What to Do About Fuel, Water, and Resupply on a Multi-Day SUP Trip
Camp fuel gave my best friend Michael Whalen and me trouble before we'd even launched on our five-day paddleboard circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe, half-empty canisters that needed a connector to consolidate into something usable. That early hiccup was a preview of how much thought fuel, water, and resupply logistics actually require on a trip like this. Here's what we learned, in real time, about managing consumables across five days on open water.
Why We Resupplied Rather Than Carrying Everything
Carrying five full days of food and water from the start would have added significant weight to already loaded boards, so we planned our route around known resupply points instead, small markets along the western shore where we could restock without carrying the full trip's worth of supplies from day one. This approach kept our daily load lighter, but it required committing to a route that actually passed by viable resupply locations rather than choosing the most direct path regardless of what services it offered.
The Fuel Problem We Ran Into Before Departure
Our camp stove fuel came from a collection of half-empty canisters accumulated from previous trips, which meant consolidating them into a usable configuration the night before departure, a problem that could have been avoided entirely with better advance planning. Start any multi-day trip with full, clearly counted fuel canisters rather than assuming leftover partial canisters will add up to what you need. The math is easy to get wrong under time pressure, exactly the situation we found ourselves in.
How Much Water We Actually Needed
Open water exposure across full paddling days meant our water consumption ran higher than either of us initially estimated, particularly on the hottest, most exposed stretches of the route. We resupplied water more frequently than our original plan called for, treating it as a consumable that needed active management rather than something we'd simply carry enough of from the start. If you're planning your own trip, build in more water capacity and more frequent resupply opportunities than your first estimate suggests, especially for stretches with limited shade.
What Resupply Actually Looked Like Day to Day
We stopped at West Shore Market in Homewood and Tahoma Market at different points along our route, picking up food for the day and for the evening's camp meal rather than carrying multiple days of supplies at once. This kept our load manageable and gave us natural checkpoints to reassess the day's progress, wind conditions, and overall pace, in addition to solving the practical food and water problem.
Planning Your Own Resupply Route
Before you launch, map out every viable resupply point along your planned route, and build your daily distances around actually reaching those points rather than assuming you'll figure it out as you go. Confirm ahead of time what's actually available at each specific location if you possibly can, since not every small market or marina along Lake Tahoe offers the same range of supplies, and showing up expecting a full grocery selection at a small convenience stop can leave you short on what you actually need on a day when substitutions aren't easy to come by.
What I'd Change About Our Own Approach
Knowing what I know now, I'd sort and count our fuel canisters at least a few days before departure rather than the night before, giving enough time to source additional fuel if what we had turned out to be insufficient. I'd also build slightly more water capacity into our daily carrying plan, since running lower than comfortable on the hottest stretches added a layer of stress that better initial planning could have avoided entirely.
What We'd Tell Someone Planning Their First Resupply Route
Call ahead if possible, or research recent reviews and information about any small market or marina you're planning to rely on for resupply, since availability and hours at smaller establishments along Lake Tahoe can vary more than you'd expect from a larger grocery store in a more developed area. We got lucky that both West Shore Market and Tahoma Market had what we needed when we arrived, but showing up with a backup plan in case a specific resupply point turned out to be closed or understocked would have been smarter planning on our part.
How Much Extra Capacity Actually Makes Sense
Beyond planning for your estimated needs, build in roughly twenty to thirty percent extra capacity for water and fuel specifically, since both tend to run out faster than initial estimates suggest once you're actually living with the consumption patterns of a demanding multi-day trip rather than planning them on paper beforehand. That extra margin costs some additional weight on your board, but it's a worthwhile trade against the very real possibility of running short on something essential far from any easy resupply option.
What Happened When We Actually Ran Low
By our fourth day, our water reserves were running lower than either of us was fully comfortable with, a direct result of underestimating consumption on our hottest, most exposed days earlier in the trip. We managed it without real crisis by prioritizing our remaining water carefully and reaching Zephyr Cove, where Kristin met us with a resupply, sooner than it might otherwise have become a genuine problem. That close call reinforced everything we'd already suspected about building in more margin than felt strictly necessary on paper. The gap between what feels like enough margin during calm planning at home and what actually proves necessary once you're living with real daily consumption on the water is wider than most people, including us, initially assume, and closing that gap in advance is far easier than managing a shortfall once you're already several days into a demanding route with few easy options for correction. Plan your margins with that gap explicitly in mind rather than trusting a comfortable-feeling estimate made from the comfort of your own kitchen table weeks before departure, since the physical reality of five demanding days rarely matches the tidy math that feels reasonable on paper, no matter how carefully that math was worked out beforehand, which is exactly why margin matters more than precision when planning a trip with this many variables outside your control.
Before You Close This Tab
How do you plan food, water, and camp fuel logistics for your own multi-day, self-supported paddleboard expedition?
Have you mapped out actual resupply points along your route, or are you assuming you'll figure it out along the way?
How would you handle a fuel or water shortfall discovered the night before departure rather than days in advance?
What consumable do you think you're most likely to underestimate on your own multi-day water trip?
Dalton Johnson is a photographer, filmmaker, and brand storyteller based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the past decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Ford Bronco across all seven continents. He is the creator of the Follow The Journey distribution framework, which has produced over one million organic views per 30-day cycle without paid media. His work includes two published books, an award-winning documentary that aired on PBS, and more than fifty commercial spots directed. He runs Stories by Dalton on Substack, read by more than 34,000 subscribers.