No. I said adequate funds to transport yourself to the trail to begin hiking and additional funds to get yourself back home when you finish. Wherever that may be.
As for "I have all of my gear", you will need funds to replace worn out or wrong gear.
Wayne
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Ok. SOBO. So. Yes. Funds to get to Baxter, reservations, permits, etc. at Baxter. AND funds to get home from wherever.
Wayne
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Any thoughts about bringing just a hammock ( Hennesse hammock explorer) no tent, starting at Baxter the beginning of July this year??
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Crude calculation. Ballpark numbers. $60 for a town stop every five days. That's just for the stuff in town. Another $40 for the food that you'll be eating on the trail between town stops. So, $100 for each five day interval.
A thru hike is 150 days on average, so that's thirty intervals. 30 x $100 = $3000.
If you do a town stop every four days: Still $60 in town, but $30 for food on the trail. There will be 37.5 such stops.
37.5 * $90 = $3375
That sixty bucks has to cover: meals, hostel, laundry, maybe some brews or other luxuries. The rest of it covers the provisions you'll need between stops. $60 means staying at hostels, not motels.
A simplistic approach, but maybe one way to think about it. It doesn't consider other stuff, like entertainment, shuttles, gear replacement, replenishment of batteries, fuel, toiletries, etc.
It doesn't include the bills that you still have to pay in real-life, like, say, your phone bill (not to mention rent, insurance, etc.)
The standard figure is $1000 per month. A typical thru hike is five or six months.
Short answer, no, you simply can't carry enough food to supply yourself with the caloric or nutritional requirements to thru-hike the AT without losing weight. Ask yourself how many fat thru-hikers you've ever seen. By New England they are all getting pretty thin. But, you can somewhat make up for what you can't carry by what you can consume in frequent town stops. Read this old thread https://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/arc...p/t-20181.html
You might be able to contact the two researchers mentioned, Dr. John E. Davis and Karen Lutz for more info or leads to other info. Karen is still with ATC I believe.
Maybe. If you're really smart about it. But most likely not much.
Two big issues with maildrops. First is, your tastes will change over the course of the hike and you may not like eating the stuff that you thought you'd like when you first packed it all up, months ahead of time.
Second is, they tie you down. Small town post offices are likely to have limited hours. Sucks to be stuck in town over a weekend waiting for the PO to open on Monday morning. Or having to race into town to get there before the PO closes.
I don't know about other long trails, but on the AT, over the years, the trend has been toward fewer mail drops and more reliance on resupply at local stores. You rarely have to go more than four or five days between relatively easy town access.
Mail drops make sense for specific dietary needs or tastes. Save mail drops for what you know you can't find in town.
If you know what you like on trail
If you hate to waste time shopping and repackaging
If you can stick to schedule
Then maildrops can work gibe
If someone at home is preparing them as you go, and adjusting schedule and locations, that would help too.
No one ever said you have to pack 6 mo in advance and prepare all for shipping. Some people have wives, husbands, kids, that will do this for them as they go.
That's true most of the time, but don't discount the fact that you will be out for a long period of time and chances are that you will run into someone in a similar situation. These types of meetings tend to happen early on trail before people spread out somewhat, but since your going sobo, there will be less people to begin with.
With that aside, you mentioned that you're budgeting $6k, which should be more than enough for town stays, so the point of staying on the trail may be moot in that case.
One thing about going Southbound is your "burn" rate will occur early on in the trip as most folks observe that it costs more to hike the northern third of the trail. Even in Maine where there are fewer resupply options, when you do resupply, its typically in small rural town where food is going to cost more and most folks will stay in a hostel or motel. My guess is you have a town stop in Monson (unless you have mailed everything you need, most stay in town and possibly get ride to Greenville for resupply. Next resupply is Caratunk, there are lodging operations nearby but PO is quite close to the trail so no need to overnight. Next stop Stratton, most folks stay overnight. Next Stop Rangeley, most overnight due to long walk into and out of town then finally Andover which is an overnight as its a long walk into an out of town, its small town and pricing will be high on resupply. After that it NH, after Gorham which is typically an overnight due to long walk into and out of town, the nights between supply points tend get closer which is more opportunities to spend money.
It took Garlic (the person you asked) 3.5 months to complete his AT thru-hike.
Now as to your question about whether 4000 calories per day is enough: I have not done a thru-hike but I have done many section hikes and the one two week section hike so far where I managed to lose no weight I averaged 4200 calories consumed per day. I am male, 165 pounds, and 6'0" tall. I ate a steady amount every day and did not gorge in trail towns, which is not how thru-hikers generally do it. Gorging in town is convenient but undoubtedly not the most efficient use of calories consumed. The serious disadvantage to trying to eat a steady amount per day without gorging in town is that means you have to carry more food on the trail and that means you are carrying more weight.
Last edited by map man; 04-19-2017 at 18:55.
Life Member: ATC, ALDHA, Superior Hiking Trail Association
Somewhat of a difference in calories burned if you hike 15 mpd, or 25, as you might expect. I need close to 4800 per day , plus town binging, not to lose weight, which I dont carry. Wt loss is inevitable at higher mileage.
A watch that tells how many calories burned... does it take into account how much weight you are carrying or the difficulty of the terrain? The heavier your pack, the more calories you will burn. So the more you carry, the more you need to eat.
The tuna packets packed in water have about 80 calories, the ones packed in olive oil have much more. Pack higher fat content foods for the extra calories. I've seen many thru hikers with a small bottle of olive oil or a small jar of mayonnaise, adding it to meals for the extra calories.
Sorry, I missed your questions. Yes, I hiked in 106 days, and spend $1500 on a combination of trail and town food. I did not skimp on town food, and as I mentioned I did gorge occasionally, maybe some 8000+ Calorie days. (I hiked during the 2008 Olympics, and heard a quote from swimmer Michael Phelps that he was eating up to 12,000 Cal/day, so I felt a little better about that.)
I didn't lose more than a few pounds on my hike. I started in prime hiking condition, and hiked 20 miles/day pretty much right out of the gate. I lost a little in the Smokies, gorged in Damascus and started gaining it back, and even got a little ahead, in the mid-Atlantic states (the "diner-a-day" tour). I lost a little more in the Whites (started gorging again in towns) and ended up about where I started. I went back to my job as a firefighter with no appreciable loss of strength or muscle mass, so I think I did well with protein intake and nutrition. Average food carried was about 4500 Cal/day, about two pounds per day, with an emphasis on whole grain and nut protein and fats. (Plenty of pints of Ben & Jerry's, and berry shakes in the Shenandoahs, so not that healthy.)
This was not my first thru-hike. I certainly learned quite a bit about eating well for LD hiking on my PCT and CDT hikes.
"Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning