Healthy Bites for Hearty Hikes
Growing up, Claudia Carberry frequently hit the trails to camp and hike with her family across the country. After a chance encounter with an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, Carberry knew that was something she wanted to accomplish, too. Since then she’s hiked the Appalachian Trail with her husband, tackled part of the Via Alpina in Germany, trekked through the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru and completed various trails in Honduras.
Proper nutrition helped this duo tackle the
Appalachian Trail in over 173 days.
Some of her go-to recipes on the trail included oatmeal for breakfast and a wrap with peanut butter and trail mix for lunch. But not every hiker pays as much attention to their diet as Carberry. On the trail, Carberry noticed many thru-hikers had horrendous eating habits.
“Most hikers I met spent numerous hours and countless dollars researching and purchasing the best gear, but put very little thought into nutrition,” she said.
So Carberry made a solution. Charge the Trail: Nutrition for Long-Distance Hikers was created as a passion project to develop resources for hikers to learn about nutrition, as well as energy-dense recipes that are simple to make on a backpacking stove.
“‘Hiker hunger’ kicks in after about a month and is nearly insatiable,” Carberry said. “Many hikers depend on foods like ramen noodles and Little Debbie cakes to fuel their hikes ... After hiking 15-25 miles, smearing cake frosting on a white tortilla just won’t cut it.”
