When you are spending an extended period of time in the backcountry, grinding day after day - your nutrition can make or break your performance. I’ve found over the last few years that my body needs the right fuel to be able to hike 8-14 miles per day in search of elk in the Rocky Mountains. This same philosophy can be applied to other hunts, but for the sake of this article, I am going to focus on a September elk hunt.
I built this list off of trying to only include foods with over 100 calories per ounce, while being high in fats and proteins. Utilizing MTNTOUGH Fitness Lab’s Backcountry Calorie Counter, I was able to estimate the number of calories burned on a typical day. The number is usually astonishing and a number that most likely you’ll never reach to completely replenish yourself, but doing your best to eat more than you think you need can greatly reduce your chances of “bonking”. I wrote an article for Heather’s Choice on my experience with bonking on my 14 day elk hunt last year that you can find here. You can see the previous food list I used and see the big difference in calories from last year to this year.
For all of the food listed in my list, you can find them at the links below. I usually change up the flavors for each day so it’s not as monotonous, but still generally take the same things every day.
Heather’s Choice breakfasts, dinners and packaroons - use coupon code eastmeetswest for free shipping on orders over $99!