Three Peaks Challenge food: what to pack and eat on each peak

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix. Updated October 2026.

A 75kg walker burns about 5,850 calories walking the National Three Peaks, and roughly 6,900 across the full 24 hours once the drives are counted. Plan to eat 200 to 300 calories an hour on each mountain and a 600 to 800 calorie meal on each drive: about 3,200 calories of hill food, roughly 800g if it is dense.

This guide covers the National Three Peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa, also called Snowdon, inside 24 hours) and the Yorkshire Three Peaks (Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough, traditionally inside 12 hours). Calorie figures are estimates for a 75kg adult using the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: 6.0 METs for cross-country hiking (code 17080) and 1.3 for riding in a car (code 16015), multiplied by body weight and hours. They are gross figures, so they include the roughly 75 calories an hour a 75kg person burns at rest anyway.

How many calories do you burn climbing Ben Nevis?

A 75kg walker burns about 3,150 to 4,050 calories climbing Ben Nevis by the Mountain Track at a normal pace of 7 to 9 hours, and about 2,250 at a Three Peaks pace of 5 hours.

The Mountain Track from the Glen Nevis visitor centre is 17km with 1,352m of ascent, and Walkhighlands allows 7 to 9 hours for it. At 6.0 METs, every hour on the hill costs 450 calories for a 75kg walker, 360 at 60kg and 540 at 90kg. Steep climbing with a loaded pack rates higher, up to 7.8 METs for hiking with a daypack in the same compendium, so a fast ascent can cost up to about 30% more than these figures.

For your own weight, pace and pack, our hiking calorie calculator runs the same method.

How many calories does the whole Three Peaks Challenge burn?

The National Three Peaks burns about 6,900 calories for a 75kg walker over 24 hours: roughly 5,850 on the three mountains and 1,070 during about 11 hours in the vehicle.

The walking totals 23 miles (37km) and 3,064m of ascent, according to Countryfile. Using the comfortable walking times from threepeakschallenge.uk, the estimate for a 75kg walker breaks down like this:

• Ben Nevis, 1,345m, about 5 hours: 2,250 calories.
• Scafell Pike, 978m, about 4 hours from Wasdale Head: 1,800 calories.
• Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), 1,085m, about 4 hours: 1,800 calories. A day walker on the Pyg Track, which Eryri National Park times at 6 hours return, burns about 2,700.
• Two drives, about 6 hours and 5 hours, at 1.3 METs: 1,070 calories.

The Yorkshire Three Peaks is 24 miles (38.6km) with about 1,600m of ascent, according to the Yorkshire Dales National Park. If it takes you 10 to 12 hours, a 75kg walker burns about 4,500 to 5,400 calories.

You will not eat all of that back on the day, and you do not need to. At about 375 calories an hour above resting, eating 200 to 300 calories an hour on the hill covers roughly half to four-fifths of what you burn while moving; the next proper meal does the rest.

Why is the Three Peaks harder to fuel than a normal hill day?

The Three Peaks stacks 13 hours of walking, 11 hours of sitting and at least one night climb into a single day, and each of those makes eating harder.

On a normal six-hour walk, breakfast and a couple of sandwiches will carry most people. On the National, you start Ben Nevis on breakfast, sit in a vehicle for six hours, climb Scafell Pike in the evening, sit for five more, and on the common 6am-start schedule begin Yr Wyddfa around 2am. Legs stiffen in the vehicle, stomachs do not like a big meal straight before a steep ascent, and very few people are hungry at 2am.

That is why the food that works here is food you can eat in small pieces, with cold hands and no appetite, without stopping. A Tupperware of pasta salad works in the vehicle. On the hill, it does not.

For the wider principles of eating on long walking days, see our hiking and trekking nutrition guide. This page sticks to the Three Peaks format.

What does a 24-hour Three Peaks food timeline look like?

On a 6am start, you eat breakfast at about 5am, fuel steadily on each mountain, eat your two biggest meals at the start of each drive, and finish on Yr Wyddfa at about 6am the next morning.

The timings below follow the 6am-start schedule published by threepeakschallenge.uk:

• 5am: breakfast in Fort William, 600 to 800 calories.
• 6am to 11am, Ben Nevis: start eating within 45 minutes, then 200 to 300 calories an hour in small bites.
• 11am to 5pm, drive to Wasdale Head (about 6 hours): lunch in the first hour, 600 to 800 calories, then rest; a snack and a drink an hour before you arrive.
• 5pm to 9pm, Scafell Pike: lean savoury, because by now sweet food starts to pall.
• 9pm to 2am, drive to Pen-y-Pass (about 5 hours): something hot from a flask, then sleep.
• 2am to 6am, Yr Wyddfa: half a bar or a handful of nuts at the car park, then small pieces every 20 to 30 minutes.
• 6am onwards: a proper breakfast within the hour.

