Food for wild camping weekends

Q. Has any one got ideas or tips on what food to take for a weekend away wild camping?

Craig Smith, Huddersfield

A. The secret I find is to take food that comes in light packaging and produces no waste. I always take many packs of instant noodles when I go walking on the Sörmlandsleden walking trail here in Sweden.

They weigh next to nothing, are compact, very quick to cook and you drink the water they are cooked in (unlike rice or pasta). A few bars of chocolate and a packet of biscuits are also welcome additions, especially when you stop for a brew-up!!

Cheers,

Damien Boden, Segeltorp, Huddinge, Stockholm

A. You're looking for foods that won't go bad in the weather, and that won't fall to pieces from the constant shaking in a pack, and that aren't unduly heavy, and that provide all the nutrition you need. Easy then!

It depends on whether you are planning to take a stove or not. If so, you have a wide range of potential foods that can cope with the riguours. Pasta is full of carbs and good for replacing lost calories. Get some stir in sauces and a few cans of tuna and that's an instant meal. You can get flavoured cous cous in supermarkets too, or rice. Canned meats are a good bet.

If you don't have a stove the range is more limited. I usually take crusty rolls, cheese and peppered salami. This copes with the heat surprisingly well and would be fine over a weekend. I'll stomach dry cans of tuna and salmon too to get protein.

Supplement either of these with dried fruit, nuts (good for calories and good fats), chocolate, biscuits (shortbreads good), cakes, sausage rolls, pork pies etc. Most stuff will last if taken for a weekend, though if you're going for a week or more spoilage becomes a problem.

Easily the most important thing though is water, which you would need to find en route, either by boiling it, filtering it, or ensuring there are fresh water sources along the way. You can survive for a while without adequate food, but not without water.

Damien Jones, Reading, Uk

A. Wild Camping and The Law in England, Scotland and Wales.

Tents cannot be pitched just anywhere because every piece of Britain is owned by some individual or some organisation and according to the strict letter of the law permission must be obtained prior to pitching tent and camping.

In practice however, this is often impractical and wild camping is usually tolerated in the more remote areas - typically, more than half a day's walk from an official campsite or other accommodation providing you:

Keep groups small
Camp as unobtrusively as possible
Leave camp as you found it
Remove all litter (even other people's)
Carry out everything you carried in
Carry out tampons and sanitary towels (burying them doesn't work as animals dig them up again)
Choose a dry pitch rather than digging drainage ditches around a tent or moving boulders
Toilet duties should be performed 30m (100ft) from water and the results buried using a trowel
At all time, help preserve the environment
And if you are in any doubt about what you're doing, find out more

In Scotland, the current access legislation (which came into effect in early 2005) is explicit about your right to wild camp on hill land. However, there are exceptions. Since March 2011 you are not permitted to wild camp between Dryman and Rowardennan on the shore of Loch Lomond. See Loch Lomond Wild Camping Ban for more information.

There appears to be an exception to this with respect to camping in Dartmoor National Park where the right to wild camping is actually enshrined in the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act, 1949 amendment Dartmoor Commons Act, 1985 - see Wild Camping in the UK for more details.

For the definitive answer with respect to wild camping in Scotland see the answer supplied by the Scottish Natural Heritage

For a few (tongue in cheek) tips on wild camping see Some Wild Camping Tips.

NB. go4awalk.com cannot offer any advice on suitable locations for wild camping - but click here for walks from exisiting campsites.

Hope this helps

Mike (Editor)

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