Outdoor Skills
There is a strange culture around hill food that suggests you need to spend a fortune on foil packets and neon-coloured gels to walk properly. You don't. Some of the best-fuelled walkers I know carry cheese sandwiches, pork pies and a flask of tea. The key is not what the marketing department says — it is understanding what your body actually needs across a long day and packing accordingly.
A full day on the fells might mean six to nine hours of walking, often with a heavy pack and a lot of ascent. That is a serious physical effort, and the food you carry needs to do three things: provide steady energy, replace what you sweat out, and taste good enough that you actually eat it when you are tired and cold.
Start with a proper breakfast before you leave. Porridge, eggs, toast, whatever you actually enjoy — something substantial that will see you through the first couple of hours. Do not skip it and rely on snacks; you will be playing catch-up all day.
For the walk itself, aim for a mix of slow-release carbohydrates and quick energy. Sandwiches, wraps or oatcakes with cheese, hummus or cold meat are ideal for lunch. Flapjack, malt loaf, nuts, dried fruit and chocolate cover the snack side. Bananas travel surprisingly well if packed at the top of your bag, and a boiled egg or two is a brilliant, cheap protein hit.
Eat little and often rather than saving everything for one big lunch. A handful of nuts every hour keeps your energy steady and stops the afternoon slump that ruins the second half of a walk. If you wait until you are hungry, you have already left it too late — the same principle as drinking water.
Hot drinks make an enormous difference in cold weather. A flask of tea, coffee or hot squash is worth the weight, and a hot drink at a summit or a sheltered lunch spot lifts everyone's mood. In summer, carry more water than you think you need — two litres for a full day is a reasonable baseline, more if it is hot or you are working hard.
Pack food in small, separate bags so you can grab something without unpacking your entire rucksack in the wind. Keep snacks in a hip belt pocket or chest pouch for easy access. Anything that can leak — oils, sauces, squashed fruit — should go in a sealed bag, ideally away from your spare layers.
Think about food that survives being squashed, frozen and warmed up again. Flapjack and malt loaf are champions here. Chocolate is delicious but turns to mush in summer and concrete in winter; keep it inside a layer rather than in an outer pocket. Sandwiches made with thick bread or wraps hold up better than thin sliced bread.
Finally, pack a little more than you think you need. Hunger on a hill is miserable, and sharing food with a tired companion is one of the small kindnesses of the outdoors. If you finish the day with a spare flapjack, that is a success, not a failure. Eat well, drink steadily, and the hills will feel considerably kinder underfoot.
