re supply what to buy list

[david_1]

ok so I have read far too many posts about resupplying in town. But what I dont get is how to buy the right food without buying far too much. how do you buy sugar without carrying a bag for weeks. yes I understand about bounce boxes,but if you just want to buy and hike.

please could you post a sample list of what you would buy for a resupply of say 3 to 4 days.

Thanks
David

[July]

ok so I have read far too many posts about resupplying in town. But what I dont get is how to buy the right food without buying far too much. how do you buy sugar without carrying a bag for weeks. yes I understand about bounce boxes,but if you just want to buy and hike.

please could you post a sample list of what you would buy for a resupply of say 3 to 4 days.




Thanks
David

Appetites vary greatly, but here is an example of meals I use often. This also varys by MPD and Season.
Typical summer: Breakfast- venison or salmon jerky Lunch- trailmix and lots of almonds Dinner- Hot FBC with coffee
Of course leaving town would carry a big sub for lunch...etc.. You will dial it in as you walk, and your appetite and cravings will change :)

[10-K]

For things like sugar and condiments you can score them from stores and fast food joints. You can also buy almost every imaginable condiment here: http://www.minimus.biz/FoodMain.aspx.

[kayak karl]

you got the right idea, make a list. i always work off of a list to not buy too much. like 4 diners, 3 lunches, 3 breakfast, 8 snacks. i start the list when i leave town. if i get a good idea for a meal, i write it down. there is probably a I thingy App for this. remember that the day you leave town you might of had breakfast and a hoagie in pocket for lunch. the day you hit town maybe only breakfast and a snack. even if i plan to get to town at 2pm, i will hold off lunch for town food.
i like 10k's past idea of carrying food in store to get a better idea of weight. try not to shop when hungry (that holds true on and off trail)

[10-K]

try not to shop when hungry (that holds true on and off trail)

Or full.. if I resupply after I eat I tend to not buy enough. :)

[garlic08]

For a four day hike I'd buy: A small box of Quaker oats, a bag of walnuts from the baking aisle, a bag of raisins and mix them all together in a ziplock bag--that's muesli. Then I'd buy a bag of tortillas and a half pound of cheese, or a pound of peanut butter if it's too hot for cheese. Then a can of cashews, a box of Wheat Thins, a couple packages of Idahoan instant mashed potatoes. (Make a visit to the candy aisle if you like sweets.) I'd add up the package weights and make sure I have about eight pounds and add or subtract as needed. And finally a pint of Ben and Jerry's to have outside the store.

[david_1]

anyone else want to add their 3 to 4 day pack food because im stunned at what I had thought about packing and Garlics food. I might be trying to take to much :-)

[10-K]

Another way you can look at it is by calories. 4000-4500 calories per day.

If you do that, the food weight should (theoretically) take care of itself.

[lonehiker]

5 day (or another way at looking at it is 4 dinners and 4 breakfast re-supply)

Breakfast:
1 box of pop tarts (4 packages of 2 tarts in each)
Snacks:
10 snacks (5 candy bars and 5 granola/protein bars) one of each per day. The extra 2 snacks are for day out of and into town.
Lunch:
1 small jar peanut butter (or buy whatever size and transfer to a smaller jar)
1 package of tortillas (divide package by 4 and eat that many each day)
Dinner:
mix of (lipton pasta, rice, Idahoan potatoes, ramen) one per day.
foil packet spam or tuna one per day.
Dessert:
box of honey buns (divide by 4 and eat that many each day)

This has been my standard re-supply for years. I might switch up and replace some of the snacks with chips etc. periodically. As my appetite kicks in I will add 1 to 2 more snacks a day.

The night before re-supply I make a list of the numbers of breakfast, snacks etc. that I will need based upon my estimate of my mileage until next re-supply. I take list with me to store and only purchase items/quantities on list. I have at times been somewhat hungry during the day but my dinners/dessert are substantial enough that I am full each evening. I have been doing this long enough that, at most, I may go into town with a snack or two extra. Obviously if the mileage is easier than expected and I cut a day off of my estimate I may go into town with a full days supply of food. The longer you hike this will become more rare as you will have a good feel for your mileage. I have never ran out of food (maybe just luck) but am confident that I won't die of starvation should this ever happen. Most people take way too much food on trips. They will shave a half ounce off of a toothbrush, but then take 3 days too much food (or whatever). Just what works for me, ymmv.

[Coffee]

anyone else want to add their 3 to 4 day pack food because im stunned at what I had thought about packing and Garlics food. I might be trying to take to much :-)

When I'm resupplying for 4 days in a reasonably decent supermarket:

Breakfasts:
Instant oatmeal - 3 packets per day x 4 = 12 packets
Starbucks Via x 2 (buy or get from bounce box)

Snacks (mid morning, noon, mid afternoon)
Mixed nuts or peanuts - mixed in with granola (trail mix)
Raisins
Clif bar or similar x 3
Regular or king size candy bar - Snickers or Milky Way

Dinner
Idahoan potatos
Mac & cheese x 2
Couscous
Olive oil - 2 ounces per dinner meal
2 Tortillas per day
Regular or king size candy bar or protein bar (Clif Builder)
Sometimes hot chocolate

Sometimes there is excess food you have to buy for a four day segment. For example, instant oatmeal comes in boxes of 10 and for the four days above I need 12 packets. So depending on whether I am sending out my bounce box from the town in question, I might buy two boxes of oatmeal and send ahead the 8 extra packets, or just buy one box and have 2 packets/day for two days and 3 packets/day for two days plus an extra ClifBar on the days I just have 2 packets. Olive oil comes in 16-17 ounce bottles but I never take more than 8 ounces. So I keep an extra Nalgene 8 ounce bottle (very leakproof) in my bounce box and send the excess ahead.

