Here’s a list of foods that I really enjoyed (at one point or another) while hiking the trail. I tried to break them down between breakfast, snacks, lunch, and dinner. Remember, when in doubt, think high calories and high fat!
My favorite breakfast items:
- instant coffee
- peanut M&M’s
- cake frosting (my favorite breakfast/snack on the trail!)
- Reese’s Cups
- Pop Tarts
Some lunchtime deliciousness:
- pepperoni (pre-sliced in the pizza prep section)
- peanut butter, Nutella, and butter sandwiches… yum!
- summer sausage
- Parmesan cheese wedge
- Triscuits with cream cheese
- Tahini sandwiches (straight-up sesame tahini on a flat bread…yes!)
Snacks:
- homemade trail mix including Gold Fish crackers, dried sour cherries, honey roasted peanuts, and butterscotch chips
- Combos snack crackers saved the day!
- Sour Patch Kids
- Sunbelt granola bars (available at Dollar General stores near the Little Debbies) like coconut fudge and chocolate chip!
- peanut butter
- Nutella
- Little Debbie snack cakes (taste great, lots of fat, be careful how you pack them)
- sandwich flat bread (available on the bread isle; they keep nicely inside the pack)
Favorite dinners:
- Pasta Sides from Knorr (all of them were delicious and they cooked really easily)
- Ramen Noodles
- Kraft Mac’n’Cheese
- Bear Creek Soup–these are dried soups; potato is the best!
- Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers– SO AMAZING, HEARTY, and DELICIOUS! Who doesn’t want to eat steak on the trail?
- Idahoan Instant Mashed Potatoes
- Stove Top Stuffing (mix it together with mashed potatoes, so good!)
Miscellaneous:
- Gatorade G2 Single Serve powder mix
- hot chocolate packets
- Mio drink mix, really any powdered drink mix is a blessing!
- McFlurry spoon from McDonald’s…yes a McFlurry spoon. Don’t waste money on stupid trail spoons–they all break and are expensive!
- butter- yes, sticks of it! (This is dependent upon the weather–use caution in summer months)
- cream cheese- ” ” “
Just Plain Desperate (Foods I started to carry towards the end of my hike…just because I could!):
- McDonald’s McDoubles keep nicely for up to 3 days.. a nice hamburger on the top of a mountain summit is amazing.
- frozen pizzas cooked in town or leftover pizza from dinner; these keep very nicely for a few days.
What other hikers were eating:
- Lilly, my hiking buddy, carried a wheel of Vermont white cheddar. Lilly is a vegetarian and this was a major source of protein for her.
- Tuna; the stuff in the aluminum packets (I just hate tune!).
- Quinoa was very common on the trail to be mixed into lots of different meals.
- Hummus mix, just add water!
- oatmeal; I never really craved this though
- Jelly for PB&J sandwiches
2,179 miles 
