The best part of camping is waking up. Chirping birds mix with the zshhhh of tent zippers and shifting sleeping bags to form a glorious but alarm-level predawn cacophony, and the brisk mountain air in those early moments is like a healing tonic for your lungs. The worst part of camping is also waking up: The temperature difference between the interior of your sleeping bag and the outdoors is a terrifying abyss, more bracing than even the blackest cup of coffee — something you desperately need because the glaring sun woke you up three hours earlier than your usual weekend consciousness. Your body is stiff from ground sleep; dirty from, well, dirt; and your bladder is telling you it’s time to pee somewhere weird and cold and very much not a toilet. 

Then ... breakfast. Out here, amid the humbling hugeness of crisp skies, drifting meadows, mammoth trees, and craggy mountains, everything tastes a little better, a little sharper, and a little more earned. Even a crumbly protein bar satisfies in a different way when you’re sitting on a stump in the dappled morning sunlight, surrounded by pine needles and nothingness. So then imagine a hollowed-out winter squash, smoky from a night in the embers of your fire, filled with a mess of eggs, chorizo, and dill-infused yogurt. Or maybe it’s a PB&J, dunked in egg batter and fried to gooey French toast magnificence. With these, the lousy night’s sleep vanishes, your body temperature rises, and the birds sing louder as the sun finally crests the mountaintop. You’ve achieved the camping nirvana that lured you out here in the first place, and it’s barely 7 a.m.