So you want to hike the PCT as a vegan? You’re not alone! According to Halfway Anywhere’s 2023 PCT Thru-Hiker Survey, almost 6% of PCT thru-hikers (or at least those who completed the survey) were vegan on trail in 2023. Veganism was the third most commonly reported dietary restriction of the year, after vegetarianism (18% of all survey respondents), and being dairy-free (6.7% of all survey respondents). This was an increase from the numbers reported in 2022 (4.5% of survey respondents), but a decrease from the 2021 numbers (7.9% of survey respondents).
Clearly, lots of people are hiking the PCT vegan these days. And yet, every year this question comes up on Reddit and in the Class of XXXX Facebook groups as new hikers try to determine how best to approach their thru-hike while maintaining their vegan diet.
I get it. Before my 2023 PCT thru-hike, I was one of the prospective hikers scrolling Reddit and creating spreadsheets trying to map out how I would complete my vegan resupply. The truth is: you shouldn’t worry– you could figure this out on trail. There are a lot of us out there, and, by all accounts, trail is becoming more vegan friendly every-year. That said, there is no harm in learning from previous classes! In the following, I will share my experience hiking the PCT as a vegan and my best advice for future vegan hikers.
Hike Your Own Hike (HYOH)
If you haven’t heard this phrase yet, let me be the first to introduce you to the thru-hiker mantra—Hike Your Own Hike. This is one of the most cliché hiker phrases, but also one of the most important. We all have different goals, ‘why’s, wants, needs, and abilities on trail and this phrase refers to the importance of making your own decisions, and also allowing others to make their own decisions without judgement as we experience our hike.
Personally, I think this mantra holds when thinking about dietary choices as well. Like thru-hiking, we all have different reasons for why we have chosen a vegan lifestyle. My reasons might be different than yours, and so my choices may be different from yours. I am so pleased to have the opportunity to share my experience, but I want to encourage you to make your own choices and judgements as you plan for and start your hike– and to let others make their own choices as well.
Maybe you will be strictly vegan throughout your entire hike, right down to the clothes you wear. Maybe you will make exceptions when a kind day-hiker is cooking fresh waffles at the top of Mt. Whitney that certainly have eggs and butter in them. Maybe you will just really need those chicken nuggets at the Cajon Pass McDonalds. Maybe you will realize that you are not getting enough calories or protein to adequately feed your body for the duration of your hike and you decide to make a change. No judgement here—HYOH!
However, you also don’t want to put yourself in a position where you walk into a gas station with an empty food bag to resupply and find that the only vegan option in the entire place is a container of Oreo cookies. So what should you do to avoid this situation?
General Vegan Resupply
Resupplying on the PCT is basically on a continuum of:
Sending no resupply boxes and buying all food as you go –> Buying all food and snacks in advance and mailing them to every trail town you plan to stop in.
Like most things, the best strategy is somewhere in the middle of this continuum. While a significant minority of hikers do hike the whole trail without sending a single resupply box, as a hiker with a dietary restriction, this is probably not a good option for you.
On the other end, pre-preparing all of your boxes ahead of time is expensive, logistically challenging, risky (boxes get lost, plans change, hikers flip-flop or end their hike early, etc.) and more often than not results in a trail name like “Cliff”—where the hiker in question sent themselves cliff bars in nearly every resupply box for their entire hike and ended up leaving cliff bars in every hiker box for the entire trail.
Most experienced thru-hikers will tell you that the best strategy is to mail a few boxes (between 7-9 tends to be the prevailing wisdom from Halfway Anywhere’s data), not from home, but from trail. Even as a vegan, most of the places where you definitely need to send a box are in Oregon or Washington, so if you are hiking NOBO (northbound) from Campo, California, then you could reasonably start with no pre-made boxes and be okay. Once you get to a bigger trail town– like Tehachapi, California (to mail boxes for the Sierra), Ashland, Oregon (to mail boxes for Oregon) or Hood River (the nearest Walmart from Cascade Locks, Oregon; to mail boxes for Washington)—you can take a zero day or two to put together your boxes for the next section. By this point on trail, you will have a good sense of what you want to be eating (and what you are deathly sick of) and you will know how fast you are moving and how much you are eating.
