How much food should you pack for a long route? How many layers is too many? After a week on the trail with a pack that started too heavy and ended just right, here is the list I wish someone had pressed into my hand at the trailhead.
Food: pack fuel, not menus
For hut-to-hut walking you need lunches and emergency rations, not a pantry: dense bread, hard cheese, cured sausage, nuts, dried fruit and chocolate. Roughly 700 grams a day keeps you cheerful; anything fresh is a first-day luxury, eaten with ceremony at the first viewpoint.
Layers and the ten-kilo rule
Everything you carry should earn its place twice. Merino base, fleece mid, wind shell, rain shell that doubles as a town jacket — that is the whole system. If the packed bag tops ten kilos before food and water, something stays behind. It is always the third book.
The comforts worth their grams
A real pillowcase stuffed with spare clothes. A tiny flask for the summit. The Voyager's Field Journal, which weighs less than the phone charger you were going to bring instead. The full checklist prints from the shop's journal page.
Wren Aldana
Travel writer behind Lantern Trails. Walks far, packs light, always carries a spare notebook.
