Smoky Mountains 2015 Backpacking Menu & Food Prep List

One of the most important parts of a backpacking trip take place before the actual trip. We're talking food prep and menu planning. To prepare for our 4-day, 3-night trip in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I packed enough food for a week, or so it felt. My prediction, we'll eat all the snacks and breakfast food, but a number of the dry meals will be left untouched. It's just not convenient to fire up the camp stove in the middle of a hike. Especially if it's too hot, too rainy, or there's just not a good spot alongside the trail to throw down and do some cooking.

My husband said he would carry the food bag if I kept its weight around 6 pounds (2.7 kg). Hurray! That said, our menu and food prep list for our 2015 Smoky Mountains backpacking trip included a few things to please each palate. He likes the convenience of prepackaged freeze-dried meals and factory sweetened oatmeal. He also likes Roasted Peanut Crunch bars, beef jerky, and Gatorade. 

I like to have a warm mint tea when it's rainy. I also like plain oatmeal with fruits and nuts added, home dehydrated meals, and don't eat foods with sweeteners of any kind. I cherry pick the nuts and raisins out of trail mix and my family cherry picks the candies. Together we make a pretty good team.  Given our palates, we planned our Smoky Mountains backpacking menu and began preparing as follows:

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS BACKPACKING MENU

Meal Plan by Day					Snacks	Drinks
	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4
Breakfast	On the Road	Oatmeal , Freeze-dried Fruit, & Nuts	Oatmeal , Freeze-dried Fruit, & Nuts	Oatmeal , Freeze-dried Fruit, & Nuts	Beef Jerky, Cashews, Trail Mix, Granola Bars	Water, Gatorade, Mint Tea, Electrolyte Drink Tabs
Lunch	Mountain House Meals	Mountain House Meals	Backpacker's Pantry Meal	Left-over Snacks on the Way Out		Spare
Dinner	Beef Tacos with Black Beans on Flour Tortillas	Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and Freeze-dried Peas, Crushed Red Peppers	Beef Stroganoff with Freeze-dried Peas and Egg Noodles	On the Road		None (Extra Snacks)

Food Preparation List in Support of Our GREAT Smoky Mountains  Menu

Cook & Dehydrate	Purchase & Repackage		Pack as Purchased
Beef stroganoff	Oatmeal packets (12) (add own freeze dried fruit and nuts)	Crushed red peppers	Backpacker's Pantry Thai style coconut curry with beef serves 2
Egg noodles	Freeze dried peas (1)	Trail mix	Mountain House beef stew serves 1 (2)
Meat sauce	Beef jerky	Roasted peanut crunch granola bars (3)	Mountain House chicken and rice serves 1 (1)
Spaghetti	LÄRABAR (4)	Cashews	Mountain House sweet and sour port serves 1 (1)
Taco meat with black beans	Flour tortillas (6)	Gatorade single serve packets (3)	Electrolyte drink tabs