Trail Talk: Elina & Brendan on Cooking Smarter in the Outdoors

What’s in your pack when it comes to trail meals? Freeze-dried pouches? DIY noodles? A full cookset for campsite feasts?

Sea to Summit’s Head of Product and Marketing, Brendan Harris caught up with Elina Osborne to talk about cooking on the trail, the gear they rely on, and what trade-offs they’re willing to make for weight, comfort, and packability.

So, Elina, what’s your go-to trail meal strategy?
Generally, about 30% of the time, I go for a freeze-dried meal—super easy, no thinking required. But the rest of the time it’s some kind of reimagined version of ramen.

I love that approach – it’s all about balance. Do you find weight plays into your food choices? How much does it matter to you when it comes to cookware and tableware?
I think minimising pack weight is so important. It can be overlooked just how much it can influence the enjoyment of your hike. When you carry less, you’re able to move with more freedom, and less weight means less fatigue. Once you know how much you can carry comfortably, this is where you begin to understand where you can add more weight with food or gear you want to prioritise. For me, I’m usually prioritising camera gear, so weight of my cookware and tableware is important—they definitely fall into that “keep it minimal” category.

How about packed size – does that influence your gear choices too?
100%. Being able to pack your gear down efficiently further adds to the enjoyment of minimising pack weight.

You tested our 1L Frontier Pot on your last hike – how did it go?
The pop-up build of the Frontier Pot is pretty ingenious in creating a pot that is super packable. Full-sized function, tiny packed size. The pot also worked well as a bowl, meaning one less thing I needed to pack.

Be honest, how was the clean-up?
Clean-up was super simple!

Let’s talk about the Cup and Spork. Yay or nay?
Yay. I like the material of the spork – it’s definitely a lot stronger than some of the plastic cutlery options. It works really well with the 1 litre pot – the shape of the pot and the spork match each other. The one drawback is that the spork is a little short when eating things out of packets.

The cup’s packability—again, ingenious. The design just makes sense!

Anything you didn’t love about the setup?
If I’m heading out on a long thru-hike, I probably wouldn’t bring this kit—it’s not ultralight. But for a couple of nights when you want real cooking capacity? It’s spot on.

That’s exactly who we built the Frontier range for — it’s about finding that sweet spot between comfort, performance, and packability.