hello from France!
I cannot fly from France with Heet + matches in my Backpack, so i’m looking for a way to get some Denatured Acohol in Yosemite Valley.
A friend of mine could ship some in Yosemite Village Post office, but USPS dont allows it either, so what is the trick to get my precious HEET bottle?
Thanks for you help guys!
french bob
Jeff and I shipped denatured alcohol a few times for our '04 PCT trek. I waded through the postal regulations again today, and it seems that nothing has been changed since '04. The PO workers didn’t even blink when we mailed it.
It is definitely OK to ship your Heet by USPS, but don’t ship matches with your alcohol, please.
Here’s the procedure:
1-Quantity: You may mail up to 1 qt. (32 oz.) in its original metal container. You may mail up to one pint (16 oz.) in an original plastic container. We usually shipped quarts of denatured and then shared our left-overs. Heet comes in much smaller plastic bottles, so that won’t be a problem. Duct tape the tops down to be sure they don’t leak.
2- One container per mailed package.
3- The alcohol container must be placed in enough absorbent cushioning material to absorb any spillage. The absorbent material and the original container must then be placed in a sealed secondary container. We used ziplock bags for this.
4- Pack in a sturdy box.
5- Clearly label the box with “Surface Mail Only” and “ORM-D Consumer Commodity.”
This means no priority mail, so your package will need extra time to arrive. We had our shipments mailed at least two weeks before our arrival date, and they usually arrived in about a week. We were conservative on the timing.
So, wrap the Heet and pack it carefully. Label it very clearly, remind the PO worker verbally that it must be shipped surface mail only, and you shouldn’t have any problems. Have a good hike.
Here’s the original regulation document, in case you’re interested:
Look at section 10.13.2a Denatured alcohol has a flash point of around 53-55°F, depending on the denaturant and the type of alcohol.
Chipper
We only found ONE store that sold denatured alcohol in Yosemite Valley. In Curry Village it was more of a mountain/climber equipment shop but had other camping and hiking supplies as well.
(Yosemite Mountain Shop)
You may also want to check the Village Sport Shop in Yosemite Village…maybe they were just all out when we were there.
AlohaTink