-train on a hot day can mean food goes unrefrigerated for 2-3 hours. Cold food—milk, eggs, packaged meats, etc. will do fine. (Packing these things together helps them stay cold.) There are full size refrigerators with freezers ready at Camp.
Foodstuff and kitchen stuff that’s already at Camp for your use: all common spices, salt & pepper, dish soap, scrubbie-sponges and paper towels. For small groups (less than ten people,) there is usually a leftover supply aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and dry drink mixes, such as lemonade.
A Recommended Saturday-Sunday Menu
- In general, fancy foods with long, complicated prep times aren’t necessary; good, basic food well prepared and served hot and fresh will do the job.
- Providing for comfort food in the way of snacks, nuts, cookies, hot chocolate, etc. makes people feel extra-satisfied.
- You’ll need to figure quantities according to the size and age of your group—teenagers eat more!
- Bulk food stores like Costco provide good food, usually in the right kind of packaging, at the right price.
Saturday:
- People bring their own picnic lunch to eat on the trail or on arrival in Camp (or do a make-your-own sandwich buffet as described for Sunday lunch—see below.)
- Put out easy finger snacks upon arrival: mixed nuts, snack mix, string cheese, fresh fruit like apples, lemonade; in general have these out before and after all meal times.
- For all subsequent mealtimes, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, punch/lemonade, creamer.
Dinner:
- Spaghetti (pasta and sauce, parmesan cheese,) oven-warmed French bread with butter, steamed broccoli; cookies or brownies (can also be pre-made and packed in.)
- For an alternative or second night’s dinner: any kind of sausage, chopped and sautéed with onions and garlic, served with rice; plus mixed (frozen) vegetables.
- OR, the classic baked potato bar will never taste as good as it does in the mountain air! Easy time make (especially if you pre-bake the potatoes before the trip—saves time,) and excellent hiking food.
Sunday:
Breakfast:
- Hot drinks and juice.
- Pick one or two of the following: oatmeal (plus raisins, walnuts, brown sugar, a little milk,) bagels or muffins with butter, and/or ‘heavy’ cereal like granola (does require milk—more for the younger crowd.)
- Sliced oranges or other fresh fruit (or canned sliced fruit like peaches.)
- Some protein: a good option is boiled eggs; boil them the night before to be ready first thing in the morning (leave in the pot and store in the refrigerator, then briefly re-heat in the morning.)
- In cold weather or for a second overnight, pancakes or French toast is a good option (but requires someone to be up early and cooking.)
Lunch:
- Have each person make their own trail lunch at a sandwich buffet; put out 2-3 loaves of different kinds of bread; easy and cheap is peanut butter and jelly; better is sliced meats and cheeses plus condiments, lettuce, maybe tomatoes.
- Apples and individual snack servings of chips/nuts; more string cheese.
- Clear out all the cookies, desserts, etc.
- Clean out all the juices, lemonade, etc.
- For cold weather or a second day’s lunch with time to cook: chili, grated cheese and cornbread; or soup and French rolls or biscuits—repeat all the fruit, etc.
