Inside Passage 2022 Prep (Part 2)

Meal Planning!

This summer, Ebba, Andy and I are hopping in kayaks and paddling for three months! One of the biggest logistic hurdles of a trip like this is meal planning.

I’ve been sharing a little of my process on my Instagram story, but wanted to share my more complete meal plan here, with recipes. Personally, I like to use a combination of fresh meals (first 2-3 days out of resupply), pre-packaged meals like Backpacker’s Pantry, and meals I’ve created and put together myself beforehand.

We’re on a 14-day meal loop, which means I have 14 days of unique (ish) meals planned before we hit a resupply point and the meals repeat. A lot of the time we’ll be going less than fourteen days, so we’ll simply skip over some of the freeze dried meals on that cycle, and add them to a later day/emergency meal bag. The beginning third of our route will pass through a town at least every few days, so we’ll substitute fresh food in more often in the beginning leg.

Sea kayaks can each fit roughly three times the load of a backpacking bag, which makes it totally possible to carry food for 2-3 weeks.

If you think this trip sounds awesome and help with some trip costs (gas, campsites, rice & beans), become a paying subscriber of Hello Stranger by smashing that button below! You’ll get access to a backlog of essays & PDF hiking guides, a download of my book, Hidden Gems of the Northern Great Lakes, and will be the first to know when s*%t hits the fan this summer!

3-Month Meal Plan

I have 6, 14-day meal loops! I’m still working out our exact resupply points, as we likely won’t need as much pre packaged food in the beginning third as we will in the second 2/3 due to development and availability in the area. With our route, we could probably actually do the whole paddle without sending anything ahead, shopping and small local stores along the way. In practice, we’ll do a little of both, mostly because I find it much easier to have meals pre-planned than to try and come up with ideas while paddling.

When I’m meal planning for a group, I include breakfast & dinner in the plan, have a bag full of desserts as needed, and everyone brings their own snacks and lunches— this works best when everyone on the trip is familiar with packing food for an extended expedition. I’ll include my snack/lunch bag list at the end.

Day Zero

• *launch/restock day*

• In-town lunch

• Front-country dinner (fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat; a meal we choose to cook that day while at grocery store. Usually some kind of pasta dish).

Day One

• Huevos Rancheros (eggs, salsa, tortilla, summer sausage)

• Fresh Grain Bowl (rice/quinoa, fresh bell pepper, onion, avocado)

Day Two

• Huevos Rancheros (eggs, salsa, tortilla, summer sausage, any leftover bell pepper)

• Pasta Pesto (Pasta- fettuccine packs best, Parmesan cheese, remaining onion, pesto. If leftover water, add flour to thicken into sauce)

Day Three

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Ramen & Egg (Can be made in JetBoil. Crack egg into freshly cooked ramen. Add onion, paprika, and summer sausage. This will use up the last of one carton of eggs for three people).

Day Four

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Soup Day! (Bear Creek Soups are perfect for feeding 3-5 people. Pair with tortilla & shredded cheese)

Day Five

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Alfredo (Knorrs pasta sides, olive oil, dried onion, dried tomato. For three people: two packages of pasta sides, 1 Tsp olive oil, and one cup of dried tomato/onion)

Day Six

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Quinoa Grain Bowl (1 cup quinoa, 1/2 cup dried mangos, 1/4 cup peanuts, 1/4 brown sugar, cinnamon)

Day Seven

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Soup Day! (Bear Creek Soups are perfect for feeding 3-5 people. Pair with tortilla & shredded cheese)

Day Eight

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Basic Beans & Rice (Cut from plan if resupply sooner; save for windbound days. Beans, rice, dried vegetables from spare food bag).

Day Nine

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Rice Grain Bowl (rice, dried bell pepper, dried tomato, dried cucumber, tumeric, peanuts)

Day Ten

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Soup Day! (Bear Creek Soups are perfect for feeding 3-5 people. Pair with tortilla & shredded cheese)

Day Eleven

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Rice & Beans Bowl (rice, dried vegetables, beans, tortilla)

Day Twelve

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Pre-packaged dinner! (Backpacker’s Pantry or Camp Chow)

Day Thirteen

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Pre-packaged dinner! (Backpacker’s Pantry or Camp Chow)

Day Fourteen

• Oatmeal with Dried Berries or Grits with cheese & bacon

• Pre-packaged dinner! (Backpacker’s Pantry or Camp Chow)

Desserts

• Hot Coco

• Snickers Bars

• Oreo Bag

• Camp Chow Cheesecakes

Snacks & Lunch

We’re more of snack lunch people than sit down lunch people, but this doesn’t work for everyone. Make sure you’re getting enough calories per day!

• GORP

• P&B

• Tortillas

• M&Ms (for the good old tortilla, PB & M&M wrap)

• dried fruit

• beef jerky

• an ungodly amount of summer sausage

• cliff bar

• hummus and carrots

• pretzels

• other goodies

Meal Supplement/ Spice Bag

This is so we have the option to add a little to meals on trail, improvise desserts, spice things up, ect!

• Flour

• Honey

• Garlic

• Summer sausage

• bacon bits

• brown sugar

• salt/pepper

• PB

• PB M&Ms

• onion poweder

• peanuts

• dried bell pepper

• dried tomato

• dried broccoli

• dried cucumber

Emergency Food Bag

• Noodles!

• Beans!

• Soups!

• Oatmeal!

• Cliff Bars!

We’ve been making some of our own dried food in a dehydrator. This is four mangos, cut into thin, quarter-sized pieces and rolled in cinnamon. I’ll be adding one cup to each of my quinoa bowls with peanuts (or peanut butter) and brown sugar.

Leftovers will be added to a “spice/meal supplement” bag— this bag is for adding to plain rice, or oatmeal, and making additional meals (like backcountry pie) on windbound days when we’re feeling creative.

Right now, we’re looking at launching May 15th or sooner, and paddling four days in the San Juan Islands before crossing into Sidney, CA for customs, and continuing north along Vancouver Island. We’ll cross to Powell River for a grocery store resupply around day 12, then head north towards Yaculta and Dent Rapids (route change since last post; rather than mess around with Seymour Narrows, we’re taking the slightly more remote (but better camping, easier to time rapids).

These are tidal rapids, so we’ll be timing our passage of these areas with slack current, or the point at which tides are neither rising nor falling, and the moon is not actively dragging the whole ocean around the tiny passages and inlets of Vancouver Island.

Other Plannings & Updates:

I’ve been crazy busy with meal planning and route planning! Andy has done most of the route, marking out potential campsites with “bear management” in mind. My last round of food is currently in the dehydrator (!), and 90% of my gear is good to go— I’ll be sharing a finalized gear list in early May when we do our final prep pack.

I’ve also been busy catching up on my blog for the summer (new articles here!), moving (we’re moving completely out of Grand Marais, more on that later), and planning our road trip out to our launch point in addition to the actual trip itself.

All in all, I’m so excited to be doing something fun this summer, and can’t wait to share some of those little adventures with you! Thanks so much for following along,

xMaddy