Food is the line item people either massively over-plan or seriously underestimate. Here’s the actual thinking we use — the same math whether we’re provisioning a guided trip or handing a self-guided client a ration plan as part of a trip-planning package.
The target
We plan for roughly 2,500–3,000 calories per person per day on a moderate-effort trip, scaling up toward 3,500+ on strenuous days with heavy elevation gain. In weight terms, that lands around 1.5–2 lbs of food per person per day if you’re choosing reasonably calorie-dense options — trail food should average close to 120–150 calories per ounce.
A real 5-day menu
This is close to what we’d actually pack for a 5-day trip, per person:
- Breakfast: instant oats with powdered milk, nut butter, and dried fruit mixed in
- Lunch: tortillas, hard cheese, salami or another shelf-stable protein, crackers
- Snacks: trail mix, energy bars, dried mango — grazed on throughout the day rather than eaten as three meals
- Dinner: dehydrated or freeze-dried meal, upgraded with olive oil for extra calories and a bit of hot sauce because morale matters
- Extras: electrolyte mix, instant coffee or tea, a couple of emergency-stash bars carried the whole trip and (ideally) not touched
Where people get it wrong
Two failure modes, both common: packing gourmet dinners and starving all day because breakfast and lunch got neglected, or packing enough calories on paper but in a format that’s miserable to eat by day 4 (plain rice and beans, every single night). We build in at least one “treat” meal and rotate flavors so nothing repeats back-to-back.
Resupply thinking
For anything past about 6 days, we start thinking seriously about a resupply point rather than just carrying more food — the weight penalty of carrying 8+ days of food from the start usually isn’t worth it compared to a well-timed cache or mailed resupply box at a trailhead like Reds Meadow, Muir Trail Ranch, or Vermilion Valley Resort.
Food is included by default on our guided trips, and it’s part of every trip-planning package. See the Quick Cost Calculator for how it factors into a trip’s total, or the FAQ for exactly what “included” means.