What Food to Bring on the John Muir Trail

Packing food for the John Muir Trail doesn’t have to be difficult, but for many it can seem like a daunting task. The southern portion from Muir Trail Ranch to Whitney Portal is 115 miles, and there is no easy resupply along this section.

This means either hiking out to Onion Valley and hitchhiking into town for a resupply and hitching back, or figuring out how to carry enough food for 115 miles. I have always chosen the latter (and simpler) option, picking up my only resupply at Muir Trail Ranch. This means squeezing 10 days worth of food into a bear can. Here’s how I do it.

Figure out how many days you will be hiking and plan out all of your meals for each of them. Most people instinctively plan on having three meals per day, but I’ve discovered that having several snacks throughout the day instead of lunch gives me more consistent energy while saving time and effort.

There’s no need to stop and bust out your camp stove at noon when pre-cooked food is available, especially when you factor in that you will need to pack 2-3 times as much fuel if you do this. I individually pack a breakfast, dinner, and several snacks for each day I anticipate to be on the trail, and I stack them sequentially in layers inside my bear can so I don’t have to empty it every time I want to eat.

TIP: Bring an extra day’s worth of food if you can, or at least a few extra Clif Bars. This gives you a cushion in case something happens or you hike slower than anticipated.

In an ideal world, you will be eating 4,000-5,000 calories and 150-200g of protein each day on the trail, but that just isn’t a reality for most of us. I start off with minimal portions in each Ziploc baggie, pack it all in my bear can, and slowly add more to each meal until the can is full. I typically end up with about 2-2.5lbs of food and 3,000 calories per day with about 100-150g of protein.

Calorie dense, compact, low-moisture foods are what you want. Fortunately, most foods that fit this description are pretty tasty (think of Nutella, peanut butter, almonds, etc). Do plan on having a balanced diet though, and don’t try to subsist solely on something like trailmix or nuts.

Fats and carbs are terrific daytime foods—fats give you sustained energy, and carbs give you immediate energy. Don’t skimp on protein though! Too many hikers focus on carbs and don’t give their muscles the protein they need to recover when they’re sleeping. High-protein dinners and supplemental protein will have you feeling better the next day than cous-cous or rice.

TIP: Bring multivitamins and protein powder to supplement a diet lacking in diversity.

Modern packaging is designed to make food look appealing and extend its shelf life. It’s also bulky and usually full of air or nitrogen to preserve freshness. You can poke the packaging with a needle, squeeze out the air, and put a piece of tape over the hole to make it smaller, but often the material itself is just too stiff to be crammed inside a bear can effectively.

In these instances, I take the food out of the package, put it inside a Ziploc bag, and if it’s particularly perishable, I throw in a tiny desiccant packet. If you do this with a freeze-dried dinner with instructions for in-the-bag cooking, all you need to do is pour the food into the boiling water in your pot instead of pouring the water into the bag.

TIP: Vacuum seal the food in your resupply bucket to delay spoilage, and add a desiccant to keep opened Mountain House food fresh.