Contrary to popular belief, not everyone out there on the trail is a lean and trim- and young- machine knocking out 20+ mile days. Sure, those folks are out there, and power to ’em. But I’m here to carry the flag for the rest of us, the aching, aging, possibly overweight or maybe inexperienced folks who still want to enjoy the journey. In fact, the only reason I’m only mildly overweight is because of hiking. I’ve also got some joints that feel 20 years older than the rest of my body. But I get out there and bang out modest miles, and so can you.<\/p>\n
I earned my trail name by being a backcountry foodie, and I’ll be sharing some of my better recipes. <\/p>\n
FiveStar’s Food Philosophy: <\/strong> I want\/need a special meal waiting for me at the end of a long day on the trail. Now, I don’t do long thru-hikes, so I’m not arriving at camp right at dark looking to set up camp and whip up a cheap, simple meal as quickly as possible. I usually have at least an hour of daylight, and I enjoy cooking, so I typically prepare a meal that’s a little more involved but MUCH more enjoyable. And I don’t mind bringing along a handful of fresh ingredients (my luxury weight) to really make my dinners pop. On occasion I will treat myself to a better commercial meal if I’m not feeling up to cooking, and I will review some of those on this site, meals that a thru-hiker might enjoy as a special treat. Otherwise, I’m cooking a real dinner, even if most of the components are dehydrated or freeze-dried. These recipes are suitable for shorter hikes up to one week in length, depending upon how low your base weight is. They definitely will make a long weekend hike more memorable.<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll also try to help you lower your pack weight so that you can get out there without suffering. I’ve learned a lot through trial and error, and hopefully I can save YOU some time and money with the benefit of my experience.<\/p>\n You will learn in my trip reports that NONE of my hikes goes perfectly. That’s part of the fun. But you can learn a lot from my fails, and I hope you have fun doing so.<\/p>\n Once upon a time I created an internet radio stream. It was a niche thing (roots reggae) but it grew, and before I knew it, what had begun as a hobby had become the number one thing of its kind. With that came OBLIGATIONS (gasp!). I became tethered to replying to listener emails, constantly updating programming, dealing with the pursuit of advertising revenue, and endlessly listening to new artists who wanted airtime, etc. all while I had 4 young kids and a regular job that sometimes took up 80-90 hours a week. It was too much (I liked listener emails best though). Fortunately, I was able to “give” my baby to a caretaker (RadioTunes<\/strong><\/a>) who gave it a great home and continued it in much the same way. But it still hurt.<\/p>\n What I learned though is that I don’t like being tethered to obligation<\/em>. What that in mind, this blog will not be monitized in any way, and it will be written when I feel like it. If I want to go hiking for a week or two, the blog can and will wait. If I’m feeling the muse, I might post 3-4 times in a week. If I post about a piece of gear, you can rest assured that I’m not whoring myself for a sponsorship. And of course I’ll reply to comments and emails whenever I can. <\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contrary to popular belief, not everyone out there on the trail is a lean and trim- and young- machine knocking out 20+ mile days. Sure, those folks are out there, and power to ’em. But I’m here to carry the flag for the rest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2549,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2550,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions\/2550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarhikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}