Where to Resupply by Grocery Store vs. Mailed Boxes
My tramily and I relied heavily on FarOut comments and Halfway Anywhere’s hiker survey data to help determine where we would next resupply and if we needed to send a box. While I can’t speak to every trail town, here are my experiences and recommendations for each section.
Southern California
Julian (mile 77.0)
Julian is the first trail town for many NOBO thru-hikers and it is a great choice! Resupply is somewhat limited, but in 2023 2 Foot Adventures had dehydrated meals from Fernweh Foods. Sadly, Fernweh seems to have closed down in fall of 2023, so it is unclear if there will be good vegan options in Julian this year. I think 2 Foot Adventures has recognized the demand for vegan options, so chances are good—but there is no guarantee. If you did want to send a box from home, this would be a good option. Alternatively, Ranchita BODEGA (formerly Montezuma Valley Market) is also known to have good vegan options, though I didn’t stop here, so I can’t comment. In terms of town food: while we sadly do need to miss out on Mom’s pie, they have great lemonades that they may give you instead! Also, Julian Beer Co. had vegan pizza with yummy vegan cheese, so I would recommend that as a town meal (and you can pack a few slices out for lunch the next day!)
Idyllwild (mile 151.8 -if accessed via Paradise Valley Café or mile 179.4 by Devil’s Slide Trail )
Idyllwild’s grocery stores were one of the best resupply locations on trail, with enough vegan options available for you to have a different dinner every night for your next section (what luxury!). There is no need to send a box. However, if you are mailing your micro spikes to PVC anyway (which you may need to, depending on the snow year) then you might as well send yourself some pre-made dehydrated dinners to cover yourself for the next day through to Devil’s Slide and your time in Idyllwild.
Banning (mile 209.5)
I ended up in Banning and then Cabazon after summitting San Jacinto, to escape terrible wind. It is not a critical stop, and things are rather spread out. But if you have a kind trail angel who is willing to drive you, like we did, there is a decent resupply at the Walmart.
Big Bear Lake (mile 266.1)
There are some good vegan options here, if you hunt for them. The outdoors store will likely have some dehydrated meals that are vegan, and the grocery stores will have the standard vegan options like ramen, couscous, and some noodle dishes. Grumpy’s made me a vegan hash that was on the *secret* menu.
Cajon Junction McDonalds (mile 342.0)
The apple pie and fries is vegan at McDonalds, so you could stop to enjoy that if you wanted! There is also a gas station next door with typical snacks, and sometimes a fruit stand!
Wrightwood (mile 369.4)
There is a fairly well stocked grocery store. You probably don’t need to mail a box here, but if you premade any dehydrated dinners at home that you wanted to send to yourself on trail, I would recommend sending yourself a batch here to augment the options available. (Only dinners are needed, not snacks). If you are willing to carry a few extra dinners/ ramen spice mixes on this next section, you could also probably get away with not sending a box to Acton, and just purchasing snacks and lunches there.
Acton (mile 443)
If you have the time, my advice is to skip the KOA and just head into Acton. The KOA charges crazy prices, and the 49er Saloon had a FULL vegan dinner menu in 2023! It was one of my favourite trail dinners and they also let you camp out back! The train noise isn’t that much worse than the KOA—I promise. I found the grocery store in town to be lacking in vegan dinners. I would recommend sending a box, or expect to eat plain ramen on this section.
Agua Dulce (mile 455)
Good for a meal, but not a resupply.
Tehachapi (mile 566)
One of my favourite trail towns—great restaurants and excellent resupply at the Walmart and elsewhere. Things are a bit spread out, but there is a great trail angel network in town to help you out. The Mediterranean food place downtown and the Thai place (called Thai Hachapi) were both incredible. Sadly, the fancy German Kohnen’s bakery had no vegan options, apart from their loaves of bread. If you are heading straight into the Sierra, this is a great place to send a batch of premade dehydrated meals from home, so that you can pack some boxes to mail to the upcoming towns which have limited resupply options (like Kennedy Meadows South, VVR, etc.).
