Cheapest AT thru hike possible

imported
#1

Hey everyone, I am a class of 07 pct thru-hiker and this year I am doing the AT. I just thought a thread on money saving tips for the AT would be awesome as I am on much more of a budget this year than on my last hike. There are of course obvious things like stay away from the towns and pick food from hiker boxes when possible, but does anyone else have any other tips out there. I am considering food drops, which I dont think will allow me to save any money really, but it will allow me to fine tune my diet, (somthing I finally feel I have the foresight to do). I am going to dehydrate my own meals and such but I am considering using hiker boxes to suppliment. Can anyone give me an idea of how good they really are? On the pct there was definately stories told of overflowing boxes full of great food and gear but is this stuff really true. I even heard of a woman who only spent 50 bucks to damascus because she lived out of hiker boxes. I am going to be leaving the first week of april so I can finish by august if that helps.

any info would be greatly appreciated,

thanks

-moose

The Lucid Moose

#2

Don’t worry about sending a box to Fontana Dam. There’s very little doubt you’ll get enough free food there to get you through the Smokies. Also, even if you’re not getting a mail drop, go to the PO and ask about a hiker box. If you don’t mind living on potato flakes, dried beans, rice, and other strange oddities, you can eat quite cheaply on the AT.

Also, to pass along a strange bit of wisdom from a homeless hiker on the AT in 2000, Screamer, get the cream of chicken ramen noodles. More calories, same price!

raru

#3

(Hey, Raru! I met GT in Maine, she told me about your paddling trip–cool.)

Go to Whiteblaze and find Weathercarrot’s excellent article: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?p=22959#post22959

I hiked the AT as a PCT vet, too, and was surprised at how cheaply I could do it. I skipped a lot of towns, hiked PCT days (20-mile average), got lots of free food from hiker boxes (don’t depend on it, you’ll be in the middle of the pack to start and way ahead of it at the end). I didn’t do a single mail drop for food. The diet suffered when I had to buy at C-stores, but to me it was worth being free of PO schedules and leaving the trail.

I started in early April, ended mid-July. Fewer days out meant a less expensive hike, for me. I missed the summer heat, most of the bugs, stayed healthy–great hike.

Fun trail, very fun, you’ll love it.

Garlic

#4

Dear Lucid Moose,

My thoughts are much like Garlic’s:

  1. Don’t count on hiker boxes. My own experience was that there was lots of good stuff on top of Springer Mountain and shortly beyond (including, amazingly, commercial freeze dried meals), but then it petered out dramatically, and much of what there was afterwards consisted of unappetizing oddities–rice, beans, and other unwanteds.

  2. My advice would be to skip the food drops. They give you another thing to do and lock you into times and schedules. During one trip, a woman from South Dakata ended her journey early and signed her remaining food drops over to me. While I greatly appreciated them, as I was working with the meagerest of budgets, and her drops were full of goodies, I was ultimately, later, glad to be “off the clock.” Meanwhile, the odd convenience stores on blue highways often provided me a homemade pie, while roadside fruit and vegetable stands provided me nature’s bounty, and both led me to interaction with the local people–good people.

So, that’s my view of it.

Conan

Conan