Advice - Appalachian Trail

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#1

I was hoping to get some expert advice on my planned maildrops. These are just the mail drops not my resupplies. Want to make sure the dates match up with the realisty of the miles. Leaving May 15th. Drops Thanks

Anthony

#2

im no expert, IMO , i would make your maildrop list the same as your resupply list… gotta hit those POs anyway, and not add any others… POs get to be a PITA
… as you will have to sprint or holdup and wait at some points or another, your buds might keep rollin without ya

i would drop blairsville to start with…

on my next thru im goin w no drops… too much $$ IMO if someone needs to write ya , tell em to use email :slight_smile:

FreightTrain

#3

I wouldnt stress maildrop too much. You can buy at a supermarket in various towns, get some boxes and bounce ahead from there. It takes less planning that way.

Virginian

#4

Anthony, IMHO, you’ve got maildrops in many locations where you just don’t need them. You’re doing drops in towns with major supermarkets. Why? You can buy the exact same things in town that you’re most likely sending to yourself in the mail. By the time you figure in postage, you’re not saving any money. Here’s my suggestion on your list:

Blairsville - send to Walsai-Yi. If you do go into Blairsville, there’s a major market there.

Hiawasse - major market right next to the P.O.

Fontana- good drop.

Hot Springs - Do a maildrop ONLY if you’re really picky on your food. Otherwise you can buy enough in town.

Erwin - Several major supermarkets in town.

Damascus - Brand new supermarket in town.

Pearisburg - Several supermarkets in town

Waynesboro - Same as before. Lots of choices

Harpers Ferry - I do a drop here because the markets are about 6 miles away. Tough hitch also.

Duncannon - Supermarket in town.

Port Clinton - I also drop here.

DWG - a drop is a good idea unless you want to hitch to the next town for food.

Unionville - Just go about 15 miles farther to Vernon which has major markets.

Kent - Supermarket in town

Dalton - has small markets. Drop is optional.

Manchester Center - Major markets in town

Glencliff - I also do a drop here.

Glencliff to Maine isn’t hard to resupply. Many options.

Moose

#5

Putting together maildrops gives you something to do while you’re planning your hike. It’s fun. You’re figuring things out, filling up your pre-hike time with hike stuff. But the reality is that you will tire of your maildrop food within one month on the trail. I suggest to NOT use food maildrops from home. Instead, resupply as you go. Here’s why:

(1) YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOU ARE GOING TO EAT. You’re going to eat A LOT. What you THINK will be enough food as you sit at home right now will not be enough. If you do food maildrops from home, you’ll end up going to the grocery store in town anyway to buy more food to supplement what you’ve mailed yourself. Since you’re at the store, why not just buy ALL your food there and save the postage.

(2) YOU’LL BE AT THE STORES ANYWAY. Suppose you send yourself this maildrop (which is too small). It’s June. You packed the box in February. You’ve been eating the same food for three months. You now hate the food in your boxes. You pick up your maildrop and throw all the food you hate into the hiker box, then you go to the grocery store to buy food which appeals to you TODAY. Now you’ve paid for food you didn’t want (plus postage). And, look at this, you’re at the grocery store in town! Where you could have just bought all your food to begin with.

(3) POSTAGE IS EXPENSIVE. Never, ever, ever ship yourself a box using any other method except Priority Mail (unless it’s one of those places that only take UPS). First class mail or Parcel Post won’t cut it. If you use First Class or Parcel Post, you will lose at least one box on your trip. You must use Priority Mail, and that’s expensive. If you buy in town, you don’t pay postage.

(4) POST OFFICES HAVE LIMITED HOURS OF OPERATION. If you use food maildrops, you’re CONSTANTLY having to alter your hike to make it to town when the PO is open.

(5) IT’S GOOD PR for the trail and for hikers if you support businesses along the trail.

I guess the gist of my argument is this: if you buy as you go, you’ll save money on postage, you won’t have wasted food (which you bought before your trip, then threw into the hiker boxes all along the trail because you were sick of it), and you’ll eat the food you want when you want it.

Do maildrops only for the places where previous hikers have said there is no food to buy.

yogi

www.pcthandbook.com

yogi

#6

Dear Anthony,

  1. I basically agree with Yogi’s reasoning as stated above.

  2. I would add, anecdotally, the following:

    a. When I arrived at a town, or roadside store, or some other manifestation of civilization, I wanted, first and foremost, ice cream and salad. My body made this clear to me. The ice cream, I am sure, I desired for the calories found in the sugar and fat (with some limited protein); the salad for the nutrients and roughage. Clearly, these foods cannot be maildropped. You too will come to desire, primarily, certain foods which, first, you cannot anticipate now (or, won’t) and, second, cannot be maildropped.

    b. in time, you will not enjoy the concept of having to be anywhere by appointment to pick up mail. If it were necessary, that would be one thing; but, it won’t be, and will just encumber you with unnecessary time committments, obligations, and other complications.

    c. The most likely thing you will find you want someone to send you during your time on the trail, is money (or some variation thereof). For that, you make a phone call to beloved and trusted family and friends, and they wire it to a bank where you happily pick it up (or use some equally trustworthy and pleasant method).

