My First Attempt at Low Waste Backpacking

Earlier this year I went camping with a dear friend of mine at Sombrio beach on Vancouver Island. I considered this “backpacking”, because I commuted to Victoria from Vancouver on public transit, which involved 3 buses, a sky train, and a ferry each way. Once we were at the parking lot, we had to hike about 1km on the trail and beach to our camping spot for the weekend. So not real backpacking, but not car camping either. With the transit I had to get all my camping gear, clothes, food, and other essentials into my backpack for 4 days and 3 nights.  

So how did I reduce my waste on this trip?

1.     Dehydrating food

 About a week before we left, I bought the world’s smallest dehydrated. I had been thinking about getting one for a long time, partially because every year I am trying to preserve more food, and, I have a lot of dietary restrictions, so I wanted to be able to make my own dehydrated meals for camping.

 I opted for the tiny dehydrator because I live in a one-bedroom apartment and storage is very limited. This one fit perfectly in my pantry/linen closet/book self/ everything else storage cupboard.

In the morning before work, I would chop vegetables or fruits, and let the dehydrator do its thing quietly in the background, and then I would do another round overnight while I was sleeping. I dehydrated apple slices and mangos for fruit for snacks, and I also dehydrated zucchini, carrots, and cherry tomatoes for a noodle stir fry we made one night.

2.     Buying package free bulk

I also ordered some snacks and some textured soy protein from Jarr delivery, which was a great option for zero-waste goods if you don’t have a lot of time to prep. Then I also made a trip to Nada zero waste store to refill some of my jars with other snacks, quick oats for oatmeal, and powdered coconut mylk.

 3.     Pre-making meals

As much as possible I tried to pre-prepare meals. Since I was traveling with a friend, we split up some of the meals which made it easy.

I make an oatmeal mix for the mornings with bulk quick oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, pecans, and dried cranberries. It was delicious and all I had to do was add water at camp. I also packed some pancake mix, and since my friend is vegan, I added some ground flax seed as an egg replacer so all we had to do was add water.

 The dehydrated veggies were used in a noodle stir fry and brought peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the first day of hiking. And I also made a mushroom risotto and the dehydrated it, and it worked so well! I will definitively be remaking this next time. I cooked everything with the Jetboil which was a great compact option.

4.     Reusable bags

All the snacks and prepped meals went into stasher bags for the trip. The stasher bags were also great because any garbage we had to go into the bags, and they would close. The best part though was getting home at the end of the weekend, exhausted, and being able to throw all the stasher bags into the dishwasher.

Stasher bags are pricey, so if you don’t already have some, I would say buy them slowly over time. Otherwise, using old packages or reusing zip lock bags also totally works and helps to reduce waste and be light-weight.

 I will continue to use the dehydrator this year and experiment with more recipes. But after this trip I am super happy with it.

Also, after camping at Sombrio and doing day hikes on the Juan de Fuca trail, I really want to hike this through trail next year and do some proper backpacking!

p.s. The commute from my place to downtown Victoria took about 5 hrs total, but I paid $10 in bus fares (so much less than gas would have cost) and only paid $18 to walk on the ferry, instead of the $80 it would have been to take a vehicle (each way!). The flexibility of being able to walk on during a busy weekend in the summer, was faster than it would have been to try and get on the ferry with a vehicle with several ferry waits.