Stupid Resupply Tricks

[chris]

I'm putting this thread here, instead of in the Cooking forum, because it really has more to do with thruhikers than with weekenders or shorttermers. In my completely unscientific method, which is completely biased, I've seen that most thruhikers do not eat enough, nor do they especially like what they eat. Of course, there are lots of exceptions. Buying as you go is a good way to make sure you get enough calories: You buy the food you need at the time, rather than eating the food you thought you would need a few months ago. But, buying as you go presents the problem of small stores, gas stations, etc. What follows are some tips and tricks for helping the buy-as-you-go crowd get enough calories and resupplying at small joints. For the record, the first place that I would send a mail drop, coming out of Springer, is in PA (Port Clinton). Please add your own little tricks.

1) Consider SPAM. Things like "Potted Meat Spread" has a crazy amount of fat and calories for the weight. Sure, it comes in a can, but the can weighs little and has a pull top id. You can also get "Deviled Ham Spread" and other similar goodies. Break out some crackers and you've got a ton of calories. For some unexplained reason, this stuff seems to be in every gas station in America, or atleast the south. The blame for this one should go to EZ-DOES-IT.

2) Spread it. Forget tuna or salmon packets (or even the new pork or beef hunks). Get some burritoes and various spreads. Variations and combinations are numerous. Peanut butter, Nutella,cream cheese (with lots of flavors), and frosting (as in what you put on a cake) are all fairly available and pack a lot of punch. Make combos: Nutella and peanut butter burritoes are unbeatable. Unless, of course, you crumble up an oatmeal cream pie into the burrito.

3) Instant works. Some law of the universe says that gas stations or mini marts have to carry plain, instant rice. No one would ever want to eat this. But, frequently they also carry soup packets. Make the rice as you normally would (a little extra water is good) and add the soup for a passable dinner. Ditto for plain mashed potatoes, which seem to come up with some frequency. Additionally, buy some meat products, like Slim Jims, pickled beef sticks, summer sausage, and add it to the mixture. An alternative to the soup are instant tomato sauce packets, which pop up on small shelves with frequency.

4) Think Micro. Don't pass up the frozen, microwave section. A couple of frozen burritoes work fine for that first night out from the resupply point and can fill out a dinner list. Since whatever you buy will be frozen, it will keep for a little while. Consume with in 3 days.

5) Minimize in and out. Don't carry food that you will not eat. When leaving a town, most people eat a ton before hand. No reason to haul food that you won't consume over the next few hours. For example, an omelet-hashbrown-toast combo, with a short stack and maybe some biscuits and gravy, is enough of a breakfast to keep me full until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. So, on the first day out from a resupply, I plan on something like: Dinner, dessert, and a couple of King Size snickers bars. Similarly, if you think you'll get into a resupply point in the AM, you don't need to haul food for the last day. If you think the resupply run will take 3 days and a morning, pack 3 days of food.

6) Generate jealousy. The best way to make no friends on the AT, or at least have lots of jealous people around you, is to haul interesting things out of a resupply point to a close by shelter. There are many places where a shelter is located less than an hours walk from a resupply point. Get in the late afternoon. Chow. Buy food. Then, bring something sneaky out of the resupply point to impress. Like a half gallon of ice cream (it won't melt in an hour). Or a whole roast chicken. I've seen battles almost break out when a person pulled out a 20 oz. mountain dew at a shelter.

[Footslogger]

My first mail-drop coming out of Springer would be Harpers Ferry.

Another good and easy meal is stovetop stuffing and chicken chunks (foil packet). One box of stovetop poultry mix and two 3oz packets of chicken will give you 2 good sized dinners.

'Slogger
AT 2003

[Pencil Pusher]

What happened to "Stupid Resupply Tricks"? Mistake/Clue #1, you're using your brain thinking about these tricks.

[saimyoji]

...at the local supermarket, beer store....Ever try bribing the delivery guy to do this? Just tell the store when you call you need to give instructions on how to get to you to the delivery guy, then see if he'll make a few stops on the way for you.

