Other bloggers have written about vegan Oreos plenty before, and are in agreement that in the U.S. Oreos are in fact vegan. Though unfortunately it seems this is not the case in Europe or other places around the world, though it appears this petition garnered a positive recent response from Kraft Foods UK.

A single package has over 2000 calories and I burned through each one in just a few days. Cookies are an easy form of cheap calories on the trail when you’re burning as many as a thru-hiker. That Oreos are vegan is merely coincidental, as many of my hiker friends ate them as well. It certainly helps that they are available in almost any size grocery store.

From my personal experience with nutrition on a thru-hike, I found that I needed so many calories on a daily basis, paired with the difficulty of carrying and cooking fresh food, that I frequently padded my diet with these sorts of foods. I justified that if I ate more “nutritious” foods for the bulk of my main meals, it was ok to add in from the crappy-but-delicious-and-calorie-dense category. When I was doing well, I tried to have some semblance of vegetables included in my dinners. Though often that was just in the form of the little bits that were in packaged Indian food and rice and bean mixes… oh well.

Given the availability (and if they’re on sale) I’ll always choose organic mint Newman-O’s or Liz Lovely for a real treat.

*A disclaimer: I debated with myself about doing this kind of post that seemingly endorses a single product from a big company. Unfortunately, because of the general reality of the limited food choices along the Appalachian Trail, my intention is to highlight vegan options that are widely available for easy resupply. I encourage you to make your own decisions! And please don’t take this as an argument that it is only possible to thru-hike by eating crappy food, it’s just easier.

Original Buff $20

It’s like a bandana but it’s attached in a loop. Pretty versatile thing, I wore it as a headband, or around my neck when it was a little bit chilly. Comes in lots of colors.

Platypus Water Tank 4.0-Liter, 3.6oz. $30

A collapsible water carrier! I never would have thought of this before I actually saw it in use on the trail. I first bought it when I was still using a filter. It was way more comfortable to go sit and filter at camp, instead of awkwardly balancing my water bottles down by the stream. And later on, it was just super nice to get all the water I needed in one trip. Sometimes the water source is a good hike from the shelter…’

Mountain Laurel Designs eVent Rain Mitt, 1.2oz/pair. $49

I don’t have these and I’ve never worn them, but, I wish I did! I had a different brand of rain mitts that didn’t work so well, they wore out pretty quickly and weren’t very waterproof. But I can’t say enough about how great rain mitts are. When it’s cold and rainy, fleece gloves get soaked and don’t keep you very warm. Before my next big hike, I’ll probably get a pair of these, or try my hand at making a pair myself…

Fleece Socks, $15

One of my favorite backpacking “tricks” is to carry a pair of camp socks that I only wear when I’m done hiking for the day. This way I always have a dry, cleanish pair of socks to put on after a long, cold day of slogging through the mud. I found fleece socks to be a great choice for this, they’re warm and really lightweight, and there’s no chance of confusing them with your hiking socks. Any basic fleece sock is fine, I recently found some more inexpensive ones at Costco.

Liz Lovely Cookies, $4

Because they’re my favorite cookies, vegan, made in Vermont, and delicious. I’m always happy when someone gets me a pack of these…

So there’s a few options, hopefully something that might be just right for someone you know who’s planning a thru-hike!

Happy December! I mean, happy end of the fiscal fourth quarter!

“A footpath for those who seek fellowship with the wilderness.”

When I was 13 I spent a summer in Maine at an outdoor adventure camp. We camped every night, cooked our own food and spent our days hiking and rock climbing, hopping from activity to activity. It was fantastic and I loved it so much that I went back the following year.

Only that year was different, it featured a four day backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail, and it sparked inside me the burning desire to thru-hike. The hike that summer was hard, my whole body hurt and I was the slowest in the group, but was one of the only kids who loved every second. While everyone else was complaining, I was soaking it all up.

Even though I was the slowest in the group, I told my leaders that I was going to hike the whole thing one day.

There are a lot of things that drive someone to choose spending months in the woods instead of in civilization. For me, it was the idea of carrying my whole life in one backpack. I wanted to completely rely on myself in a way that was difficult to find while off the trail. I wanted to set out on an incredible adventure, and in the mean time fulfill one of my dreams.

