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bnlaunius
12-13-2012, 15:45
So can somebody walk me through the process of mail drops.

So I am supposed to guess what I will need and mail it to myself, in advance, in random towns along the way? How am I supposed to choose the town? Just where ever I think I might need to stop?

Also, how do I get the addresses for these places?

Sorry if I sound like a kindergartener...

Rasty
12-13-2012, 16:07
Get AWOL's thru Hiker Guide. It has the addresses of establishments that will accept mail drops (Post Office as a 2nd best because the businesses will be more hours). If section hiking mail them yourself, if thru hiking have someone you trust mail them to you. Having someone else mail them to you can allow you to adjust the mail drop with more or less food if your getting ahead of schedule or eat in restaurant more than you anticipated. Most hikers will just purchase food as they go along. Mail drops are really only necessary if you have specific dietary restrictions that most small grocery stores or outfitter would not be able to accomodate easily.

CarlZ993
12-13-2012, 16:30
The 2013 book is coming out in Jan. Here's the 2012 book. Great planning format.
http://www.amazon.com/A-T-Guide-2012-David-Miller/dp/0979708125/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1355430423&sr=8-3&keywords=awols+at+guide
More info on resupplying from Whiteblaze: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/content.php?15-resupply

10-K
12-13-2012, 17:12
Outside of maybe 1 or 2 places you don't really need them. Actually, by the time you get far enough up the trail to those 1 or 2 places you'll be savvy enough to not even need them.

But, if you do use them you can either box them up ahead of time and when you're a week or so away from the pickup point you can call home and have someone send them to you.

Or, you can just call home and request whatever you want and somebody can make a list, put it together for you and drop it in the mail.

Big tip: Try to send to hostels and other places that have better hours than the post office. Nothing sucks worse than getting to the PO on a Saturday after they've closed - leaves you stuck until Monday.

FarmerChef
12-13-2012, 18:06
I use mail drops on my section hikes since it's far cheaper and healthier to prepare the food I prepare versus what I could get in stores. I dehydrate and package my own recipes that are dialed into what we've found works best for our family so they aren't things I can readily buy. That said, if you're not trying to eat a specific diet and don't mind a little shopping along the way I agree with others that skipping the mail drops or bump boxes (where you keep mailing a box forward) is preferable to the hassle of trying to time your schedule to get to the ________ before it closes. On the other hand, it's sometimes nice to just pick up your box and reload without having to hitch a ride in the rain to the grocery store that's 3 miles out of town. To each their own, I suppose.

Another shortcoming of mail drops is that trying to estimate where you'll be when you run out of food for 2,200 miles is a shot in the dark. Once you start hiking, your pace will change as will your appetite. Weather and other factors may slow or speed you up. You may not need what you have in one box or may hate the ramen noodles you so loved in the beginning and want something different after the first 100 miles. Having someone else who can prepare and mail stuff to you when you need it is a BIG plus. Additionally, you may not wish to carry certain items in their entirety (maps and guide for the entire trail) so you can split them up into various boxes. Most of your cosmetic, hygiene, pack and other non-food items can be bought along the way rather than shipped which saves you money on shipping. The only exception is your cold weather/warm weather gear. Most folks start with their cold weather gear then swap it out for their warm weather gear when the weather/altitude are right (this is usually via mail from someone back home or a mail drop waiting at the expected location) and then redo the shuffle again when they hit the Whites (another mail drop or someone back home).

The guides help you understand how to do the drops or bumps if that's the way you want to go. In either case, you'll be mailing "general delivery" to the Post Office or to yourself (real and trail name) at a hotel, hostel, etc. There are tons of points to do this all along the trail so don't be worried about huge sections of trail or weeks where there's no place to resupply (except the 100 mile wilderness). If you choose to go this route you'll have plenty of options.

And I'll echo 10-k's tip to skip the PO when you can.

Danl
12-13-2012, 22:32
Get a guide and start planning your camping and food drops, imho it is part of the process.

I have edited my plan probably four times now, according to my re-hab after surgery. I originally was going to do a lot of maildrops. Everytime i went through it it became more fine tuned. I did a couple two and three day hikes and looked at it again. Now i think i have it down to the point where i only need 5 maildrops, 4 in the early part of the trail and one when we are almost finished. If the miles per day become longer or shorter we can adjust the amount of food we need at a market stop. Any town that is more the 6 miles from the trail is maybe a hotel zero day. This is a plan that can be adjusted on the fly.

