Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail
Pennsylvania
October 2008
When I take beginner backpackers out on the trail, I introduce them to something I call “food groups.” Our schedule for their first outing (this being the first lifetime experience of sleeping outdoors for some of them) has us leaving home for the trail on Saturday morning and returning Sunday late afternoon. This means that we share four meals over the weekend: lunch and dinner on Saturday, breakfast and lunch on Sunday. Instead of each backpacker having to prepare four individual meals, I arrange the hikers into groups of four: A food group! Each person prepares a different meal for their group. One meal preparation for these first time backpackers, rather then four, is far simpler and easier when they have so many other things to think about.
One time however, there were five guys in my backpacking class who were not interested in food grouping. Each declared he would take care of all his own meals. Okay then. Bon appétit.
Seventeen novice backpackers came out on the trail that Saturday morning. (Yeah, I know that’s a lot of backpackers in one group. It gave us the opportunity to practice low impact camping.)
On Saturday, when we were properly hungry, we decided to stop for lunch. After settling in at a comfortable place, the designated “Saturday lunch” person in each food group brought out the midday meal for their food group. The five guys were sitting together, also fishing their lunches out of their packs. “What’s for lunch, guys?” I asked. As in chorus, they all answered at once, “Bagels!”
Well doggone it, isn’t that cute! Each one brought a bagel for lunch. Through some good-natured bad-ass questioning, we learned that each one of our independent chefs brought bagels. Bagels for every meal, the whole weekend. Bagels and nothing but bagels. Thirty-six bagels among the five of them. Bagels.