Sunday, July 22, 2012

Wood-fired Pizza in the Virginia Backcountry

Front-view
My friends and I tend to cook well when backpacking in the mountains. I don't understand buying all that expensive freeze-dried stuff anyways. This weekend we drove out to the Mount Rogers Wilderness/Grayson Highlands State Park to do some backpacking. We set up camp at an incredible campsite in a grassy open area at about 5000 feet above sea level.
We constructed a "stone-hearth oven" prior to building the fire. After building up a good pile of coals and "pre-heating" the oven, we cooked out first pizza. We used pita that we cut in half as the pizza crust. Due to the way the oven was assembled, we were able to achieve high heat from below and above the pizza which was ideal.
I highly recommend trying this next time y'all are in the backcountry as there is nothing better than freshly cooked pies on the mountain top.
Improvised peel.

View from the back of the oven with sliding rock "doors" open.


5 comments:

  1. I never would have thought this was possible.

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  2. That looks amazing!

    Karla Boza
    http://foodcitizenship.com/

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  3. hi. wondered if you would share how you found this camp spot. where exactly is it? it looks gorgeous. would like to try it out. were there horses near here? thanks!

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    1. We camped at a backcountry site right outside of Grayson Highlands state park a couple of miles from the summit of Mt. Rogers. And yes, there are many horses in the area, as well as cows.

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