PCT mail drops

imported
#1

Before I begin, When I thru hiked the AT in 2003 I used NO mail drops. I am not a picky person when it comes to food. If I thru hiked the AT again the only two places I would do a mail drop are Port Clinton (because I didnt like the hitch to the grocery store) and Bear Mountain (because the gas station had way too HIGH prices and didnt have much to choose from)…

I’ve put together a list of places I plan on doing mail drops while on the PCT. I’ve used Yogis PCT Handbook (www.pcthandbook.com) and three journals I found here to make my list.

I thought I was finished with my mail drop plans. Then, this past weekend I listened to Yogi’s interview on www.trailcast.org … Yogi said something, like, that if you’re not picky about food, which I’m not, that you can get away with just 4 or 5 mail drops. So…

So! I would love some help in eliminating as many as I can and only sending mail drops to places that I NEED TO!

Thanks everyone … here is my list …

General Delivery total miles: 110
Warner Springs, CA 92086-9999
Hours M-F 8-4 Sat 8-1
Hold Packages for ONE WEEK
760-782-3166

Kennedy Meadows General Store Total miles: 697
PO Box 3A-5
Inyokern, CA 93527

Vermillion Valley Resort total miles: 871.3
PO Box 258
Lakeshore CA 93634
559.259.4000

*General Delivery total miles: 935.7
Lee Vining CA 93541
PO Hwy 120 E 7m to Toga Pass
then 12 miles down to Hwy 395
and .5 mile into town

*General Delivery total miles:1191.5
Sierra City, CA 96125-9999
Hours MF 830-430 Sat 1030-1230
530-862-1152

*General Delivery total miles: 1283.1
Belden, CA 95915-9999
Hours MF 9 –1 occasionally open weekends
530.283.0951

*General Delivery total miles 1371.6
Old Station, CA 96071-9999
MF 10-4 Sat 1-3
530.335.7191

Burney Falls Camp Service total miles: 1417.5
McArthor Falls State Park Rte 1
Box 1240
Burney, CA 96013

*General Delivery total miles: 1825.3
Crater Lake National Park PO
OR 97604
Hours ?
541.594.2211

UPS ONLY!
Elk Lake Resort total miles: 1953.2
60000 Century Drive
Bend, OR 97709
541.480.7228

Timberline Ski Area total miles: 2102
WY’East Store, Timberline Lodge
OR 97028
503.272.3311

White Pass Rural Branch total miles: 2298
PO Box 48851
US Highway 12
Noches, WA 98937
NOTE: At Kracker Barrel Store
509.672.3105

*General Delivery total miles: 2471.6
Skykomish, WA 98852-9999
253.677.2241

Flowcefus

#2

Flowcefus,
Hope to see you out there.
You already have quite a list for mailings, mine’s not that extensive as yet. I think I’ll just do Warner, KM, a/o VVR for now, with one for Belden in mind, and then see how it goes. I found the push box concept versus planned mails worked much better for me on the AT and I suppose there is some similarity with the PCT. I wonder what your thots are for bear cannisters?
Great hiking this year.
Big Daddy D

Big Daddy D

#3

Remove these:

Lee Vining - buy in Tuolumne instead

Sierra City - buy at the grocery store

Belden - buy at the Caribou store and then go into Chester (46 miles after Belden) and buy at the supermarket

Old Station - buy at the store. limited selection, but you can make it work. Also, there is another small store about 5 miles after Old Station.

Burney - hitch into the town of Burney (Safeway)

Crater Lake - supposedly there will be a larger store in 2006

Elk Lake & Timberline Lodge - I’d keep these, because you’re most likely going to these resorts anyway to eat restaurant food, you may as well pick up maildrops and thus reduce your pack weight.

White Pass - Hitch to Packwood and buy there

Skykomish - limited selection at the c-store, but many hikers make it work

ADD A MAILDROP in Stehekin.

yogi

www.pcthandbook.com

yogi

#4

THANKS YOGI … YOU’RE AWESOME!!!:cheers

Flowcefus

#5

I don’t like mail drops and can resupply out of almost anywhere, so take what I write with a grain of salt. If I was hiking in 06, I would send a mail drop to Warner Springs and Kennedy Meadows, and no others.

