my supply drops, good, bad ,what do u think

[Cookerhiker]

If you want to rely mostly on maildrops, that's cool - it's what you want. One thing to keep in mind is you said you didn't want to rely on hostels, motels, etc because of keeping your costs down. But if you send all your maildrops to POs (as opposed to hostels & motels which accept them), you'll inevitably at least once find yourself arriving in town Saturday afternoon and having to wait until Monday for the PO to open. And some POs are closed totally on Saturday or have limited and odd hours.

You may find yourself hiking all night to make a Saturday maildrop. Something to think about.

[Appalachian Tater]

When I thru-hiked I resupplied less often than a lot of hikers but you really seem to be planning much longer between resupplies than necessary. Here's where I did it. I didn't use any maildrops for food but you can see where I might if thru-hiking again. Some things may have changed as well.

RESUPPLY [plus memorable restaurants in supply towns]:

Get Baltimore Jack's Resupply Guide from WhiteBlaze--best advice on time between towns and resupply

Neels Gap - some expensive resupply at outfitter [buffet in town]
Hiawassee - good grocery store [buffet next to Holiday Inn]
Franklin - good grocery store, dollar store [great Mexican]
* Fontana Dam Village - bad, overpriced resupply at general store
Gatlinburg - good grocery store, ride bus [good BBQ]
Hot Springs - dollar store, outfitters, interesting little grocery store [Elmer’s - great vegetarian]
Erwin - okay grocery store, dollar store
Kincora/Elizabethton - nice grocery store
Damascus - good grocery store, dollar store [Lazy Fox Inn - fantastic breakfast]
* Atkins - crappy grocery store in town - motel owner takes you
Pearisburg - good grocery store, dollar store [Chinese buffet]
Daleville - great grocery store [nice BBQ]
Waynesboro - good grocery store [Chinese buffet]
* Linden - crappy general store (maildrop or skip altogether)
Harpers Ferry (get summer gear) - great grocery store, dollar store, in next town, ride bus
Duncannon - great grocery store, drug store next door [burger at Doyle]
Delaware Water Gap - went home, don't know about grocery store
Pawling - went home, pretty good bit off trail, don't know about grocery store [great Mexican restaurant with Mexican groceries]
Kent - nice little grocery story
Salisbury - nice little grocery store
North Adams - great grocery store [picnic table out front, salad bar inside]
Manchester Center - good grocery store, dollar store [good Steak rest.]
Hanover - great co-op grocery store, drugstore [Indian (in house not mall)]
* Glencliff (get winter gear anyway) - okay deluxe gas station food mart
Gorham - nice grocery store [Chinese buffets]
Rangely - nice medium-sized grocery store [good Thai]
Monson - crappy little dirty store, nice medium-sized grocery store in next town [great BBQ, nice breakfast at Shaw’s]

* would definitely consider sending food maildrop

Scale: crappy - okay - good - nice - great - fantastic

[Roots]

Go to the home page: http://www.whiteblaze.net/index.php

Scroll down on the left hand side of the page you will see a resupply info and just click on that. Good advice on resupplies.

[Iceaxe]

"How about Sobo? How much should I have when I arrive in Baxter Park? I mean from the day I get there, day 0, set up camp, then climb the mountain on day 1, then day 2 leaving south. How much food should I have on day 0 to make it to a resupply?
__________________
~ For indoor or outdoor use only. "

Monson Maine is just 4 miles off trail at mile 114.4 for a Southbounder.
That took me 20 seconds to figure out and i have never been there.
I am not being snide, just demostrating the power of well organized information found
in an excellant guidebook.
Now you just have to figure out how long it will take you to hike those 114 miles
accounting for elevation, how fast you want to hike, etc. My guide book has extensive detailed elevation profles to help with that too.

Get Awol's AT Guide

[Papa D]

I don't think you need to carry 9 days of food either but I have done it a bunch of times at around 10 pounds. The Chop said 18 pounds! Wow, that's like a jar of peanut butter every day! I think that mail-drops should be for things you have and don't want to re-buy - like a clean shirt or contact lenses or maybe special food you can't find anywhere else - I think you could make it easy on yourself and plan on doing about 10 mail-drops TOTAL for your thru-hike - 2 per month for 5 months - shop along the way for everything else.