John Muir Trail Food Plan
All the details on the food I brought for 20 days of solo hiking in the sierras on the John Muir Trail. My goal was 2,800 calories a day.
Dialing in my food plan for 20+ days of hiking in the Sierra Mountains was the hardest part of planning my hike. Making mileage and daily hiking plans was easy thanks to a good guidebook and the mapping options in CalTopo. But the food… figuring out what to bring, how much, how to fit it all in a bear can, and getting it all ready for the resupplies took a lot of time and thinking.
I hope that this blog post will help others with the preparation process, especially folks who are dairy free. As always, it’s important to note that what worked for me may not be what your body needs, and I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it is to get out on some shorter hikes first to dial in your own food setup.
I started the planning process by looking through all my notes from prior backpacking trips. Starting five years ago, I wrote down exactly what I took on each trip, what I liked, and what I returned with. This was a tremendous help, and if you are thinking about doing a longer hike, I can’t recommend starting this note process immediately. It made it a lot easier for me as I already had ground-truth data about what I preferred to eat, what I always felt like eating even when tired and at elevation, and what I needed for longer days.
Then I made a spreadsheet with my usual favorite foods to figure out exactly where I landed for calories, sugar, and protein on a typical trip.
I quickly realized a problem – a lot of my go-to snacks would be too bulky, and space is at an absolute premium in a bear can. I love Oreos and banana chips, usually eat oatmeal for breakfast with nuts and dried fruit, and Belvita bars are a great evening snack… but these reliable items just take up too much space. Figuring out good substitutions for these took a while.
My goal with this food plan was to reach 2,800- 3,000 calories a day. I knew from prior 9 day trips that I tend to lose weight quite quickly on strenuous backpacks, and I really wanted to avoid this given how long I planned to be out. Using some free online calorie calculators plus looking at the data from prior hard trips, I landed on initially 3,000 calories as the benchmark. But, I found that during the trip some days I only ate 2,800 when I wasn't on trail as long or had shorter mileage, and that worked well too, and I only lost a couple pounds. For reference, I am 5’7 and 128 lbs, so this is quite a jump over my daily calorie intake at home.
I also know that I do ok with repeated foods, as long as I mix up the flavors. This made planning easier. It is really important to know ahead of time if you’ll tolerate similar snacks each day, because not eating enough is simply a recipe for a miserable and potentially unsafe trip. I think a number of folks overlook this, and if you can’t get out on trips to figure this out ahead of time, think about daily routines and whether you like similar things each day or need a lot of variety. While not foolproof, this can help point you in the right direction.
My severe lactose intolerance also complicates things. I can’t have any lactose at all, even in very small amounts, and on trips my reaction to it is even worse (mild to severe GI and stomach distress, which is something I absolutely need to avoid while hiking solo and in the wilderness). This means that I read labels religiously, and never try something new on a trip without testing it at home or a training hike first. Many packaged meals also have dairy, so I make my own dinners from base ingredients and did not eat the fun food made at resupply locations like Red’s Meadow.
The last consideration I had was making sure I had enough sugary snacks. From prior trips and high exertion exercise, I know that my body does the best with a resupply of sugar every hour or even more often when working hard.
I’ll start by listing out the usual daily food plan, and then share a lot of notes on each item / category below! Plus a table with the nutrition specs below as well.
Breakfast – Cliff Builder’s Bars
Lunch – 2 small flour tortillas, one turkey meat stick, fritos
Dinner – ~ 540 calories
Beans and Rice (Andrew Skurka Recipe)
Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Ramen
Peanut or Curry Noodle
Snacks
Munchie’s Peanut Butter Crackers
Nature’s Bakery Fig Bar (2 in each packet)
Go Max Go Candy Bar – Aloha or Twilight (a few justin's PB cups mixed in)
½ Cup roasted almonds or peanuts
Gummy Candies (80 calories worth)
Aloha Bar
Protein Powder – 1 scoop
Chocolove bar – 1/4 ish (not every day)
Drinks
Liquid IV
Apple Cider packet (every other day)
Miso soup packet- split over a few days
Other
Salt Tablets
Vitamins
Psyllium powder
Salt & Psyllium
SaltStick Sugar Free Electrolytes Salt Pills
I’m putting these first because I rarely see them mentioned in JMT blog posts but they have made a HUGE difference for me!! I found these earlier in the year after struggling with nausea on backpacks in May and June. My sister had the idea that maybe I was low on salt, since my day-to-day diet is mostly vegan and includes almost no processed foods.