Hill Ape
12-14-2012, 00:17
Mail drops are no longer needed. Its still part of the ingrained folklore and tradition, but really its obsolete. Both in planning and execution, the logistics are just cumbersome. Much more so for the first time planner who really doesn't know how much you're likely to carry and eat on a day to day basis once you've been on the trail for a couple weeks. You'll end up hating the food you send yourself, or just be sending yourself the same stuff you can easily buy at stores along the way. Take money (or plastic), more than you think, money is flexible.

lkn4air
12-14-2012, 01:18
Ok so are the people that say mail drops are no longer needed saying A: that there is plenty of resupply along the trail now but it is more expensive Or B: there is plenty of resupply and it is really no more expensive once you figure in the shipping costs.
In my experience on the trail (be it many many years ago)
the majority of resupply places are fairly expensive especially if you compare costco and walmart prices to what you get along the trail. Meals I put together are ussally $2 a meal all told thats less than one MT House meal. So just as an example can I re suppy in neels gap and then The NOC for close to my bulk prices + shipping? Thanks


HYOH

wcgornto
12-14-2012, 01:55
I used mail drops the whole way. More planning in advance made my thru hike more efficient with one less thing to occupy myself with in town. Plus, I had a lot of easy to prepare freeze dried food used with freezer bag cooking and I had a breakfast shake that I prepared and portioned ahead of time that was a great start to each day and loaded with calories, protein and fat. I have no use for pop tarts. I have no use for ramen noodles. I have little use for oatmeal. In larger towns with grocery stores, resupply offers much variety. In smaller towns with dollar stores only, the choices are more limited. If I thru hike the AT again, I will use fewer mail drops, but I will still use them.

Slo-go'en
12-14-2012, 02:30
If you have someone at home who can prepare and send packages when and where needed, that is the ideal situation. You don't have to figure out what, when and where you'll need something in advance. Call in a week or so ahead and get it arranged.

Other wise, good luck! Oh. Never, ever buy 20 cases of one flavor powerbars at one time!

Slo-go'en
12-14-2012, 02:51
So just as an example can I re suppy in neels gap and then The NOC for close to my bulk prices + shipping? Thanks HYOH

If you do in fact use all the bulk food you bought in advance, then no. Over all, in the long run, it will be more expensive to resupply along the trail. The problem is, it seems those who pre-buy the most food and mail all the packages before they even start are the ones most likely to go home early.

Neels Gap, NOC and Fonatana village are the three most expensive stops to resupply along the GA/NC section. Sending a mail drop to just those three places will save more then the postage. Plus there is a pretty good chance you'll get at least that far and if you don't you haven't lost much.

Once you make it into Virginia, getting to a well stocked super market on a regular basies is not hard. Oh, get a discount card for all the major chains along the trail, it will save you big.

Hill Ape
12-14-2012, 02:59
B: there is plenty of resupply and it is really no more expensive once you figure in the shipping costs.
So just as an example can I re suppy in neels gap and then The NOC for close to my bulk prices + shipping? Thanks

HYOH

my answer to your question, B.

my answer to your example, anyone buying more than a coke and candy bar at neels gap is blowing their money. hiawassee has a grocery store

Malto
12-14-2012, 08:30
I would not recommend using mail drop unless you really have your trail diet dialed in and have a realistic plan. The hiker boxes are full of "bulk foods" like cous cous, oatmeal and mashed potatoes. What seems to be a less expensive option than becomes costly as hikers shed the bulk and replace it with a footlong and large pizza.

On the other hand if you have experience with knowing what you will eat for months then you probably can make it work as planned. I did heavy resupplies on my thru hike. It took an enormous amount of planning and preparation, I had a very structured hiking plan (even had return flights booked) and I tested most of the foods that I packed with identical hiking conditions. I got it about 85% right, the biggest miss was only packing out 5000 calories per day which was a couple thousand short per day. It worked out because generally I could find supplemental calories like candy bars to make up the shortfall.

Finally, there are so many resupply options on the AT that I probably wouldn't use many.

OzJacko
12-14-2012, 08:43
Given my location mail drops aren't an option, but I did hike my local track with people who used mail drops.
As well as the extra costs of shipping, one extra cost of mail drops I observed was all the things that were wasted or given away as they were no longer wanted.
e.g. One hiker forgot to allow for the fact that on the days she got to a town she ate in town so every drop had at least one days too much food.
You might think you can eat the extra but you won't while in town.

Also unless you have specific needs and/or great variety in your drops, you will get sick of the same foods in your drops.

I would recommend a mixture if you want to save money.
Send mail drops to the smaller places you will visit with some of the likely to be short supply items and count on bigger towns having more options at a better price.
..or be like me and chance the local options all the way. One of the sources I expect may present itself to me is from people with excess in their mail drops..;)

wcgornto
12-14-2012, 11:39
I got it about 85% right, the biggest miss was only packing out 5000 calories per day which was a couple thousand short per day. It worked out because generally I could find supplemental calories like candy bars to make up the shortfall.


How many days of food did you carry on your back? How many pounds of food were in your pack? I had about a week's worth of food in my pack whenever I left town, about ten pounds. That worked out to closer to 3000 calories per day. That seems to be what most people carried, as 5000 calories would trend toward fifteen pounds plus.

I gorged like crazy in town and I lost about 40 pounds from Kathadin to Springer.