Bounce Box and Food Drops.

[karnak]

I'm starting to plan my thru for the summer, I should be starting sometime around July 1st.

Are any of you guys using a bounce box and/or food drops? And if so can you share the info on it? I've never done either and am curious about how to do it.

Thanks.
Clint

[Cookerhiker]

I'm starting to plan my thru for the summer, I should be starting sometime around July 1st.

Are any of you guys using a bounce box and/or food drops? And if so can you share the info on it? I've never done either and am curious about how to do it.

Thanks.
Clint

Clint, there was an excellent resupply thread from a few years ago. I don't recall bounce boxes being discussed but food drops and resupplying in towns were. I'll bump it

[maybe clem]

I've done a bounce box for most of my long hikes. This summer I'm sending a bounce box to Breckenridge, Salida, Silverton and Durango. I send it to the post office, use what I need, then re-address it to the next place I plan to pick it up and send it on its way. It helps to keep some tape, labels and markers in the bounce box so you can use them to re-package it.

[karnak]

Thanks a lot. I'll check it out.

[karnak]

Clem, will the Post Office hold it for you? Like if I mail it two weeks ahead will there be an issue getting them to keep it there until I arrive?

I assume this same principle apples to good drops as well...

[Cookerhiker]

If you mail food drops to yourself, try to send them to hostels/motels rather than POs so that you don't have to worry about arriving on a late Saturday afternoon and having to wait until Monday to get your mail. For our hike, the hostels held the packages for a long time. We did call them as we went along to assure them we were on our way.

[maybe clem]

karnak - they will hold it. I usually address it like this (same for mail drops and bounce box):

General Delivery
Townname, State ZIP

Please hold for Colorado Trail thru hiker

Sometimes I include an expected arrival date but that depends on how close I'm keeping to a schedule. I've never had a problem with a post office holding a package.

[handlebar]

Plus, it's helpful to the post office to put an estimated time of arrival on the label..."Expected arrival mm/dd/yy".

Probably you'll want to send a food drop to Twin Lakes from, perhaps, Leadville or Breckenridge. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you can do reasonable resupply in the various trail towns. Let me put in a plug for Lake City: the grocery store had good resupply and there is now a hostel run by CDT and CT alumnus, "Lucky".

Finally, I join Cookerhiker in recommending that you send your food drops to business places (after having called to check that it's OK) rather than general delivery at the post office. Also, be sure to send your packages via "Priority Mail". I manage to get 5 days food into a medium flat rate box.

[karnak]

Thanks for all the info. This will be my first thru so it's all welcomed.