[Mouse]

My two favorite tricks were to get a bottle of chocolate milk at every store and drink it down and to buy a pound of lunchmeat (usually liverwurst but sometimes pastrami or roast beef or whatever) to gobble down the first day. That gave me a big shot of calcium, iron, fat and protein before going back onto trail food.

The best was chocolate whole milk: some stores had it from small local dairies and one quart had over a thousand calories! I dragged into Great Barrington MA meaning to stay the night and rest. A quart of that and I was like a new person, and went right back on the Trail. Magic!

[minnesotasmith]

Some of it is milk that had visible blood in it. It wouldn't hurt you, don't get me wrong, but is unsaleable as white milk for obvious reasons.

Spam... The only Spam I'll eat is the turkey Spam. I personally think the new packets of salmon are keen (I ate one two days ago), not having skin or water waste in them, and being ready-to-eat as well as lighter than canned foods.

Two resupply questions I've yet to see addressed on WB:

1) When people cache food near the Trail in advance of a hike, what do they use for a container?

2) For wealthy hikers only: anyone ever heard of a hiker on the AT using air drops (boxes of food parachuted from an airplane) for resupply, the way small infantry units in the field in the military do on occasion? I figure it would ideally involve a satellite phone and a G.P.S. if it were to be done with any flexibility. Otherwise, it'd have to be set up on a precise location and time schedule, and be even less convenient than getting to the Post Office in a small trail town while it was open to pick up a mail drop. I'm asking about this one BC I'm considering it as a resupply technique for the more remote sections of my second planned Alaska hike.

[Panama Red]

Check out my burrito recipe in the cokking section

[Dances with Mice]

Two resupply questions I've yet to see addressed on WB:

1) When people cache food near the Trail in advance of a hike, what do they use for a container?

A grocery store in town makes the best cache. Post offices work too.

To answer the question - I've cached food during hikes of the Georgia Loop, the combination of the southernmost AT, Duncan Ridge, and Benton Mac trails. It was kind of a pain because I'd have to drive out and hide the caches and it would take most of a day to leave home, set everything up, then drive to the start of the hike. After the hike, when I was ready to head home, or at least out of a dry county, I'd have to drive back to regather the containers. They were more trouble than they were worth and I don't think I'd do it again.

I used rectangular plastic 3 gallon containers that cat food or cat litter is sold in. Lids were sealed with waterproof packaging tape. One cache was at Woody Gap, I covered the container in a black plastic trash bag and hung it like a bear bag away from the road crossing. Afterwards I left the container and rope beside the trash cans at Woody. I wanted a cache there because I wasn't going into Neels Gap, the Duncan Ridge intersects the AT south of Blood. It really wasn't needed, though, if / when I do the hike again I'll either walk to Neels or hitch down to Suches from Woody.

The other was at the Benton Mac / GA 60 intersection, one time I just tied the container to a tree near a landmark then after the hike drove back to get it since I had stashed extra gear in the container when I resupplied. Last hike I simply dropped off a small tupperware container with a few resupply items at a little store near that intersection, they were nice enough to hold it for me, and I bought a few more things at the store. Next time I'll just buy everything I need at the store.

The caches added unnecessary complexity to my hike and took more time to set up and retrieve than they saved.

I don't know why anybody would resupply by air on the AT. I heard of one hiker that began by parachuting into Springer, if I got the story straight.

[minnesotasmith]

I'd wondered what a cache would require. I would want like crazy to come up with a container that would not require coming back by to pick it up post-hike. That is probably an impossible expectation for a cache container -- durable enough for the purpose (bugs and mice not chew through it, waterproof, etc.), but not a problem WRT disposal. I wonder if a plasticized or waxed compacted cellulose canister (that could be burnt to ashes in a campfire) would do the trick? That, or just using plastic bags, but burying it DEEP, and covering it with a seriously large rock. Wouldn't want to do that with a cache intended to be recovered in winter in the North...

I have been considering a few caches prior to my through-hike I'm figuring on doing starting the second half of next year. No way would I do an air resupply on the AT.

[Rain Man]

I heard of one hiker that began by parachuting into Springer, if I got the story straight.

