It’s no secret that I love walking; hillwalking and climbing have become a huge part of who I am – and I’ve learned the hard way that not being properly fuelled when doing these intensive sports is beyond detrimental, and borderline dangerous.
Eating good food doesn’t just keep your body going with energy and the strength to keep moving, it also keeps your mind alive and everybody (especially those around you) in a good mood, particularly when you’re walking 30km+ or 10 vertically.
So, here is a compilation of my favourite things to eat on the hill, on the trail, or at the crag (when the Scottish weather lets me out).
Sizeable Meals
‘Sizeable’ may be a generous word, when I eat on the hill it’s usually in smaller quantities but more frequent, rather than a few larger stops. This lets me eat on the go, and ensures that I stay consistently fuelled rather than losing energy and forgetting to eat – I learned the hard way how dangerous that is.
So I suppose when referring to a ‘sizeable’ meal I’m referring to lunch, and for this I usually go with the blandest, simplest yet effective creation known to man: a plain cheese wrap. Cheese is wonderful; I would write an entire article about how wonderful cheese is, but I’ll save that for another time. My point here is that cheese is great for fuelling energy (and being happy), and by having it in a wrap, you get some carbs without any soggy bread from condiments; love it or hate it, it’s effective.
Pasta is another dish I tend to pre-cook for the hill. If I have pasta for dinner the night before, I tend to double it up and throw half in some Tupperware to pack away in my hill bag. I do this more for a day at the crag, carrying a tub of pasta around up a Munro or on a long flat walk isn’t something I would recommend, although maybe I just need to invest in a Thermos flask.
Snacks
Here is where it gets fun. I have picked up these snacks from many different places; some have been recommended by friends and seasoned mountaineers, some I had in the house when I forgot to go shopping, and some are just really nice anyway, so why not take them up a higher altitude and enjoy them there?
Raw peppers. Whole. I will stand by this hill snack until the day I die. This was recommended to me by a good friend when I first started mountaineering; I thought he was absolutely bonkers for just taking a whole bell pepper up the hill to gnaw on, but it was the epiphany I never knew I needed. The peppers need no explanation – just try it.
Now to group my three favourites together: biscuits, chocolate, and most important of all: fruit pastilles. Dark chocolate is great for energy, it also happens to be the only thing I can stomach when I feel nauseous on the go. Biscuits again, speak for themselves, who doesn’t love a biscuit? Fruit pastilles are a niche one for me – I always buy the bags of only red and purple ones, and when it’s really cold in winter or high up in the mountains, they go hard and crunchy, would recommend.
Featured image credit: Spencer Haynes