What should you eat on each mountain?

Eat a 600 to 800 calorie breakfast, carry about 1,350 calories up Ben Nevis and roughly 1,000 up each of the other two peaks, and save your biggest meals for the drives.

The example carries below use UK supermarket food, with calories worked out from the per 100g values in McCance and Widdowson's food tables (CoFID 2021). Swap in what you like; keep the totals.

Before you start: the pre-challenge meal

Eat a proper meal an hour or two before the first mountain. Porridge, toast with peanut butter, eggs on toast, or a bowl of pasta all work well. Aim for slow-release carbohydrate with some protein, and avoid anything greasy that will sit in your stomach on the first ascent.

If you are starting in the early hours, eat before you leave even if you do not feel hungry. The night before, have a normal carbohydrate-heavy dinner and skip the pints.

Ben Nevis (or Pen-y-ghent on the Yorkshire)

You will not feel hungry on the first mountain, and that is the trap. Adrenaline and breakfast carry you for an hour or two, and if you wait for hunger you are already behind. Start eating within 45 minutes, a few bites every 20 to 30 minutes, and sip water as you go.

• A cheese and pickle sandwich, 180g: 508 calories.
• Salted peanuts, 75g: 452 calories.
• A shop-bought flapjack, 90g: 391 calories.
• Total: 345g and 1,351 calories for about 5 hours.

The first drive

This is your most important eating window: about six hours in the vehicle between Fort William and Wasdale Head, and the one point in the day when your stomach is settled and you are sitting down.

Eat your most substantial food in the first hour of the drive, 600 to 800 calories: a wrap or filled roll, a pasta pot, or a 180g cheese sandwich and a 100g sausage roll (about 860 calories together). Then rest. It is also when you discover you packed four more flapjacks and cannot face another sweet thing, so pack savoury food for this stage: salted nuts, cheese, a peanut butter wrap, crisps.

Scafell Pike (or Whernside)

By Scafell Pike you have been going for 11 hours, and the food that looked good at home may now look revolting. That is normal. Switch to whatever you can get down, keep to small amounts every 20 to 30 minutes, and do not stop eating because you are not hungry.

• An individual pork pie, 140g: 518 calories.
• Milk chocolate, 50g: 260 calories.
• Fruit gums, 60g: 194 calories.
• Total: 250g and 972 calories for about 4 hours.

The second drive

The five-hour drive to Pen-y-Pass usually runs from about 9pm to 2am, so eat something warm early and then sleep. A flask of hot water turns instant porridge, a cup of noodles or a crumbled bar into a hot meal without a stove. Phoenix Bars stirred into hot water make a thick porridge of up to 557 calories, which is easier to get down at 10pm than a sandwich.

Yr Wyddfa (or Ingleborough)

The final mountain is usually climbed in the dark, tired and cold, with little appetite. Eat something at the car park before you start, even half a bar or a handful of nuts, then nibble all the way up. Boiled sweets work well here because they dissolve without chewing while you are breathing hard.

• A 120g flapjack or dense bar, broken into six pieces: about 520 calories.
• Boiled sweets, 60g: 196 calories.
• Malted milk chocolate balls, 40g: 190 calories.
• Total: 220g and 907 calories for about 4 hours.

Across the three mountains that is 815g of food and 3,230 calories, just under 4 calories per gram. Save one thing you really enjoy for the summit or the descent; something to look forward to matters after 20 hours.

After you finish

Eat a proper meal within an hour of finishing, with carbohydrate and protein. A burger, fish and chips, a pub meal, whatever you can get. You will have run a deficit of well over 1,000 calories, and the sooner you start eating, the better the next day feels.

If the Three Peaks is a training step towards something bigger, our guide to climbing Mount Toubkal covers food for a two-day ascent to 4,167m, where altitude, not distance, is what takes your appetite.

How do you fuel the Yorkshire Three Peaks?

Carry 2,500 to 3,000 calories for a 10 to 12 hour round, because there is no vehicle between peaks and nothing to buy on the hills.

The route is a 24-mile loop, usually started at Horton-in-Ribblesdale and walked Pen-y-ghent, Whernside, then Ingleborough; Ribblehead is the most popular alternative start. The Yorkshire Dales National Park tells walkers to stock up on food and drink before setting off, notes that the only public toilets are at Horton, and points out there are no litter bins on the route, so wrappers come home with you.

At 250 calories an hour, 10 to 12 hours is 2,500 to 3,000 calories, about 625 to 750g of food at 4 calories per gram. Eat the biggest item on the long, gentler stretch between Pen-y-ghent and Ribblehead, where the pace drops and your stomach settles. If someone can meet you at Ribblehead, leave a second bag of food and water with them.

