Trail Magic: Vol. 1 ✨
Updates and Happenings from Thruhikers
Hi everybody! We have had a crazy past few weeks, and we’re gearing up for even more excitement in April. We sent out our previous newsletter from Utah, right before we ran the Moab Run the Rocks stage race. This was our first time doing a stage race, and it was SO MUCH FUN (more on this below).
We’re now getting ready to go on an XC-skiing trip around Crater Lake. We’ve wanted to do this trip for years so we’re really excited about it! And, Tim is getting ready to take a crack at an unsupported FKT attempt of his own in April, so he’s doing a lot of training to get his body ready. We’ll let you know all of the details of that trip soon!
With all of that said, we’re stoked to get into the rest of the Trail Magic newsletter — our regular musings about what gear we’re digging, our favorite recipes, adventure scheming, and (so much) more.
Each Trail Magic post, we’ll always touch on (3) core themes:
FOOD: If you know us, you know we love good trail food. That’s why we make our own. Here, we’ll share our favorite recipes (new and old) to inspire your very own dehydrated and freeze-dry culinary endeavors.
GEAR: We would love to share more about our favorite gear — especially in the ultralight and cottage brand categories. We’ll share our unfiltered takes here.
ADVENTURE: Want to know what trails we’re hiking, where we’re going next, and what (big) adventures we’re planning? We’ll use this newsletter to dive into these details.
FOOD
The very first dehydrated meal we ever created was this curry rice. We were getting ready for a backpacking trip with Tim’s family at Isle Royale National Park. We had just received our first dehydrator as a gift from Tim’s sister, so we decided to dehydrate all of our food. It tasted SO GOOD.
After realizing that dehydrating can let us eat as well on the trail as we do at home, we were hooked. If you’re just getting into dehydrating food for adventures (or for any other purpose), this recipe is a great place to start! It’s really easy to make and tastes AMAZING.
Check out the full recipe on our website, plus plenty more in our book: Thruhikers: A Guide to Life on the Trail.
GEAR
Let’s talk about bears for a second. They’re big, wild, and can be dangerous. There are so many stories about bear attacks that the fear of them can keep people out of the wilderness altogether. But they don’t have to be scary! We’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of nights camped in bear territory and we’ve never had a negative experience. Taking a few simple precautions greatly diminishes the chances of a dangerous encounter.
Precaution 1: Minimize smells
Precaution 2: Make noise while hiking to avoid startling a bear
Precaution 3: Carry bear spray in grizzly territory (this isn’t really necessary in areas that only have black bears)
Precaution 4: Store food and other scented items (like toiletries) somewhere bears can’t access
Regarding food storage, different areas have different regulations, so always check what’s required where you are camping/backpacking. Some places require hard-sided bear-resistant canisters, but wherever soft-sided bear storage is permitted, this is our preferred method. Soft-sided bags are lighter and flexible, so they fit much better into a backpack.
For years, Ursack has been the only bear-resistant bag on the market that’s rated to be grizzly safe. But, all of that recently changed! Adotec just released bear-resistant storage bags as well. We love our Ursack and have carried it for thousands of miles, but we’re super excited to try the Adotec! Adotecs are lighter than Ursack’s offerings and are also rodent-resistant (most Ursacks aren’t)! Some of Adotec’s offerings are cheaper and some are pricier than Ursacks, but they definitely seem like a step up across the board.
For both Ursack and Adotec, since the bags are bear-resistant, they don’t even have to be hung high in a tree! You just tie them at chest height to a tree away from your tent, and that’s it. Bears might crush your food, but certification tests prove they won’t get through the bags to the food. We just got our first Adotec bag and haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. But, we just put up a video of our first impressions in our Substack members-only chat, and we’ll report back on our experience with it over the coming season.
ADVENTURE
Recent Highlight: Moab Run the Rocks
Our first stage-race experience doing Moab Run the Rocks was a blast! Since the race spanned three days there was a real community vibe. By the end, we felt like we had become really good friends with several of the other runners! The scenery along the course as we ran through the rocky terrain north of Moab was unbelievable – we definitely need to go back for more!
And, we enjoyed a bit of a luxury camping experience compared to usual – instead of camping in the backcountry, we found an RV park with tent sites near where the race started each day. RV parks aren’t usually our favorite place to camp, but after running 12.4, 24.6, and 13.6 miles on the three days of the race, heated showers were a luxury that we loved having!
We have a full video of our race experience coming soon to our Youtube channel, and below are some photos we took during the event:
Upcoming Trip: XC-Skiing around Crater Lake
Very soon, we’ll head to Crater Lake National Park to circumnavigate the lake on cross-country skis. We’ve wanted to do this trip for ages, and we’re pretty sure we finally have a window to make the trip a reality. The full route is about 33 miles, and we’ll split it across a couple of days.
We were initially planning to do the trip in January, but when we called the National Park Service to ask about it we learned that March/April is a better time. By doing it later in the season we’re more likely to have sunny weather with a clear view of the lake, and the few parts of the route that pose avalanche risks will be more predictable. We are waiting for a nice weather window and then we’ll head up!
Hopefully we’ll be able to provide a trip report in our next newsletter!
FROM THE THRUHIKERS’ BLOG
Our Favorite Gear for 2025!
After years and years of hiking, backpacking, and exploring the outdoors, we’ve experimented and become familiar with quite a few pieces of gear. As 2025 ramps up and the backpacking season approaches, we wanted to share a list of our favorite items – here’s a sneak peek of a few of our favorites:
Backpack: Zpacks 50L Arc Haul
Sleeping Pad: Nemo Switchback
Jacket: Enlightened Equipment Torrid
Pot: Olicamp XTS
GPS Watch: Garmin fenix 8 Solar Sapphire
Curious about what else we love? We just posted the full list on our website!
LATEST VIDEOS
