Climbing is a highly physically demanding activity that requires high levels of strength and endurance for long periods. Whether you’re headed indoors bouldering, tackling a multi-pitch route, or planning a week in the mountains, it’s vital that you take the right climbing food with you that provides all of the nutrients you need to keep your performance at its peak.
In our handy guide below, we’ve put together our recommendations on the best food for climbing mountains to help you keep your energy levels at their optimum.
What Should Climbers Eat?
When you’re climbing, it’s important that your body’s fuelled with the right combination of nutrients to keep it functioning correctly. During activity, carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of energy, so all climbing nutrition plans need to include a good amount of these to keep you sustained. It’s also important to include a healthy amount of protein to support muscle recovery, as well as healthy fats to provide the additional calories that you need for longer days outdoors.
The best way to approach nutrition for climbing is to eat a balanced meal before your climb and then to top up your energy with snacks throughout the day. This way, you can prevent energy crashes and maintain concentration, which is especially important for longer or more technical routes.
The Best Food for Mountain Climbing – Our Recommendations
Main Meals for Climbing Trips
For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it’s important to eat high-energy, nutritionally balanced meals designed to release energy slowly throughout the day. However, these also need to balance practicality, as they must be lightweight enough to carry with you during your expedition. Therefore, we recommend the following types of meals:
Freeze-Dried and Dehydrated Meals
For climbers, freeze-dried meals and dehydrated meals are the best choices for a variety of reasons. These are pre-prepared meals that undergo processes to remove moisture, thereby reducing their weight by the majority. This means that whenever you need them, they can be easily rehydrated with hot water from a lightweight camping stove.
These types of meals retain both their nutritional value and their flavour well, meaning that you can produce meals that you’ll benefit from and enjoy in an instant! When you’re scaling up to new heights, the backpack weight and space that these meals save will be of all the more benefit to you.
For freeze-dried and dehydrated meals, we most recommend our TentMeals, Summit to Eat, Real Turmat, and Firepot meals as trusted brands offering convenient meals that are high in energy and vital nutrients while keeping weight to a minimum.
Wet Meals
Another convenient type of meal for climbers is wet meals. For those who prioritise convenience, these meals can be quickly prepared by boiling them in their pouches or eaten cold straight from the pouch if preferred or needed. These often have a more homely flavour than freeze-dried and dehydrated meals, so can be a more preferable choice for some.
However, these wet meals are better suited to shorter climbing trips, as their slightly added weight compared to freeze-dried and dehydrated meals makes them impractical for those packing meals in bulk.
Energy Snacks for Climbing
The above types of meals are practical choices that provide a lot of energy to keep you powering on. However, there will inevitably be moments during your climb where you need a quick energy boost to keep your energy levels high. The recommendations below for energy snacks are excellent choices for climbers in being lightweight and compact for easy carrying, while also being high in calories and beneficial nutrients.
Energy bars
Energy bars are often relied on by climbers, and for good reason. They provide a great source of energy while being compact and lightweight for an on-the-go boost when needed. These often contain a beneficial mix of both carbohydrates and protein as filling snacks that provide plenty of energy while supporting muscle repair. For example, many of our energy bars, such as our Real Meal bars, Clif bars, and Phoenix bars, all contain nutrient-dense blends of oats, fruit, nuts, and nut butters.
Flapjacks
Flapjacks, such as our TORQ energy flapjacks, are ideal for use as climbing fuel due to their high oat content and calorie density. The slow-release carbohydrates that are contained in oats can help to provide sustained energy during long climbing sessions while also tasting great as a sweet treat.
Energy Gels and Sweets
When your route is particularly demanding or the day is particularly long, having some energy gels or energy sweets is a useful choice. Often used by endurance athletes for their quick, easy consumption and high carbohydrate content, these are designed to be eaten on the go without stopping.
Jerky and Biltong
It's important to keep your snacks carbohydrate-based for the energy boost you need while climbing, but including some protein in your nutrition plan is also worthwhile. As such, jerky and biltong, such as our Raging Bull snacks, provide a lightweight, high-protein snack option that keeps well and prevents hunger during longer days outdoors.
The Importance of Hydration for Climbing
While sustaining your energy throughout the day with the right food is essential, making sure that you’re hydrated is equally as crucial. Even being slightly dehydrated can affect grip strength, endurance, and coordination, so be sure to stay on top of your water intake during climbs.
If you’re on a longer trip, be sure to use a camping water filter to ensure that any water you find is safe to drink and free of any contaminants. You should also use one alongside a durable outdoor water bottle with a good capacity to keep a reliable supply with you when you need it.
To ensure your hydration is as optimal as possible, we also recommend using electrolyte tablets. These help restore essential minerals lost through sweat as you continue climbing. By adding this to your water supply, you can help your cells absorb water more effectively, keep your nerves and muscles functioning properly, and prevent cramps and fatigue, helping keep your body in peak condition.
Food Ideal for Climbers at Base Camp Food
By packing our suggested food for mountain climbing above, you can rest assured that your body will have all of the energy and nutrients it needs to keep powering on, even on the most demanding of climbs.
At Base Camp Food, we have a wide range of high-quality climbing food options from leading brands, designed to maintain your energy levels and provide you with all the nutrients you need across the full duration of your climb.
If you’d like to know anything more about our selection of climbing food and mountaineering equipment or would like assistance in putting together a nutrition plan for your expedition, our friendly team will be happy to help you when you get in touch.