Again, forego the maildrops.

Give yourself, instead, free reign, the greatest possible freedom.

Sincerely–Conan.

Conan

#7

I would like to give my input on this. I don’t totally agree with the no mail drop theory. Maybe for some it works but for some others it doesn’t. Sometimes it is hard to find things you want to eat in a store when your not hiking so imagine being in a strange town in a strange store rustling around for five days of grub. I’m not into settling for ramen soup, Liptons and oatmeal because that is all they have on the shelf. If you plan your drops carefully you can come up with a very wide variety of meals never eating the same dinner twice in a week. Granted you will supplement your drops with some fresh foods such as bagels and bread, maybe cheese as well and other treats, but for the most part you will already have what you need. To me shopping for a weeks worth of food on the trail, the elements are not in your favor, especially if you don’t like to shop like me. Never mind the inflated prices of the small stores along the trail. It does take some careful planning and a good support person to be successful with drops. I have never thrown my food in a hiker box, in exchange for running my stinky butt around a grocery store. In the end I say it will cost you no more even with the postage, because you have plenty of time to look for deals and gather your food. You just have to decide what works for you and don’t sweat it, remember you are hiking your own hike. If you do use drops and you miss one you can send a change of address card you get from the PO with the new address you want it sent to and they will forward it. If you send it priority and don’t open it they will forward it for free. visit a PO and find out about your options.
Hopes this helps Draggin

Draggin

#8

Coming from overseas maildrops weren’t a practical consideration for me to even consider. I’m a vegetarian and had thought that resupply could be a problem. Not so,I found that I could find suitable food all along the trail.

I did use a bounce box though and had a small stash of my favourite dehydrated peas and onions in it. I bounced the box about 4 times. This worked fine for me.

Those hikers I noticed on the trail that had numerous/regular maildrops tended to find them a pain. Problems seemed to be:
Inconvenient timing to get to from trail to PO during PO hours, didn’t want or got sick of food in maildrop, had too much food and ended up giving away to others, mistimed maildrop and had to waste time arranging onforwarding etc.

My advice: Most thru-hikers don’t need regular maildrops as they tend to diminish your flexibility and increase the complexity of the hike.

Downunda

#9

This reply isn’t specifically aimed at Anthony, but rather to anyone considering the whole resupply question.

I just wanted to second Draggin’s post. Jeff and I did our complete resuppy for both our thruhikes by maildrop. Everybody is different, so blanket recommendations about how to resupply are as frought with peril as recommendations about how to hike or what shoes you should wear. Everyone’s opinions are valid, but they’re still just opinions. As a hiker, you need to make your own decisions, based on your own diet and how you want to allocate your time in town and before your hike.

As for ourselves, we found that using up our town time to go shopping was a serious drag. There are so many things to do in town already (laundry, EAT, shower, repack, EAT, etc.) By the way, I don’t think anyone thinks that maildrops would include food to eat while actually in town. That’s what restaurants and quick stops are for!

It’s a lot different to go to the store to pick up ice cream and soda than it is to have to buy food to get you through 3-5 days of hiking. We also got a much better selection of food and snacks from our maildrops than we were able to purchase on the rare occassions when we did have to buy food in town. About a third of our food was homemade, too, and that was worth a lot to us. We were able to give a lot of thought to getting the best nutrition for the least weight. Sometimes that’s hard when you just have to take whatever is on the shelves in a small town.

From many of the previous posts, it sounds like almost no one uses maildrops, but I can honestly say that LOTS of people use maildrops on both the AT and the PCT. There are lots of maildrop strategies. We weren’t the only people funding the USPS!!

-With good research, you really can figure out how much food you’ll need on trail. We managed it, and we’re not experts, by any stretch. It’s A LOT, by the way, and you can’t skimp.

-With planning, the PO PITA factor is reduced. When you’re looking at a PO deadline, it’s much more fun to slow down than to speed up. Take a “HERO” day! (that’s a “zero” day if you’re a miles person.) For the normal portions of our hike, when we weren’t in a crazy rush, it really wasn’t an issue.

-Saving money is probably not a compelling reason to maildrop. Shipping does add up. We calculated our food savings form buying in bulk vs. shipping. On the AT we came out ahead, and on the PCT we came out about even due to much higher shipping costs. Food variety, food quality (homemade, dehydrated, YUM!), and less town work were our motivators.

Obviously, maildrops are not for everyone, but they work out very well for some. They require careful planning and are a fair bit of work up front.

Jeff and I would use them again.

Chipper