Ridgecrest (mile 652)
Ridgecrest is 25 miles from trail and isn’t a very nice town, but is does have a Walmart. It feels a little like hiker purgatory to me (perhaps because I left a friend here with an injury). I recommend a resupply and an escape back to trail asap. If you do need to skip the Sierra’s for any reason, this would be the place to flip from.
The Sierras (Due to a high snow year, I missed some of this section, and so can only provide limited advice)
Kennedy Meadows (mile 702)
Welcome to the start of the Sierras! You will not find much of a resupply here, let alone a vegan one. If 2 Foot Adventures is onsite (check FarOut) then you may be in luck, but I strongly recommend mailing a box from Tehachapi. Mail your bear cannister here with a full resupply. This might be the only place I recommend mailing from home (since that is presumably where your bear cannister is).
Independence or Bishop via Kearsarge Pass (mile 789)
I had heard that Independence didn’t have much in terms of resupply, so I hitched the 40 miles to Bishop, where there were excellent vegan options. If you would prefer to go to Independence, you should send a box.
Sadly, due to high snow, this is where I ended my 2023 hike of the Sierras. I will update with the other trail towns when I go back!
Northern California
Truckee (mile 1153)
There are a couple of outfitters who typically have some dehydrated meals that are vegan. The grocery store is decent as well. No need for a box.
Sierra City (mile 1194)
Sierra City was a great hiker stop, only 1.5 miles off trail. They have a free public (cold) shower in the centre of town, and had a surprisingly good vegan resupply at their general store (though it was quite expensive). In 2023 they had several meals from Food for the Sole, which was a delicious vegan, gluten-free, whole food dehydrated meal company. Sadly, they have now gone out of business.
Quincy (mile 1267.9)
One of the friendliest little hiker towns. The ice-cream store in town has Sorbet, and they give thru-hikers a free scoop. They have a Safeway and a Natural Foods store that provides a pretty good vegan resupply. No need for a box.
Chester (mile 1331)
Cravings had really good vegan food, but I was so sad that they were out of their soy chorizo hash when I visited! There is a pretty good grocery store, but I found it lacking in vegan dinners.
Burney (mile 1411.3)
Burney had a grocery outlet, which I always find to be a fun place for new vegan treats. They also had a Safeway. I strongly recommend you stay at the Church. We had a great time and I used the kitchen there to make myself a home cooked meal. Yum.
Mount Shasta (mile 1501.1)
My friend came to visit me in Mt. Shasta and brought me forty home-made vegan dehydrated dinners to mail out in my Oregon boxes—what luxury! I will cover what these pre-made meals included a little later in the post. However, a box is not actually needed in Mt. Shasta. They have several good gear stores and lots of grocery options. This is a good place to mail your boxes for Oregon.
Etna (mile 1599.7)
Etna is a but of a hard hitch, but such a friendly hiker town! Once you get to town, everything is really close by, and the gear shop has good dehydrated food options. The grocery store is small. You might want to carry an extra couple meals from Mt. Shasta, but I wouldn’t say you need to send a box here. If you aren’t picky, you can get by.
Oregon
Callahan’s Lodge (mile 1718.7)
I mailed a box to Callahan’s Lodge because I chose not to go into Ashland. There is no real resupply here.
Ashland (mile 1718.7)
I’ve heard that this is vegan hiker heaven, but I didn’t actually go myself. This would also be a good place to mail your Oregan boxes, though you might beat your box to Crater Lake if you mail from here.
Mazama Village at Crater Lake (mile 1821.7)
Some snacks ands little items, but it is expensive, and you will need a box anyway, so just mail a full resupply here. Include some laundry soap and you can do laundry here as well!
Shelter Cove (mile 1906.6)
I’m not sure if it is just the timing of when I was in Shelter Cove, but the hiker box here was incredible. So many snacks and ramens! I sent a box here, but since I was moving much faster than I expected in Oregon, I ended up leaving more than half of it in the hiker box. The general store is expensive and not vegan friendly. They do have a good veggie burger at the canteen though!