Consider dropping the VVR mail drop. It is about a day and a half to Reds Meadow where you can get a few very basic supplies, which will get you the other day and a half to Tuolumne. VVR was stocked just fine in 03, and even if it isn’t, just haul food from the grill.

Drop Lee Vining, buy in Tuolumne.

No need for Sierra City drop, the store is fine.

Don’t drop in Belden. Instead, haul to Chester and hitch in for a party at the 1/2 way point.

You can buy in Old Station and Burney Falls SP. If the park isn’t ok, just hitch in to the town of Burney.

In Oregon, there is no need to do mail drops. Buy in Ashland, Crater Lake, Sisters, and Cascade Locks. The two later runs are longer, but Oregon is cake.

In Washington, don’t bother with mail drops either. Buy at White Pass, Snoqualmie (small, newish grocery store, well stocked gas station), Skykomish (the gas station was totally ok for me in 03 and looked fine in 05), and Stehekin. Stehekin is pretty slim pickings, but between the hiker box, the two stores, and the bakery, it wasn’t an issue for me.

Suge

#6

Flowcefus -

I hiked the PCT in '05 without any food maildrops…I did, however, break up the guidebooks into manageable pieces and had my mom send them in Priority Flat Rate envelopes ($3.85 postage). I kept these unsealed, so that my mom could throw anything important in at the last minute. I found it a lot cheaper to buy AAA batteries in bulk and place 3 in each drop before hand (Petzl Tikka).

Some thoughts from 2005:

(1) Warner Springs: The gas station is well stocked finally. The owners talked with a couple thru-hikers (Dave & Michele Toms) before the hiking season last year to get a good idea of what thru-hikers want. If you are slightly ahead of the Kickoff ‘Wave’, you will be delighted with the selection here. (otherwise, some items may be sold out)

(2) VVR: the store is overpriced and much of the food is out of date, BUT the Hiker boxes (actually two 55 gallon barrels) were LOADED with nearly 100 pounds of food when i was there in October. You could call them in advance to check if the barrels are full.

(2) Belden: This was the only annoying re-supply for me on the trail last year. The store has plenty of snack type food, but it is terribly over-priced & someone had placed all the hiker box items on the shelves for sale. You could shop @ the nearby Caribou store, or hitch from Belden into Quincy, which has everything that you might need.

(3) Timberline Lodge: good, but pricy restaurants, some vending machines, and a small hiker box.

(4) Snoqualmie: Both stores are adequate, but extremely pricey (HEET was $4). After doing a bit of investigating, i found out that they are owned by the same family! The husband generally runs the gas station mini-mart and the wife manages the small store. Fortunately, there was one shelf at the small store that had generic brand snacks, like fig bars, etc. that were reasonably priced. There was a decent hiker box @ the Summit Inn.

I always look at re-supplying as part of the adventure & challenge. If you ever really get stuck, you can almost always hitch out to a bigger town for food. (except the Sierra, where you can walk a long ways out)

Happy Trails!

freebird

#7

Thanks for your help everyone! It will be a fun adventure! I hate maildrops so all this info makes me more at ease! Thanks! “Doing the best that I can while I’m travelin’ thru this land” :smokin

Flowcefus

#8

If you ever hear one of Freebird’s trail stories (highly recommended, by the way), it will inevitably include some statement like “By this time I was running low on food” - I just had to get that in!

I’ll ditto others on simply buying at VVR and Sierra City (what I did last year). Buying at Warner, Tuolumne, Old Station, and White Pass would have been doable last year, too, from what I saw. Skykomish, too, according to others. I hiked with Cypress through northern OR and WA, and he managed to resupply out of the vending machines at Timberline (and this after net getting his box at Olallie), so you can drop that one, too.

As Yogi mentions, they’re likely to have a larger store at Crater this year. Lots of construction around there this past year.

If I were to do it again, I’d try cutting down the maildrops, as you are - buying, packaging and shlepping 'em to the PO in South Lake, Ashland, and Cascade Locks took a lot of time during my “zeros”. Enjoy your trip!

