Hikers Swear By This Calorie-Dense Staple You Can Conveniently Find At Any Grocery Store

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Hiking burns serious calories — for some trail champs, it's often anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 a day. And one critical mistake when planning and prepping for your hike is to overlook your snack stash. Enter the humble Snickers bar; it's compact, shelf-stable, and surprisingly powerful as a trail fuel. Is it candy? OK, yes — but hear us out. With approximately 250 calories per bar (depending on variety), Snickers brings together sugar, carbs, and fats in one bite — offering both quick energy from sugar and longer-lasting fuel from peanuts and fats.

Among the many food and drink hacks to help better prepare you for a hike, packing Snickers might be the most delicious. One major reason is that it actually tastes good. With the endless amounts of "energy" bars and nutritional snacks aimed at hikers, many experienced trail fiends agree that you can pry the Snickers from our cold, dead fingers. Well, hopefully not, but you get the picture. Redditor u/manofdiscovery shared, "It's just about the only thing I didn't get sick of eating at any point while on the PCT. Everything else I packed I slowly began to dread having to put in [my] mouth." Another hiker agreed, with u/johnnygatorhikes replying, "Two bites into any Clif bar, I'm wondering why I packed this. One bite into a Snickers, I wonder why I didn't pack more."

Combined macros, availability in every grocery aisle, and no fuss packaging have made Snickers a surprisingly trusted snack for hikers who need reliable calories and hunger satisfaction on the go. We've all heard the company's anti-hangry slogan — "Maybe you just need a Snickers." And if it makes you feel any better, Snickers even makes a HiProtein Crisp version.

To be fair, energy bars developed for high-energy activities like hiking do offer benefits over Snickers. Comparing a Snickers bar to a Crunchy Peanut Butter Clif bar, for example, we see they're both calorically similar — however Snickers offers less protein and more fat and saturated fat. Snickers is also higher in sugar, while the Clif bar is higher in carbs. And Snickers' first ingredient is milk chocolate, whereas Clif's is organic rolled oats.

That said, everything in moderation. Especially while thru-hiking, a little splurge won't hurt once in a while — and it may be better for your morale. As The Trek describes certain energy bars, at least it's not a "not-so-mouth-watering blend of chalk, grit, and sadness." A good tip is to portion it strategically. Instead of eating an entire bar at once, break it up to spread across the day. The fat and protein can help stave off crashes, and eating it alongside nuts, dried fruit, or jerky will round out nutrients and hydration. 

At the end of the day, preparing for a thru-hike is no small feat. Snickers works best as a high-glycemic boost when you've hit a wall, like uphill sections or post-lunch slumps. And if you still aren't sure, take it from a doctor — nutrition expert Dr. Braaten told Mountain Safety Research: "For the long haul, I would choose Snickers over a trail bar any day. Most of those bars have a health-spin on them, like honey instead of high fructose corn syrup, but it doesn't matter to your hiking body."