Bend (mile 1983.8)
No need for a box. There are lots of grocery stores and an REI where you can get your fancy items. A great hiker town, well worth a zero!
Timberline Lodge (mile 2097)
There will probably be at least one vegan meal on the menu, but not lots. There is no resupply here. Sadly, the breakfast buffet is not worth it for vegans.
Cascade Locks/ Hood River (mile 2146.7)
Thunder Island Brewing in Cascade Locks had several good vegan meals, but the town doesn’t have much in terms of resupply. We hitched to the Hood River Walmart and got everything we needed to pack our boxes for Washington. This is where I found Fillo’s Walking Tamales, perhaps my favourite vegan lunch/ snack option that I came across for all of trail. Others hitched into Portland, which was apparently vegan mecca and also a great option to mail boxes from.
Washington
Trout Lake (mile 2228.9)
Trout Lake is a charming trail town. The general store has the minimum you need to get by. I recommend just packing an extra couple of dinners in Cascade Locks, so you aren’t eating ramen for the next 8 days. You can do your laundry here, and hangout with their incredibly friendly cats. There was a delicious Mexican food truck with the best vegan burrito I had on trail. The church let us sleep in their back yard and a local trail angel even repaired a tear in my friends backpack for free, overnight. A magical place.
White Pass (mile 2294.9)
Mail your bear cannister with a full resupply. You are required to have a bear cannister for the next while anyway. This was the saddest vegan stop I experienced on trail. Not even the chips were vegan. They did have an Annie’s microwaveable Pad Thai that I had for lunch.
Snoqualmie Pass/ North Bend (mile 2393.1)
You could mail a box with a full resupply to Snoqualmie Pass… or you could hitch into North Bend where there is an all you can eat sushi place with good vegan options and a good resupply at the grocery store. Your call!
Leavenworth (mile 2464.1)
There is a Safeway with a good vegan resupply. All the little German restaurants sell Field Roast Sausages as their vegan option, which was delicious, but cheaper at the grocery store.
Stehekin/ Chelan (mile 2571.9)
The bakery in Stehekin is awesome and had some vegan treats and sandwiches available. Worst case you can get a great loaf of bread. You will need to send a box. We had a fire closure here in 2023, so we took the ferry into Chelan, where there was plenty of vegan options available.
Mazama (mile 2591.1)
Mazama just has a small general store, so it is not really adequate for much of a resupply—but it is worth it to go to trail angel Lion’s Den (formerly Raven’s Roost) for the hiker culture. A trail angel there may be willing to take you down the road to the actual grocery store, which has a good resupply, if you time it with their grocery run for hosting hiker dinners.
My resupply strategy
For the most part, we vegans eat many of the same items as other thru-hikers. Sour patch kids, chips, ramen, tortillas, peanut butter are all common fare on trail and are all have vegan options that are typically readily available. As you’ll notice in my description of town resupply options above, I found dinner to be the hardest meal to shop for in the average grocery store.
Ramen is almost always available in trail towns, but sometimes the spice packs that go with them are not vegan, and there is nothing worse than plain ramen after a 25 mile day of hiking (other than perhaps, nothing at all). The better resupply towns will have items like Dr. McDougall’s Vegan Black Bean Soup (which when you add less water, a tortilla, and a packed in avocado, makes a delicious trail burrito) or instant Pad Thai or other noodle dishes. But unless you’re buying expensive dehydrated meals (which can also be hard to find as they are usually only at gear stores), dinners end up being low in protein and pretty repetitive.
To solve this problem, I premade dozens of homemade vegan dehydrated meals. The whole process took about 4 full days of prep work and cost me far less than those meals would have costed if I purchased commercial dehydrated meals.
Since I am Canadian, and wanted to avoid dealing with customs and excessive shipping costs, I brought one ‘drop’ of meals with me to San Diego, and then bounced them ahead of me on trail. I often carried a couple dinners for more than one section, and arrived in town with some dinners still in my bag. Not perfect– but I didn’t mind because my meals were SO much better than what everyone else was eating.