Buck Larceny

#9

why not just skip vvr altogether? overpriced food, overpriced maidrop, sketchy ethics, etc. (see the thread from october/november regarding vermillion valley)

i suggest resupplying in independence and then going straight on to red’s meadow. you still get an extended hike through the high sierra, not to mention a beautiful ten mile trip across kearsarge pass and, finally, you don’t have to pay for food that was dropped in the hiker box.

this is merely my suggestion. you can read more about it in previous threads and make up your mind.

intruder/nightfever

#10

i like the strategy of doing your later mail drops while you are on the trail. just for one example, you could do all your or/wa drops in ashland, or. you know, some big town you can get groceries there. and then if your tastes change or if your plans change, you are flexible. this could save you some postage cash especially if you are from the east coast, and it can help to ease the load of all the prep crap you gotta do in these coming months. also takes a bit of work off your support person.

milo

#11

I second milo. If you’re realy not a picky eater (and even if you are), you’ll save yourself a lot of grief and waste by waiting to send maildrops till you’re on the trail (with a few exceptions). This is particularly true for oregon and Washington, where you can send maildrops to from either ashland, or Bend (as we did). using this strategy you maintain your flexibility, which is the key to an enjoyable and flexible hike.
The only exception to that i would mention is KM. first, because the mail there is not completely reliable (it might take a long time to get there). second, because it’s likely to be one of the longest stretches on the trip, and you might not want to spend the time in town getting the maildrop ready. and third, it’s very likely you’ll be sending yourself a box there anyway, so you might as well send your food too.
Oh, and freebird’s right too- send a box to belden (and remember the P.O. hours sre very strange!)

Remy

#12

For those of you planning your PCT trip for the first time (I envy you!), here’s a link that will help you ‘Visualize’ the most popular mailing options:

http://delnorteresort.com/cgi-bin/postHoler?page=mail&trail=pct

Scott

Scott

#13

You can skip the effort of a maildrop at belden by resupplying at bucks lake (c.50 miles before) and Chester (50 miles after).

KM - either buy 10 days worth of candy bars (like squeaky did) or send a box!

Dave

#14

Granted, I did the PCT in '81 (yikes! Time flies) so my thoughts are older than some of you, but why go to VVR at all? If you’re going to spend that kind of money why not go out to Mammoth and really pig out. It’s an easy flat walk and hitch if you go out the pass south of Red’s (forget the name.)

Some historical perspective: We did it entirely on mail drops. 28 or so as I recall. For some reason we figured we would eat a package of instant grits (I’m from the south) each every day. We gave away a lot of grits. Also, we would buy food late at night after a couple of bottles of wine, so would buy exotic stuff like cous-cous that sounded like a good idea at the time (this was '81) and throw away the packaging and directions to save weight. Four months later there was a lot of picking up baggies full of unidentifiable stuff and saying ‘What the hell is this and how do you fix it?’

Pappy

#15

The Belden “store” is sad. I was there in mid August and it had changed ownership. Not much in store and seemed to cater to weekend bikers and urban Ca. tweakers. Real sad change of venue. Hiked Sobo out in 100 degree weather,it was a bummer. On the bright side, more trail angels in area for possible resupply or hitch-hiking opp. everyone enjoy your hikes this year. Peace,2 Spirits

mike

#16

Hey, why not practice. Buy six days worth of food from your favorite gas station–but remember to buy light and calorie dense (and hopefully healthy) food–and live solely on that for the duration. Just think about it. How much do you really love pop tarts? How much would it annoy you to pay eight dollars for a box of cereal or 80 cents for ramen noodles? Mail drops are a pain, to be sure, but you can really put some style into your thru-hiking diet (Pedestrian you did it!) with a little effort. I’ve never eaten as unhealty as I did on the PCT, but that is one thing I’ll change on the next long hike.

Why not give it a shot, though. It might be fun. While you’re at it, buy a carton of cigs and smoke them all at once and let’s see if you smoke again.

Live simply, eat well, and share, Johnabee

Johnabee