The Bowl of Soup That Changed How I Do Day Two

I used to never take soup on hikes. I would roll into camp at the end of day 2, drop the pack, set up the tent, and then sit around hungry, waiting for dinner. Sometimes that wait was an hour. Sometimes it was more.

A few years ago I started carrying some small sachets of miso soup. Just as a salty, warm thing to drink at the end of a cold day. It was meant to be a hot-water habit, not a food strategy.

Then something shifted. By the third or fourth trip carrying miso, I noticed I was not hitting the same energy hole between arriving at camp and dinner. I would pitch the tent, boil up some water, drink the soup, and feel like a person again. Five minutes of work, fifteen minutes of warmth, and the rest of the evening felt steadier.

These days a cup of soup is the first thing I do after the tent is up. Miso or Laksa are my favourites. I take one for every day on trail, no exceptions.

The thing I realised, sitting there with a cup of hot soup on a cold ridge, was that I had been thinking about food wrong for years. As a young whipper snapper, I lived on lollies and chocolate on the track. My dad called them empty calories, and he was right. Sugar gives you twenty minutes of go, doesn’t fill you up, then a longer crash. You arrive at camp running on a deficit, and dinner is too far away to fix it.

The principle that came out of all of it, the one I now plan every multi-day food list around, is that every snack on a multi-day hike has to do two jobs. It has to fill you up, and it has to give you energy. Sugar only does one of those. Nuts, jerky, scroggin with a bit of chocolate folded through, a small cup of soup at camp, those do both.

And your main meal at night, well that sets you up completely for the next day. If you want a starting point, my Free Dehydrated Trail Recipes is the free thing I would point you at. It is what I use as the on-ramp before people get into the more involved meal planning who want to make up tastier meals themselves. You can grab it here.

Day two of a trip is not the day to find out your food does not work. The cup of soup is a small thing. It is also the small thing that taught me everything.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks for reading Mowser’s Musings. I hope this helps you hike further and happier.

Until next week, keep exploring.

Mowser

Discover more. Hike further.

P.S. If you’re not keen on dehydrating your own meals, you can also check out some of my favourite pre-made meals on my TrailKit website here😀