Toward Outdoors
Trails, trips, and the occasional calorie count.
A California backpacker's collection of trail tools, trip reports, gear takes, and camp recipes. Built from stuff I wished existed before I started.
About this site
I grew up in the Midwest and moved out to California, where I got properly hooked on the mountains. Most of what's here came out of questions I kept running into: how much food do I actually need, what gear is worth buying, which routes are worth doing twice.
Not a gear sponsorship machine or an affiliate empire. Just a place to put useful things and notes from the trail.
What you'll find here
Trail tools
Calculators for food, pack weight, and trip planning
Trip reports
Routes I've done with honest notes on conditions
Camp recipes
Real meals with actual calorie counts
Gear reviews
What works and what I wouldn't buy again
Featured Tool
Calculator
Backpacking Food Calculator
How much food do you actually need? Enter your miles, elevation, pack weight, and temperature. Get a calorie target with a full breakdown of where the numbers come from.
Open calculator →