Once on trail for a while, life changes and begins to revolve around your daily life of walking. It is very different than “off-trail” and perspectives of a thru-hike change in a big way. The big dreams and ideas of what a hike will be like start to fall away. The sense of accomplishment at the end is real. But along the way, the old ideas become less important, less tangible, and they change to accept the reality of what a thru-hike is like.

I remember coming home at the end of my hike and finding it very difficult to understand what the experience was, it was impossible to put into words.

It was the constant reassessment of what’s important and what isn’t. On one hand is the pain and challenge of getting up every day to keep going. On the other is the incredible feeling of reaching the top of the next mountain, and of having no worries except what is happening on the trail.

I think that before starting a thru-hike, many people have misconceptions about what they will find and what it will be like. Many expect to “find themselves” or just have a relaxing experience in the wilderness. A thru-hike is nothing like that. I remember a discussion one day amongst my trail friends a few months in, and everyone had different expectations than what the hike turned out to be. The truth is that this is what drives many people to quit before the end. On the other hand, the reality for me was that the changes and experiences I had on the trail will stay with me forever and have definitely helped shape and add perspective to some aspects of my life. But the immediate sense of “change” after completion that I was hoping for never came to be.

But my thru-hike was still incredible, and I still love the Appalachian Trail. When I encounter aspects of the A.T., I am washed over with nostalgia and a new longing to be back on the trail…

One tablespoon of olive oil has over one hundred calories and thirteen grams of fat.

I had read about people carrying olive oil on the trail before I started, and was tempted enough to give it a try. I bought an eight ounce bottle (weight: one ounce) and filled it with olive oil. It was great! I added a healthy splash to every dinner. It added some nice flavor and a calorie boost. It definitely helped with flavor in the beginning of my hike when I was eating couscous and beans every night…

I found that almost every grocery store carried eight ounce bottles of olive oil, often a store brand that cost between two and three bucks. I would pour it into my bottle, which had a much more secure lid.

This is just one more little trick that helped me stay vegan, stay healthy, and power through a successful thru-hike.

They’re super tasty, several vegan flavors, pack some decent calories, and are a really easy food to eat on the trail.

Pros: 

• Delicious. Seriously. India has amazing vegetarian food that is often vegan or can easily be made vegan. Anyone who says vegan food can’t be flavorful should go eat at an Indian restaurant…
• Already cooked. I’ve eaten it cold right from the pouch, but it’s better if you heat it up a little. On the trail I would boil water for some instant rice, and then just mix the pouch in with the cooked rice.
• Relatively easy to find, especially larger grocery stores. When you find them, usually at least one or two varieties will be vegan. (Unlike Knorr Sides, which has so many flavors and so few vegan ones, that even if a store carries them, they’re probably won’t be a vegan one).
• Approximately 400-500 calories per pouch. High in protein and fat.

Cons:

• Reasonable weight. They usually weigh around 9-10 ounces. Light enough to carry a couple out of town, but I probably wouldn’t want to carry more than three or four…
• Won’t find them in smaller towns. When I packed mail drops for northern New England, I included a couple in each box for dinners.
• Probably not enough by itself for a full thru-hiker meal. I mixed mine with a little instant rice, and ate it with a tortilla or two.

Well, here’s to eating delicious Indian vegan food on a thru-hike!

Switching out my first pair of shoes after seven hundred miles on the AT!

Unlucky for vegans, shoes are often the last holdouts of non-vegan clothing items in our wardrobes. It can also be difficult to find good vegan shoes. On my hike I wore trail runners, and I would recommend them to any thru-hiker. Lucky for us, it is much easier to find vegan sneakers than vegan hiking boots.

Boots are heavy, clunky, and take significantly more effort to walk in compared to shoes. I once read that one pound of extra weight on your feet is the equivalent of seven pounds of extra weight on your back. Don’t know if that’s really true, but you can definitely notice the difference if you switch from boots to trail runners. I find lighter shoes to be easier to hike in and more comfortable.

