Winter Trip Planner
Tell it the trip — days, group size, style, and how cold it will get — and get your food, water, fuel, and sleep-system numbers before you start packing.
Your trip
Trip style
Food
3,800 calories per person per day → 15,000 total for 4 person-days. Weight it toward fats (nuts, cheese, chocolate, oil) and plan one hot meal a day minimum.
Water
2.5 L per person per day → 10.0 L total. It all comes from melted snow below freezing — stove time, not streams. Insulated bottles, kept upside down.
Fuel
Roughly 130 g per person per day (white-gas grams equivalent) → 520 g total. Liquid fuel handles cold better than canisters; bring a backup lighter kept warm inside your jacket.
Sleep system
Bag rated to about 0°F (10°F colder than the forecast low), two stacked pads with a combined R-value of 4–5+, and a dry base layer reserved for sleep only.
Daylight reality check
Midwinter gives you roughly 8–10 usable hours of light. Plan each day around a 1–2 p.m. turnaround for summit or crossing objectives, expect headlamps by mid-afternoon in storm conditions, and pre-pitch camp before dark — everything takes twice as long in gloves after sundown.
Plans are made to be cut