When I flipped from KMS to Truckee, I had my sister mail 30 additional meals to Chester, which I then mailed forward using that same ‘bounce box’ approach. Note that if you open a box at the post office, you’ll have to pay to send it on, so it’s not a true bounce box. This still ended up being more affordable for me then buying commercial dehydrated meals like most of my tramily found (which were also mostly not vegan). Though, I wouldn’t say that this was strictly needed in Northern California. A friend visited me in Etna and brought me about 30 more meals. In Etna, I made boxes for almost all of Oregon, which included not just my dehydrated dinners, but also lunches, snacks, toilet paper and laundry detergent, so I didn’t need to go into town until Bend. I then mailed the remaining dinners to Cascade Locks to add to my Washington boxes. Of my ~125 nights camping on trail, I had ~90 homemade meals that were well-balanced in terms of protein and carbs and actually tasted good! I still crave some of them after trail.
So what did I actually eat?
Let’s start with my approach to dinners, which as you have just read, was the most complicated meal to get vegan (unless you were willing to survive on plain ramen and couscous).
Dinners
Pre-made and mailed
Note: I am not sponsored or affiliated with Backcountry Foodie in any way—I just love her recipes!
Most of my dinner recipes were either adapted from, or taken directly from Backcountry Foodie. I really can’t recommend her meals strongly enough. They are relatively easy to make (as long as you have access to a dehydrator) and are delicious!
These days, she even sends out resupply boxes and meal kits to hikers on trail! I never tried this personally, but I’ve browsed the website and I think that– while a bit expensive– her One-Day Meal Kits look like they have everything a thru-hiker could want.
To save a bit of money, my recommendation is to buy her Ultralight Backpacking Recipe Membership and spend a couple weekends making all your own meals for trail. You will save hundreds of dollars compared to purchasing pre-made meals, and you will be the envy of your tramily!
My favourite Backcountry Foodie dinners on trail were (in no particular order):
- Apricot Rosemary Couscous
- Cashew Curry Couscous
- Spicy Cashew Ramen
- Thai Peanut Ramen
- Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta
- Creamy Lemon Pesto Pasta
And those are just dinner! Some of these call for Parmesan (which I replace with nutritional yeast) or milk powder (which I replace with soymilk powder). Personally, I was not a fan of Trail Tabbouleh, or Sunrise Ramen.
The best thing about these recipes is that, since ramen or couscous are typically the base carb in the recipe AND since those two items are quite ubiquitous on trail, you can typically leave those out of your pre-made bags, making your mailed dinners lighter and easier to pack. Then you would just purchase ramen or couscous in trail towns while buying your lunches and snacks and add them to your food bag. This may even make your dinner kits light enough that you are willing to carry a couple extras, reducing the need to send a box to every trail town you visit.
I was certainly not the only person on trail who used her recipes—I encountered a least two other vegan or vegetarian hikers who used her resources and I expect that she will continue to get more popular! There are also lots of other dehydrator recipes online—so go forth and explore!
After making dozens of recipes from Backcountry Foodie, I even started to get a feel for how to make my own recipes.
Grocery Store Purchases
- Dr. McDougall’s Black Bean & Lime Soup: It is great as soup with Triscuits, or you can add less water and make it into a black bean burrito. I often hiked out an avocado to go with this meal.
- Other Dr. McDougall meals (they make vegan chicken flavoured and miso ramen and Pad Thai!)
- Mike’s Mighty Good instant noodle dishes: I liked these better than cheaper instant ramens because they have dehydrated vegetables in them, and typically a little more protein.
- Annie Chun’s Simple Gourmet Asian Cuisine (Pad Thai, Peanut Sesame, Sweet Chili, Ramen Soup Bowl and Teriyaki): These were typically only in the largest grocery stores, and they are a bit heavier, but they were a fav of mine!
- Soy Sauce or Siracha flavoured Top Ramen
- Shin Ramyun Noodles
- Annie’s Vegan Mac
- Instant rice mixes
- Seasoned Couscous boxes
- Indian meal kits
- Some fresh food like sweet peas, spinach, etc. to add to other meals. The peas are a great addition to Pad Thai!
