A system and method for protecting a trunk with multiple trunks may select a primary path on a first trunk for which to place a corresponding bypass tunnel on a second trunk. The system and method may further select one or more alternate trunks using a constraint-based trunk-selection algorithm. The system and method may further determine if at least one of the selected alternate trunks has sufficient priority bandwidth. In the event that one or more alternate trunks have priority bandwidths larger than the physical bandwidth of the primary path, the system and method may select an alternate trunk from the one or more alternate trunks having priority bandwidths larger than the physical bandwidth of the primary path based on a pre-determined order of priority bandwidth.