I wore New Balance trail runners, which is their “MT” or “WT” model line. They’re all synthetic, no leather here! I really liked these shoes, and I went through three pairs of them! New Balance still makes a lot of their shoes in the US, too (no sweat). But you can check out any other brand of trail runners as well, there are many varieties and largely made without leather. People wore all different brands of shoes and boots on the trail.

For hiking boots, I think there is still some of the old-school thinking that still defines boots for many people; that is, they need to be all leather. This unfortunately results in many fewer vegan options. Garmont used to make a vegan boot but it’s since been discontinued. The folks over at hikingboots.com have a post listing some vegan boot options.

But seriously, unless you are winter hiking or have really bad ankles, I strongly recommend trying out some trail runners on your next hike! As a further note, mine were not waterproof and it wasn’t a problem at all.

edit: New Balance addresses vegan shoes here. Though many of their shoes are synthetic, they sometimes use nonvegan glue, depending on what is available. I found these shoes to be the best bet for my needs, and I was ok with using them. If you know of any 100% vegan trail runners, leave the name in the comments!

During your hike you’ll probably encounter a lot of people using ultralight down sleeping bags. Western Mountaineering is in a lot of the gear stores along the AT and has twenty degree bags that are around two pounds. Many people (who have money…) shell out for these. But down is not the only ultralight option. Two of my hiking partners made their own ultralight synthetic hiking quilts from a kit by Ray Jardine. They put them together with no sewing experience, and seemed to be quite happy.

New developments in hiking technology have led to a lot of really great vegan alternatives to the old traditional gear. There are plenty of ultralight synthetic sleeping bags that are just as warm as down.

Protip: line your sleeping bag stuff sack with a light trash bag for an extra layer of protection to be sure it never gets wet.

What is your sleeping bag set-up? Leave it in the comments!

Two nights on the Appalachian Trail this week! Thru-hiking food is often very different from what you could eat on a shorter trip. If leaving from home it may be possible to break out the dehydrator or whip up some more exciting meals to take with you. On a thru-hike that’s usually not an option unless you cook months worth of meals in advance and mail them to yourself…

On this hike I wanted to eat the same food I ate on my thru-hike, so we headed to Trader Joe’s and picked up some good options. We found these multigrain pilafs. Each package is 400 calories and has 16 grams of protein. That’s not bad! Because these are wet (not dehydrated), at 10 ounces these are heavier than more traditional backpacking foods like Lipton (Knorr) Sides, which can be six ounces each. (As an aside, there are very few Lipton Sides that are vegan, I rarely came across them…). For me, it was worth it to carry a little extra weight in order to have some good tasting dinners. I usually would pack something like this for the first or second night out of town, saving lighter meals for later.

The multigrain pilaf was tasty. To bulk it up a bit we made some instant rice and then added the pilaf to the cooked rice, and then ate it all with a tortilla. On my actual hike I would have added some olive oil and ground chili pepper, and maybe some nutritional yeast too.

I found packaged products like this to be widely available in grocery stores, there were several different brands in 2009 including Kashi.

I think so. Peanut butter is super high in calories, protein, and fat. These are obviously the main nutrients you need to be aware of when undertaking strenuous physical activity like a thru-hike. Two tablespoons of peanut butter has 190 calories, 16g of fat and 7g of protein (source). There are few vegan foods comparable to the nutrient density of peanut butter. Non-vegan hikers of course eat a lot of cheese and some eat meat.

I ate peanut butter on my hike for lunch almost every day. Sometimes just by the spoonful, but usually with a bagel or tortilla. And sometimes with chocolate chips when I had them.

When I could find it, I preferred the “natural” varieties from the big companies like Skippy. They don’t have partially hydrogenated oil like most peanut butters do, but they still have a little sugar in them so they’re tastier and easier to eat daily.

Maybe you’re thinking, “really? peanut butter? tell me something new.” I believe these kinds of foods are important to affirm for vegan hikers. The reality is that most long-distance hikers–vegan or not–are surviving on an extremely limited variety of food. Most hikers carry cheese as an easy, calorie-dense trail food; peanut butter is a very strong alternative.