I started with one tablet at breakfast, and then would take one every hour while going uphill and working hard. And I am honestly shocked what a difference they made (as long as I stayed on top of sugar and overall fuel, too). But I could eat a snack, and still feel off, and then have a salt tab, and within 15-30 minutes I’d feel the low nausea go away. With the hot temps I experienced during the trip, I also think these were a critically helpful addition to replace all the salt lost to sweat.
Anthony’s Organic Psyllium powder
Another thing that I didn’t see on any other JMT list, and my goodness was I glad to have this. Usually on backpacking trips light constipation is not an issue, but five days in it was, I think due to cutting out dried fruit and oatmeal and replacing that breakfast with the bars. The psyllium powder fixed the problem and kept my gut happy as could be each day!! Psyllium also helps with the opposite digestive issue, so it is just in general an awesome thing to have. I drunk it at night before my protein powder, with a serving of about 1.5 tsp.
Breakfast
Cliff Builder’s Bar – Mint or Peanut Butter flavors
With bulky oatmeal out the window, I switched to Cliff Builders Bars after a LOT of reading online forums and reddit threads. I dislike a lot of bars, many of the best ones have whey/ lactose, and others upset my stomach. Landing on the Builders Bars was a huge deal, because they are compact and nutrient dense but felt ok on my body. Some of the flavors are dairy free, and these were the best two I tried (other flavors were cloyingly sweet).
In addition to having a lot of protein – 20 grams per bar, the Builders also have a good caloric pinch with 280 calories and 18 grams of sugar.
I would often eat half to start while I was packing up camp, and then the other half once I was on the move. This method worked really well, because some mornings I found the bar to be too much all at once. And, splitting it spread the calories out over more time, which is gentler on my fussy stomach. Some mornings it was cold enough that I had to put the bar in a jacket pocket to soften it up a bit to make it easier to eat.
Yes the chocolate on the outside of the bars absolutely melted in the resupply boxes, but this did not impact taste at all. I didn’t have any melting problems with the bars once they were in my bear can, as it was always nestled in the middle of my pack or kept in the shade.
Lunch
2 small (fajita) flour tortillas (mission brand)
1 turkey meat stick- usually chomps
Fritos
While at home I am mostly vegetarian/pescatarian, but on the trail, I make an exception and eat a turkey or chicken meat stick with lunch with flour tortillas. I like the savory flavor, as peanut butter just got too sweet and tiresome on prior trips. And, when paired with a frito in each bite, it’s quite a flavorful lunch!
It is a bit dry to eat, so I often make up my liquid IV and have some with the food. I also like this meal because it can be eaten on the go if needed, and it also feels lighter on the digestion than other options I’ve tried. A tuna packet could be a nice alternative, too, but I find the foil packets really annoying, bulky, and scented to deal with after eating the contents, so I stick with the turkey sticks (whose wrappers fold up tiny).
I had some turkey sticks that were a spicy flavor and found that these gave me acid reflux, so I would never bring those again. Thankfully I had meds for reflux, but it was unexpected from this food.
Snacks
Munchie’s Peanut Butter Crackers
Nature’s Bakery Fig Bar (2 in each packet)
Go Max Go Candy Bar – Aloha or Twilight
½ Cup roasted almonds or peanuts
Gummy Candies (80 calories worth) – wedish ones with no corn syrup
Aloha Bar- mint or peanut butter
Chocolove bar – ¼
Protein Powder – 1 scoop (isopure whey zero carb, which is lactose free!)
Snacks were generally eaten in the order above, unless I had a big hard climb right at the start, in which case I would bump the candy bar and nuts earlier to support the climb as it is the sugary-est snack.
The Peanut butter crackers were something I looked forward to every single day. Tasty, gentle on the tummy, and they just “go down easy” since it’s crackers (with some water since they are dry). Never got tired of these in the 20 days.
Fig bars were a recent find a year ago, and became an instant favorite since they are very sugary. Like 18 grams of sugar per packet sugary – perfect! I often ate these in the late morning when I needed a bit of a pick me up.
Gummy candies were for sure my luxury item. Next trip I think I may substitute them for jelly beans, which would have a similar weight penalty but are easier to package. I did eat all of my gummy candies each day, and I really like the Swedish brand ones I find at MetMarket. I just like the way they give me an energy boost and also a joy boost every time I eat them.