If I don't have my bounce box in the town, I'll often donate excess food. Most hostels have communal kitchens where you can leave excess food, or there are hiker boxes.

I got more comfortable resupplying in small towns this year on my Colorado trip. I never had any issues finding food, but sometimes I had to deal with repetition or make substitutions. Some small towns have only very expensive grocery stores (think 2x price of Wal-Mart) but I rarely spent more than $10/day on trail food.

[bigcranky]

We have a basic idea of the number of meals we need, and how many days, plus a list of what might already be in our food bags (condiment packs, drink mixes, leftover noodles, whatever.)

We go through the entire grocery store and put items in the cart based on days & meals. At the same time, I am adding up the weight of the food (each package lists the net weight in ounces, so this is pretty easy to do in my head.) Then, here is the crucial part: we find a spot inside the store and go through the cart, putting together all the items for each meal and each day, to see what we forgot, or (more likely) what we added extra because it was right there in front of us and looked good. I also think about total food weight -- we need about 4 pounds per day for the two of us (less breakfast leaving town and whatever meals we might get coming into the next town.) So, for a 5 day section, that's 4 full days plus a lunch and some snacks, figure anywhere from 15-18 pounds is about right. (Again, for two people.) So if we only have ten pounds, we have problems, same if we have 25 (though this is a lot easier to figure out.)

Some people advocate using a hand basket while shopping, on the theory that carrying it around will keep you from buying too much. I don't do that, it's just too hard to organize and see what I'm getting.

I will say the one time we screwed up and bought way too much was the one time we went shopping in two different places. Bad idea. We hit Rite Aid for some basic supplies and saw all kinds of great hiking food, which we bought, then we went to the main grocery store and we couldn't put it all together when editing the contents (see "crucial part" above.)

[lonehiker]

Would add to my post #9 that this re-supply works in about any size grocery store and in many convenience stores.

[rhjanes]

I got a question. I find that candy bars and energy bars, with chocolate, are usually a mess. Is there a trick so they are NOT mostly melted in their wrapper?

[lonehiker]

I got a question. I find that candy bars and energy bars, with chocolate, are usually a mess. Is there a trick so they are NOT mostly melted in their wrapper?

I use the term "candy bar" loosely. I may buy peanut m&ms or a bag of skittles, as two examples. Whatever works for the conditions.

[Coffee]

Melted chocolate was only a problem a couple of times on the Colorado Trail and JMT or in spring/fall in mid Atlantic AT. I wouldn't take chocolate bars during the height of summer in the east, or I would substitute M&Ms for snickers. One thing I have noticed is that putting a candy bar in my hipbelt pocket can partially melt it even on cooler days apparently due to body heat. So I keep candy bars in my shoulder strap pouch instead.

[RED-DOG]

Here's what I normally would buy on a 4 day resupply, you need to remember your appetite will change greatly as you progress up the trail.

Breakfast:
1 Package of pop-tarts. ( I think theirs like 6 individual packs ).
Cereal ( any flavor )
powdered milk ( the way I do milk is I will repackage the cereal in zip-lock bags, about half a quart bag and I will add the powered milk with it about half a cup( 1 zip-lock per day).
that's it for breakfast, I usually will have pack of pop-tarts and a bag of cereal per day.

Lunch/snacks:
a package of 8 Tortilla wraps or pita bread.
4 medium sized Summer sausage
a block of mild chedar cheese.
1 single pack of spam
1 medium jar of Peanut Butter
1 medium jar of Nutella and I will mix the two, and repackage it in a large jar.
"I will have 2 burritos for lunch".
1 package of Gummy Bear.
1pakage of Starburst.
1 1 pack of M&M's
I will mix the Gummy Bears and starburst and M&M's in a zip-lock bag, this is my version of GORP.

Dinners:
2 packs of pasta sides
1 pack of Mac & Cheese
2 packs of Ramen noodles.
1 pack of Instant potatoes
3 medium summer sausage, to put with my dinners.

Condaments.
1 medium bottle of Tabasco Sauce.
a few packs of salt & pepper
a few packs of Mustard, for my lunch burritos.
a few packs of `something to put in the water.

My food bag for a 4-5 day resupply will weigh around 8-10lbs ( I don't skimp on food, if I want it I will carry it, sometimes I get fresh fruit, and hot dogs and buns for the first dinner out of town ).

I always carry an extra day of food just in case something happens.

[garlic08]

I got a question. I find that candy bars and energy bars, with chocolate, are usually a mess. Is there a trick so they are NOT mostly melted in their wrapper?

I once watched someone wipe a completely melted Snickers bar onto a tortilla and savor a chocolate burrito.

[swjohnsey]

I buy some stuff like rolled oats for oatmeal, sugar and coffee and carry what I need and leave the rest in a hiker box.