Trekking food

After a full day of climbing and trekking, dinner time is one of the times my friends and I look forward to, apart from the summit! I think it is during these meal times where people at a trek really talk, bond, and get to know each other!

Actually, if you are going for short (1-2 day) treks, you can practically bring anything up! For example, the picture above shows one occasion where we actually brought a steamboat and fresh food up Pelepah waterfalls! It was fun having Tom Yam steamboat with river water! Well, of course, this is not the norm - typically we will bring instant noodles and canned food, because these are the easiest to cook.

The major considerations when bringing food up for treks are (1) freshness (2) weight (3) rubbish

Freshness

The Pelepah trek is only 4 - 5 hours up, and the head of the trek is just 1 hour’s drive from Kota Tinggi town, where you can find packet frozen food readily from the supermarket, so, it would be easy to bring fresh food up! However, this may not be the case for other treks.

To carry fresh food, we would normally put the food into a small ice box, and then stuff the ice box with ice-packs (you can find ice-packs when you buy cakes!). This “set up” can really keep the food frozen for over a day, provided you are travelling under a covered canopy. When we reached the campsite, the food is still pretty frozen!

Weight

If you have a choice between canned soup and powdered soup, it would make sense to buy the powdered one! Of course, again, it all depends very much on how “sensitive” your taste buds are. And also, if possible, choose plastic packaging instead of cans, or glass! It will make your load much lighter!

Rubbish

It is also important to consider the waste you create when you cook. Remember, you have the responsibility bring down whatever you bring up! “Leave only footprints, take only photographs” - is the rule. So… remember that the food cans will be rubbish after you are done with them, and the same goes for other packaging materials like the wrapper from the muesli bar, and the styrofoam should you decide to bring cup noodles up.

All these said, there are some considerations must be made when selecting food for cooking at high altitudes! Why? Because water boils at a lower temperature at high altitudes, so food will take a longer time to cook. It would therefore be clever to bring food that are easier to cook! For example, choose instant noodles instead of spaghetti! Remember that a longer time to cook means you have to exhaust more fuel!