Candy bars - Go Max Go - vegan candy bars. The two best flavors are Twilight and Aloha, and next time I'd bring mostly Aloha.These were always eaten with the nuts, which ended up around ½ cup per day. The favorite nut was the Trader Joes roasted almonds. This pairing is great because the candy bars are super sweet, and by adding the nuts I supplement the tastiness of the candy with some extra fat, protein, and calories. Also always find this snack easy to eat and digest, and it is what I fuel with on the hardest climbs. I also brought a few Justin's Peanut Butter cups for variety, but next time I'd just bring more Aloha bars, as those were always the best.
Flex snacks eaten when needed – Aloha bars. Looking back, I only ate the Aloha bars about every other day, on the days I was doing more miles. So, I could conceivably bring a couple fewer, but to be honest I thought of these as my emergency food- having 2-3 bars left during a 8 day stretch made me feel more comfortable knowing I could be ok if I had to spend an extra day out. Chocolate bar also fell into this category- could probably do without, but liked having for some variety and calorie density.
Protein powder – great!! Ate at night for after dinner snack, along with any snacks I didn’t eat that day.
What I didn’t eat – I brought a small bag of tasty rosemary sea salt marcona almonds from trader joes for each segment, thinking I’d want the extra 100-200 calories each evening. But I found that I was spending most of the day on trail, and eating later – leading to less snack needed. And, the protein powder worked the best as the evening snack.
Protein Powder – Isopure zero carb lactose free whey protein. It took a LOT of searching to find a lactose free protein powder that also had no-detect levels of lead, cadmium, or heavy metals. I was thrilled to find this one, even if it is pricy. I still dislike the taste of whey after being lactose free for so many years, but I just made myself eat it every evening. I’d mix it into a thick liquid in my pot, usually after the psyllium, as I did not bring a mug or cup. This was my go-to evening snack, and really helped me get to the protein benchmark I wanted each day.
I also had a few oreo packets in the resupply, which made for a special treat a couple days if I didn’t eat them on resupply day.
Dinner
I had four dinners I rotated between. The best was Andrew Skurka’s beans and rice dish, which is super easy to make using dried refried bean mix plus instant rice, seasoning, and fritos! I added freeze dried corn since I can’t have the cheese.
My next meal was a Skurka inspired recipe- a ramen packet plus dry sundried tomatos, dried spinach, herbs, and Textured vegetable protein plus vegan parmesan crumbles.
Last meal uses the same base ingredients with two different flavors- a fancy Koyo brand ramen packet, freeze dried peas and corn, dried coconut milk, TVP, instant rice, and then the spices to make either a peanut noodle or a curry noodle. I eat this dinner pretty soupy, and it is delicious!!
Of these four, I changed what I thought was the best throughout the trip, but I think the beans and rice was the overall winner. It always tasted good, was easy to prep at home, and always was appetizing even when I was tired and unmotivated to eat my dinner calories.
Drinks etc
This is the one category where I was really overzealous and brought too much. It was nice to have the extra stuff, but it took up a lot of space and I will save weight and volume trimming this down next time.
One liquid iv per day is all I would bring next time if I wanted to go as minimal as possible. Just enough to be really nice in the afternoon as a pick me up. I might also add a few thorne electrolyte packets, but these use stevia to sweeten and are lighter but felt too sweet on trail so I didn’t use them much.
While nice to have, my handful of apple cider packets were really nice, but heavy. I think next time I’d bring just a couple per segment of trail, 2-3, and plan them for days when I had a big climb early in the day and needed that sugar hit. Or, bring a few extra liquid Iv packets for these harder mornings. But I did like the sugary boost that the cider had on cold mornings, as I could make this cold in my water bottle, drink while packing, and then work on the builder bar breakfast on the move.
Miso soup packets- sushi chef brand. Amazing and awesome and so tasty, but they would mess up my appetite for dinner, and often I was on trail most of the day so didn’t eat them much. Maybeeeee bring one packet per section as luxury item if I thought I was going to have some days of sitting around camp in the afternoon, as I can do 3 servings from one packet.
Didn’t use much and would for sure skip-
hot cocoa. Lovely idea but bulky, and basically just added to my protein powder as a fun flavoring. I made my own mix using a milk-free hot cocoa base paired with powdered coconut milk.
Tea - I brought a packet for every other day and never used them!!
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