Today I am deviating from my normal vegan made-at-home meals to post about the dehydrated meals my friend and I took on our recent backpacking trip to Isle Royale National Park.
For anyone that has been backpacking, you know that less is best. You want to go as lightweight as possible, as you are carrying all of your supplies with you as you trek through the woods, often on rocky, uneven, or heavily tree-rooted trails. This means most of your food will be dehydrated pre-packaged meals that are easy to prepare on a teeny tiny camp stove in one small pot.
For this adventure, I tried three different brands of dehydrated meals; Patagonia, Good To Go, and Food For The Sole. In this post, I’ll cover each one and give my opinion on them.
We started out on our journey to Isle Royale at Copper Harbor, MI, which is the northernmost tip of the Upper Peninsula. From here, we took a three hour ferry ride on the Queen IV to Rock Harbor, Isle Royale. Isle Royale is an archipelago that is actually closer to Canada than the U.S. in upper Lake Superior. It is the least visited national park, probably due to the difficult journey to get there. The main island itself is about 45 miles long and 9 miles wide. There are hundreds of tiny islands surrounding it.
Upon arrival at Rock Harbor, we made our first day’s trek across three miles of rocky ground to Three Mile Campground. Here, we pitched our tent in a beautiful, wooded spot right on Lake Superior. This campground is where we saw our first moose, a bull at a distance in the wooded area of the camp. We couldn’t get a good look at him, but he was beautiful and it was amazing to see such a magnificent creature in person!
Dinner this night, made in a rush to beat a thunderstorm, was Food For The Sole’s Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Kale and Quinoa. Basically, the procedure with all of these meals is the same. You boil a certain amount of water, add the contents of the meal packet, let it sit and rehydrate, and eat. All you are left with to pack out is the packaging. I really enjoyed this meal except for the kale. There were a lot of kale stems that were chewy and kind of ruined the whole meal. I ended up having to pick out and discard a lot of the kale. I won’t buy this meal again.
The next morning we woke to rain. I can tell you it is not fun to try to pack up a campsite into a backpack in the rain when everything is wet and dirty. This was really the only irritating time I had on the trail. Once we got moving I felt a lot better and it eventually stopped raining and the sun came out, providing us with perfect weather for our next hike.
Prior to leaving camp that morning, I prepared the only dehydrated backpacking breakfast I had brought with me, Patagonia’s banana oatmeal. I brought along a fresh banana to eat with this and I’m glad I did, as the oatmeal itself was not very flavorful. For the remainder of the trip, I ate Kodiak Chocolate Chip oatmeal (something I eat on a regular basis at home). This worked out well for me and I will stick to this in the future.
Our second day hike was almost four and a half miles to Daisy Farm Campground. All the campgrounds have tent sites and wooden shelters that are first-come-first-serve. While we were fine with a tent site at our first location, we were hoping to snag a shelter at Daisy Farm so that we could dry out our tent and other gear that got a bit wet in the storm and overnight rain. We got super lucky and got a shelter right on Lake Superior! It was beautiful and amazing! We were able to get everything dried out and organized. The day was superb! We enjoyed a “bath” in Lake Superior (with biodegradable soap, of course) and sunned ourselves on the rocky beach. It was so peaceful! We also got to watch the Mergansers, which are like loons or ducks. They made us laugh because they skimmed really fast along the water (for which I nicknamed them Turbo Ducks) and dived for food in synchrony. They were entertaining to watch.
The wildlife on Isle Royale was incredible! We saw a variety of snakes, butterflies, and caterpillars, a lot of frogs and toads, moose, birds, and even came close to seeing a beaver!
Dinner this night was Patagonia’s Black Bean Soup. I was a bit nervous because (as Mr. FBBQ will attest) I don’t like anything even slightly spicy and this had chipotle. My concerns were unwarranted-this was delicious. It had the smallest amount of kick to it. I truly enjoyed this meal.
The next day we did a day hike up to the Ojibway Tower, from where we could see Thunder Bay, Canada and most of the park. The views were breathtaking! We continued our hike along the Greenstone Ridge then back down to Daisy Farm, where we explored little pond areas and sat on the dock for a bit. It was a nice break not carrying our heavy packs.
Dinner that night was another Sweet Potato/Kale/Quinoa meal, as I had brought two. No change from the first one. Picked out the chewy kale.
The next day we decided to hike the seven miles back to Rock Harbor, as our ferry left that next afternoon and we didn’t want to be late. We also wanted to explore Rock Harbor a bit. It was a beautiful day for a hike and we managed the seven miles quite easily! We also got to see a momma moose and her baby!! She was right on the trail! She munched on leaves and kept a close eye on us, while we kept a respectful distance. Her baby appeared to have an injured back leg and wasn’t walking on it. We later reported this to the rangers in case they were able to help him in any way. This was so incredible! We had a much better, clearer view of the cow than we did of the bull on the first day. We also got to see Suzy’s Cave, which was really small but pretty cool to walk into. We were missing coffee a lot at this point, so we dubbed it Suzy’s Cafe. The menu was non-existent, but I really looked forward to having a mocha when I got back to the mainland!
We got a tent site in Rock Harbor. Until then, the bugs hadn’t been that bad. At this point though, there were some black flies, which were really annoying! Other than that, we got set up and took our first real shower in five days (albeit without shampoo, just bar soap). We bought some stuff at the Visitor’s Center and gift shop and relaxed at our campsite. Dinner this night was Patagonia’s Savory Grains Mushrooms and Kamut. This was probably my favorite meal so far. It had the deliciousness of a home-cooked meal.
I should note that all of these backpacking meals were very filling. At no point was I hungry after eating. I also brought with me a Good To Go Kale and White Bean Stew, but didn’t end up eating it. My hiking partner and friend did end up eating her GTG meal and gave it a thumbs-up!
Our last day on the island was spent exploring the Stoll Memorial Trail out to Scoville Point. There were some magnificent views of Lake Superior from this trail and I even found a small cove in which I was able to dip into the water!
One more ferry ride back to Copper Harbor started us on our journey home. This was such an incredible adventure! I can’t wait to go back!