- I also carried nutritional yeast and small containers of olive oil to add to everything, once I got hiker hunger!
Commercially Sold Dehydrated Dinners
I generally avoided buying these unless they looked particularly good, or I was having trouble finding meals in the grocery store, because they are so expensive! However, some commercially sold dehydrated dinners I purchased and enjoyed in trail towns along the PCT included:
- Fernweh Foods dehydrated meals: All their recipes are so good, but I only found them at 2 Foot Adventures and they have since gone out of business.
- Food for the Sole dehydrated meals: So good, but I only found them at the general store in Sierra City and they have since gone out of business.
- Backpackers pantry (Cuban Style Coconut Black Beans and Rice, Kathmandu Curry, Pad Thai and more are all vegan): These are relatively easy to find in towns that have gear stores, but not nearly as good as the two brands above.
Lunches
My primary lunch on trail consisted of:
- Tortillas or bagels
- Peanut Butter (the best was Jif Squeeze, but I don’t remember seeing these in the desert—I brought a small container typically).
- Bananas (I usually carried at least one, sometimes two to occasionally have with my wraps. Remember to pack out your peels!)
- I also sometimes added chocolate covered walnuts, trail mix, fruit snacks, jam (stolen from breakfast places) and more to my wraps.
When I started to get truly sick of peanut butter, I started subbing in avocados (remember to pack out the peel and pit) and crunchy chickpeas or lentils (by Saffron Road or Three Farmers), vegan Babybels, Tofutti or Miyoko’s cream cheese and hummus on my wraps and sandwiches. Pretzel buns also became a preferred treat when I started encountering them in Oregon.
Eventually in Washington I discovered Fillo’s Walking Tamales, which were one of my favourite lunches/ snacks of all. I could devour three of them and a bag of chips for lunch easily, all without actually stopping to sit down.
Once I came across dehydrated hummus in a natural food store. This is something I would consider making ahead and adding to my dinner kits on my next through hike, as my lunch set up got pretty old. I ate a lot of peanut butter on trail, and peanut butter wraps still make me immediately sick, even one year later.
Breakfasts/ Snacks
I started the PCT with grand aspirations of making hot oatmeal or cold-soaked oats each day, but this only actually occurred one time—the morning after summitting San Jacinto, when I just needed a slow morning. Usually, it just wasn’t practical for me, and would have taken up time I would rather have spent walking.
Instead, I usually started my days in the desert with a couple bars and maybe some fruit snacks or sour patch kids. By Washington, I had grown to devouring two bars within an hour of leaving camp, and another 2-4 (or maybe a complete cookie) before lunch. I really hate most protein bars, so I tended to avoid those, and managed to get most of my protein at meals. Often, breakfast blended into pre-lunch snacks, which I also took while hiking. Some of my favourite bars and snacks included:
- Nature’s Bakery Fig Bars
- Nature’s Bakery Brownies – these were a rare find, but one of my favourites!
- Bobo’s Oat Bars– really anything by Bobo’s was a favourite
- HEAVENLY HUNKS – these will keep your weight where it belongs and will torture you when you return home and can only have them occasionally (at least if you want to keep even some of your thru-hiker physique).
- Kind Bars
- Complete Cookies
- Truwomen Protein Bars
- Kate’s Real Food Bars
- Nature Valley Bars – they are so dry, but okay in moderation
- Unfrosted Pop tarts in original fruit flavors like strawberry and blueberry. – they crumble, but you can eat them with a spoon.
- Original Wheat thins– I was obsessed
- Sour patch kids – I never would eat these at home, but I never got sick of them on trail.
- Triscuits
- Ritz Baked Chips
- Dried mangos and apricots
- Sahale Snacks trail mix
- Vegan jerky
- Kale chips (and any other dehydrated veggie chips you come across!)
- Chips
- Pretzels
- Vegan Babybels
- Justin Peanut Butter Cups
- Cocomels (Chocolate covered coconut milk caramels)
- Oh Snap! Snacking pickles
- Clementines (you have to pack out the peel)
I hope this guide is helpful to your prep– whether it be for a thru hike of the PCT or your first backcountry camping trip! Good luck!
