Are there any places that require a mail drop for food?

[Bix]

I'm planning on buying as I go as much as possible. I was wondering if there were any areas where I absolutely wouldn't be able to buy food for a certain stretch?

Thanks!

[wandering_bob]

So much depends upon how flexible you are regarding what you'll eat and how far it is to the next real store. That said, definitely send yourself a box if resupplying at:

Muir Trail Ranch
The tiny "store" sells batteries, bandaids, and souveniers. No food. The hiker box is only available to those hikers who are picking up a supply bucket there, not just any hiker who walks in. The good news is they will sell anyone every kind of hiking fuel imaginable - alcohol, esbit tablets, MSR-type gas canisters, white gas.

[leaftye]

The first part of the trail might be challenging this year, especially for those that are still finding their trail legs.

From Mount Laguna (mile 45) to Hwy 74 (mile 150) there's no food this year. Hwy 74 only has a cafe, so it'd be tough to carry much food out of there, so you might have to hitch to Palm Springs or Idyllwild. This means you might have to carry food all the way to Devils Slide, which I believe is another 30 miles.

Fortunately you can send resupply boxes to the post office at Warner Springs and/or the Paradise Valley Cafe on Hwy 74.

Okay, I've heard of people hitching to Julian from Scissors Crossing, and people walking into Anza from Table Mountain, but that's a crazy waste of time, and going to Julian would entail spending big tourist buck money on food.

[BrianLe]

Yogi addresses this pretty well; if you're serious about hiking the PCT, I suggest you get her guide and read it through. Twice.
http://www.pcthandbook.com/

[Avo@HTG]

If you have a chance give the Workbook a read using the link below. Although, not as complete as Yogi's wonderful book, it is free and will give you an idea of your resupply.

http://www.hikertrashgear.com/workbook/

[postholer.com]

I'm planning on buying as I go as much as possible. I was wondering if there were any areas where I absolutely wouldn't be able to buy food for a certain stretch?

It all depends on how far a 'stretch' is! You also must determine how flexible you'll be with your food choices.

But the real question is, why skimp? You don't need a support team at home. You can probably get by comfortably mailing as few as 8 re-supply's, 4 of which can be done before leaving home. The rest you can do from trail towns along the way. It's completely painless.

Here are some free, real world itineraries of what folks actually do:
http://postholer.com/journal/samplePlans.php

-postholer

[echoes]

I'm mailing boxes to Warner Springs and Kennedy Meadows before I go. The rest I will hopefully figure out as I go. I plan on buying along the way as much as I can, so I probably won't be sending many other boxes before Oregon.

[cburnett]

I have a .pdf of my 2008 resupply plans. I did the first 1000 miles as writen out. I got off at SLC for personal reasons. I think the only changes I would make was to mail / drop to Big Bear Hostel in Big Bear City and not the PO, if you have a bounce box.

any one know how to attach a file to this forum post?

I uploaded .png in my photos.... let's now see if I can link to these.... hmmmm...

[Spirit Walker]

We did maildrops from Ashland to all our resupply places in Oregon and from Cascade Locks for all our resupplies in Washington. From Mojave we did our resupplies for the Sierras.

In some cases you can buy at the camp stores, but those stores are really limited and very expensive. You can also hitch to larger towns a good distance off the trail. The PCTA website has a good article (dated, but still has a lot of good information) about resupply as you go at http://www.pcta.org//planning/before_trip/strategy.asp