mail drops or grocery stores?

[DROY]

im planning a thru-hike in 2013 and am trying to decide between buying foods in bulk and dehydrating them, or buying food along the way in towns, or a mix of both. i don't know the availability from stores and really don't feel like carrying a pack of canned foods to the top of kathadin. i have a dehydrator and vaccum sealer and work at the local grocery store so i get a good discount. what do you guys suggest?

[CrumbSnatcher]

welcome to WB!
i prefer stores in route myself, but a mix of drops and stores would IMO be alot better than drops alone. you will get good info over the next few days! again welcome to WB

[Old Spice]

Ditto on the above. Check out Jack Tarlin's article on re-supply here on WB. Once you get your bearings, I'd rec getting one of the major AT guides. Here you will be able to figure out which towns have major grocery stores and which ones don't. I'm planning on just sending mail drops to towns where I know my only options will be overpriced convenience or general stores. Welcome!

[Spokes]

Ditto on the above. Check out Jack Tarlin's article on re-supply here on WB. ......

Yep, when I do another thru I'd lessen the number of drops.

I put a copy of Jack's re-supply article in my bounce box and used it as needed. It's dated but from a global stand point still relevant. Thanks Jack!

Wonder if we could take up a collection to buy Jack his favorite beverage for an updated edition? Pipe dream?

[mountain squid]

You won't need to carry cans. Think Lipton Sides, Mac-n-Cheese, Ramen noodles, tuna packets, chicken packets, etc.

Unless you are very creative with your dehydrating skills, you'd likely be tired of the food you've sent yourself by the time you hit PA anyway. Then you'll run the risk of spending extra money on food that you'd rather be eating and putting everything else into hiker boxes. (Not to mention about the difficulty of hitting post offices at the right time.)

Buy along the way, with an occasional maildrop full of goodies from home that you can share with your hiking buds.

to WB. Have fun with the planning . . .

See you on the trail,
mt squid

[Spokes]

I can't imagine dehydrating all that food for a thru hike. Guess people do it though.

[DROY]

You won't need to carry cans. Think Lipton Sides, Mac-n-Cheese, Ramen noodles, tuna packets, chicken packets, etc.

i just meant that i dont know what each store stocks and i don't want to be the first one there after a large group wipes out the shelves.

i also didn't mean dehydrating ALL of it, but packing half the above and half dehydrated. the main thing is reliability. i dont want to be stranded with no food if i plan on buying. if i mail drop then at least i KNOW that i wont run out.

[Lone Wolf]

im planning a thru-hike in 2013 and am trying to decide between buying foods in bulk and dehydrating them, or buying food along the way in towns, or a mix of both. i don't know the availability from stores and really don't feel like carrying a pack of canned foods to the top of kathadin. i have a dehydrator and vaccum sealer and work at the local grocery store so i get a good discount. what do you guys suggest?

buy as you go

[Luddite]

Fontana Dam is the only part of the trail where I'm sending a mail drop.

[Spokes]

Good choice. Consider Harper's Ferry too.

[Don H]

Google "Freezer Bag Cooking", no need to carry cans!

[Jack Tarlin]

Spokes:

Thanx for the kind words; you and others are quite right, the Re-Supply article needs to be updated and I hope to get to it this winter. Will want to hear from current/recent hikers, especially on the ares I haven't seen for a few years, esp. the mid-Atlantic areas, etc. I still think the article is useful and accurate, especially as far as distances between re-supply points, the time it'll take the average hiker to cover specific distances, etc., so I hope the article is still useful to folks.

DROY......as several folks have mentioned, most folks these days do perfectly well buying most of their food while en route; unless you're on some sort of specialized diet (i.e. vegan, no salt, kosher, etc.) there's no need to buy stuff ahead of time, dehydrate everything, etc. This has been extensively discussed here and you should check out other threads on Whiteblaze for details, but in brief, buying everything ahead of time does not necessarily save you money or problems, it only means you end up with too much food in your mail parcels, and it means you end up with all sorts of stuff you decide you no longer wanna eat. For all sorts of reasons, most folks seem to do better by buying food while en route rather than relying on stuff bought and packaged ahead of time; there are really only a small handful of places where you may want to take the time and trouble to send yourself food while hiking on the A.T. For the vast majority of the Trail, this simply isn't necessary.

[DROY]

Google "Freezer Bag Cooking", no need to carry cans!

thats what im considering doing a variation of. what im thinking of doing is having everything ready at home in boxes. i would number the boxes and carry a list of whats in each. then i could call home and ask to have a selected box mailed to the next town. that way if i have a craving for something i would have some flexability in what i eat.

[Lone Wolf]

thats what im considering doing a variation of. what im thinking of doing is having everything ready at home in boxes. i would number the boxes and carry a list of whats in each. then i could call home and ask to have a selected box mailed to the next town. that way if i have a craving for something i would have some flexability in what i eat.

all good but what if you quit the trail 300 miles in?

[Cookerhiker]

...then there's the matter of where you send them. Me, I never send them to a PO for the simple reason that suppose I arrive there 2 PM Saturday and have to wait until Monday morning for them to open? If you want a zero day anyway, that works OK but what if you don't?

The other option is sending them to hostels/motels or other facilities that accept maildrops. Check the Companion or similar services guide to see which ones do this. If you send to these places and don't stay overnight there, then a donation is in order to compensate them for the nicety of receiving and storing your box.

[DROY]

all good but what if you quit the trail 300 miles in?

only quitters think like that. ive wanted to thru-hike for the past 6 years. its all i can ever think about. i feel at home on the trail and out of place at home. and i plan on delivering most mail drops to hostels and such on the trail because of the reason of POs and having to wait. i only plan on having a limited number of mail drops and was considering buying for a few sections anyway. im not exactly sure which which way i want to go as far as resupply and thats why i posted this.

thanks everyone for your comments and advice

[tawa]

Would it be possible for you to tell us or suggest the few areas which make the most sense for mail drops.
Thank you.

[malowitz]

I thrud in 2010. I had a mail drop to Fontana Dam, but didn't need it. After that, I didn't do any more mail drops except in Rangely Maine. I bought a load of food in Rangely and sent it up to Monson for the 100 mile wilderness.

I ditched my stove in Boiling Springs and went the rest of the way with "cold" food.

[Lyle]

Home Made, then dehydrated food is very good. It is also A LOT of work.

I tried food drops on my first long hike. Got totally sick of the food selection within a month or two, especially when I saw other hikers going into a grocery store and buying whatever appealed to them at the time. I will NEVER try to plan my food that far in advance again.

[Grampie]

DROY, Don't matter how much confidence you have as to having a sucessfull thru you have to look at the statistics. That is 80% of the starters are not finishers.
I would not spend a lot of time or money buying and preparing food before you start. Food is readily available in trail towns along the way. During my thru I only had a problem with resupply once and that was at Fontana village. It's a small store and a large batch of hikers had just passed through.
Preping a lot of food befor you leave is a lot of work and expense. Before you travel very far I think, like most others, you will get sick of eating the same stuff day after day and you won't be able to change. Hiker boxs along the trail are full of food that hikers had sent to them and they no longer want to eat.
I always enjoyed going into a town to resupply. Going through the store looking for new stuff to try. I would always bring fresh fruit back to the trail and eat it the first day to eliminate it's weight.
I spend time each year as a caretaker at Upper Goose Pond. I enjoy talking to the hikers comming through. I alwas ask them "so what have you been eating?" After being on the trail for 1500 miles most of them are eating the same stuff and it's not stuff they had preped before.
Check the previous topic posts. Lot's of good info. here.
Happy trails to you. The preperation is a lot of fun.