I think that would be one older hiker with the trail name of "Jump Start."

Thanks for sharing you caching experiences. Good to hear!

:sun
Rain Man

.

[ToeJam]

Had the chocolate milk comment in the back of my head for a few days since I read that post by MS, so I looked it up. Apprently not true, and I can drink chocolate milk happily once again lol. (no, I'm not a total vegetarian, but I eat WAY less than the average omnivore)

For what it's worth! ;)

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/chocmilk.htm

[art to linda]

belive me, the milk that is sold is tested 9 ways to sunday before it even gets to the carton stage! No way would there be any blood in it! I had a small dairy herd (21 head) and sold milk. A sample is taken from the bulk tank before the milk is loaded on the truck and any traces of antibiotics, blood, bacteria, or foreign matter costs you big time! You loose your grade and that is what determines what price you get. Top grade is people comsumption, butter fat percentage is another cost insentive.

[minnesotasmith]

Of course, a direct quote from the USDA/FDA websites would be most authoritative. Anyone want to look that up, feel free.

From http://www.notmilk.com/kradjian.html

Robert M. Kradjian, MD
Breast Surgery Chief Division of General Surgery,
Seton Medical Centre #302 - 1800 Sullivan Ave.
Daly City, CA 94015 USA

"Also, all cows' milk contains blood! The inspectors are
simply asked to keep it under certain limits. You may be
horrified to learn that the USDA allows milk to contain from
one to one and a half million white blood cells per
millilitre. (That's only 1/30 of an ounce)."

[saimyoji]

Simply ridiculous MS. Most people are aware that their foods are not pure. To try to further the idea that chocolate is added to mask the presence of blood is hooey. I won't deny that milk, as any animal product targeted for consumption by humans, contains some blood cells, (it should be obvious to educated people that MEAT is bathed in BLOOD) but the amount of blood present in milk is insignificant.

This link will help those who aren't aware of FDA standards. Note that the action levels here indicate the MAX allowable contamination; they do not mean that these products all contain these levels of contamination.

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html

Enjoy your next meal.:bse

[art to linda]

since milk is produced in the mammary gland of a cow which is fed by the circulatory system some blood cells are always present, that is a far cry from the visual blood you hinted was being covered up in cho. milk.

as I stated before, this is just one of many things tested for before milk reaches the carton stage. Anyone not coming up to standards will soon find themselves with out a buyer for their milk.

Milk was only a part of my dairy operation (I raised registered breeding stock)
so I had a small bulk tank, 500 gallons. Some one with a 1,000 gallon or more bulk tank will either follow the rules or be out of the biz fast! You're paid by the hundered wieght and dumping 1,000 gallons of milk a day will not balance the books.

[The Old Fhart]

Thanks, ToeJam for pointing out that urban legend and linking to snopes.com. (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/chocmilk.htm) I regularly use that site and find it reliable.

Also, lets look at Minnesotasmith's "authoritative" source on milk. You can find articles by Robert M. Kradjian, MD (retired) on milksucks.com (PETA site). Here are some quotes by him:
"If you really want to play it safe, you may decide to join the growing number of Americans who are eliminating dairy products from their diets altogether. ... So don't drink milk for health. I am convinced on the weight of the scientific evidence that it does not "do a body good." Inclusion of milk will only reduce your diet's nutritional value and safety."I'm not a big milk drinker but when I'm hiking and get to town, the first thing I'll do is buy a container of chocolate milk. Nothing I've read here has made me want to change. I try to buy a lot of the more common foods locally along the trail but I will have Nestle's Nido dry whole milk sent to me because it isn't that common in smaller stores and I like it better than the not-fat dry milk normally available for instant pudding and potatoes.

[Mouse]

Mmmmm, blood. Prooooooootein! If you are worried about blood in chocolate milk, don't even THINK about looking at what goes into liverwurst! I loved its high iron content but you don't want to know where the iron comes from.

[The Old Fhart]

..and I think of one of my favorites, "potted meat food product", as PÂTÉ.

[AbeHikes]

I don't think I like the idea of blood being mixed with milk.

Can we get just the blood without the milk? Yum.