Philip Hanson, a customer, ran the route as a training run in 5 hours 51 minutes on two Phoenix Bars and one gel for the final push up Ingleborough. "I broke each bar into around six pieces and ate them throughout," he wrote. A runner moving that fast needs less food than a walker out for twice as long, so treat his two bars as a minimum, not a target.

Which Three Peaks snacks give the most calories for their weight?

Salted peanuts (6.0 calories per gram), milk chocolate (5.2) and crisps (4.9) give the most calories for their weight among common Three Peaks snacks; sandwiches (2.8) and bananas (0.8) give the fewest.

Calories per gram, from CoFID per 100g values:

• Salted peanuts: 6.0.
• Milk chocolate: 5.2.
• Crisps: 4.9; light but bulky.
• Malted milk chocolate balls: 4.8.
• Dense high calorie bars and flapjack: 4.3 to 4.6.
• Cereal bars: 4.4 with chocolate, 3.5 without.
• Individual pork pie: 3.7.
• Sausage roll: 3.5.
• Boiled sweets: 3.3; fruit gums 3.2.
• Fruited malt loaf: 3.0.
• Cheese and pickle sandwich: 2.8.
• Scotch egg: 2.4.
• Banana: 0.8.

On the National, you restock from the vehicle twice, so weight is less critical than on a multi-day walk. What density buys you here is pocket space and fewer mouthfuls when you are not hungry: one compact 120g bar at 4.5 calories per gram carries as much as 190g of sandwich. For trips where every gram is carried for days, see our ranking of the lightest high calorie food for backpacking and our comparison of the best energy bars for hiking.

What should be on a Three Peaks food checklist?

A Three Peaks food checklist needs three bags of hill food, one per mountain, plus the vehicle food, water and a reserve; packing each mountain's food separately stops you eating Snowdon's share on Ben Nevis.

On-mountain food, one bag per peak:

• About 1,350 calories for Ben Nevis and 1,000 each for Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa, as in the plan above.
• At least one savoury item per bag: salted nuts, cheese, a pork pie, crisps.
• Something that dissolves without chewing for the steep sections: boiled sweets or jelly sweets.
• Water: Countryfile suggests at least two litres per climb.

Vehicle food:

• Two main meals of 600 to 800 calories each, mostly savoury.
• A flask of hot water for porridge, noodles or hot drinks.
• A banana or soft fruit for the first drive only; it will not survive a full day in a bag.
• A treat for the finish, and electrolyte tablets or a sports drink.

Emergency reserve: one extra bar or a bag of nuts, 400 to 500 calories, that you do not touch unless you run out or someone in your group needs it. On a mountain in poor weather, spare food is a safety item.

Frequently asked questions

Should I carb-load before the Three Peaks?

A full carb-load is not needed at walking pace. Eat normal, carbohydrate-rich meals for the 48 hours before, have a proper dinner the night before, and do not skip meals while you pack the car. If you want gram targets for your body weight, our carb-loading calculator works them out.

Can I rely on cafes and shops along the route?

Not on the hills. The Yorkshire Three Peaks area has cafes, pubs and shops, but the National Park tells walkers to stock up before they set off. On the National, the drives pass service stations, but opening times and queues vary, and a 20-minute stop eats into a 24-hour window. Treat any cafe as a bonus.

Should I use energy gels on the Three Peaks?

Use them as a backup, not as your main food. At walking pace you can chew, and over 13 hours solid food is easier on most stomachs than gel after gel. One or two gels in a pocket for the last steep climb, or for a sudden dip, is plenty; build the rest of the day around real food.

How much water should I carry?

Countryfile suggests at least two litres per climb, and threepeakschallenge.uk expects 400 to 600ml an hour depending on temperature and pace. On the National you can refill from the vehicle between peaks; on the Yorkshire, carry it all unless someone meets you at Ribblehead. Add electrolytes to one bottle on warm days.

What if I lose my appetite completely?

It is common on the final mountain. Switch to liquid calories such as a sports drink or milkshake, dissolving sweets, or very small bites of something dense. Even 100 calories an hour is better than nothing. Our guide to nausea and appetite loss in endurance events covers what to try.

Which of the Three Peaks is hardest to fuel?

Usually Yr Wyddfa. On the common 6am-start schedule you climb it from about 2am, after 20 hours awake, with the least appetite of the day. Ben Nevis is the biggest climb at 1,345m and about 5 hours, but you start it fed and fresh. Pack your most appealing food for the last peak.

Sources: 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities; CoFID 2021; Countryfile, What is the Three Peaks Challenge?; threepeakschallenge.uk timing; Walkhighlands, Ben Nevis; Eryri National Park, Pyg Track; Yorkshire Dales National Park.