Just recently did the Eagle Mountain Loop in Arkansas- it was really awesome! Totaling 26.8 miles, and crossing 8? peaks it is rated as the most strenuous hike in Arkansas, it was challenging but do-able. One of the best parts, aside from the beauty of the area, is there are tons of water crossings where you can filter drinking water. The was really nice since we didn’t have to carry a lot of water at a time. We did two partial days (the start day and end day) and two full days hiking, with 3 nights. I was a bit nervous the first night, since I had to hang all my food (and glucose) in a tree to keep it safe from bears. But this trip taught us better and more efficient ways to hang your food, and still make it easy to get down for treating overnight lows. I would like to talk to my endo about non-food sources to treat low blood sugars, aside from my emergency glucagon- if anyone knows anything about that I would looove to hear it!
So for food supplies for my boyfriend and I:
snacks:
mini cliff bars (I compulsively packed the whole box-18, but we did not use nearly that many)
trail mix- nuts and dried fruit only
lunches:
2 uncle ben’s rice- the kind you warm-up in a microwave, we just ate it cold and added hard salami. We just split a bag- the servings worked out well.
dinners:
I made our dinners- kind of used ideas from freezer bag cooking sites. It turned out a lot cheaper than pre-made backpacking food and was easier to control portions. I also dehydrated some veggies to add to our dinners.
1- rice noodles with lentil curry (Fantastic Food’s instant bulk mix), and foil pack salmon
2- fancy ramen noodle-like soups, with foil packed tuna and dehydrated veggies
3- instant mashed potatoes with jerky and dehydrated veggies
The best tasting meals were the mashed potatoes and fancy ramen. Though I think in the future I will try and use more whole grains to help with my overnight lows. I did have some issues with dinner provoked highs followed by late-night lows (really low too), so I would replace the carbs I used with slower digesting whole grains. There are a lot of good resources to make your own backpacking food.
Breakfast:
Kashi instant hot cereal- this made my blood sugar high in the am (even while hiking), so I think in the future I will try adding protein powder to it and see if that mellows my sugars out.
And of course, I brought 2 bottles of glucose tablets, and used quite a bit. I think in the future I will pack cliff gel packs, and try and use those as preventatives for my afternoon highs. I did reduce my basal rates, but still got overnight, and late afternoon.
Overall, it was a great trip! The area is beautiful!