Food and pack weight

TRIPS uses your food and pack assumptions together because carried weight is a major part of route and day cost.

In many trips, early days are harder because food weight is highest at the start.

Food consumption rate

Food consumption rate is how much food you expect to consume per day.

TRIPS uses it to estimate starting food weight and day-by-day pack change across the trip.

Use a value that reflects the trip you are planning, not a nutrition target from another context.

Food density

Food density describes how many calories are packed into a given amount of food weight.

In this model:

• lower-density food means more carried weight for the same energy
• higher-density food means less carried weight for the same energy

Guidance

• Use your real trip menu if you have one.
• If not, use an estimate based on the foods you actually carry.
• Revisit the input if the projected starting food weight looks obviously wrong.

A common signal to watch

If early days look unexpectedly hard, heavy starting pack and food weight may be part of the reason.