Southern Half Resupply Possibility

imported
#1

Hi all-
I’m be NOBO from Whitney on 8/17 (actually starting a few days earlier at Crescent Meadows) and am trying to work out a strategy for resupplying around Vidette Meadow/Charlotte Lake area. Paying a horse/llama packer to bring in 5 days of food and supplies is not in my budget. Neither is taking the extra time to hike out and resupply.
However, I have another idea. I live very close to the trail (Clovis, CA) and wondered if anyone else out there wants to resupply me on my hike and I will resupply you on your hike in return? I am open to pretty much any date this summer except obviously when I am on the JMT. Anyone even slightly interested?

Kingboy

#2

Great idea! I wish I could help, but our trips are actually overlapping. We are also wondering how to make the stretch from Muir Trail Ranch to Whitney. We did it two years ago, but have added a bit more weight since then (our daughter) so are trying to come up with a viable resupply option.

A few thoughts we’ve had: (1) finding a generous friend (we live in the Bay Area, so distance isn’t an issue) or family member (my father, brother and niece met us near Muir Trail Ranch last time) to hike in a resupply; (2) finding another hiker with a similar schedule to share the cost of resupplying with a llama packer; or (3) hiking in a food cache shortly before our trip and leaving it in one of the bear lockers.

Good luck, and hope to cross paths on the trail!

kanga

#3

Your second option of splitting a resupply for a llama packer might appeal to me if location and dates were similar. Do you have any dates/drop locations yet?

Regarding hiking in a cache beforehand…I have tried and tried to figure out a way to do this. The act of doing it is not the problem, but making sure the cache is there when I get there is the issue. I have talked to several rangers about this and they all say that bear boxes are only for use by parties camped in the immediate vicinity. When asked what they would do if items were found in a box without an owner, they say they remove them along with the normal garbage that accumulates in the boxes. So that scares me to be relying on a cache and it potentially not being there.
The other option would be to actually hide a cache somewhere off the trail in a bear can. But the area where I want the cache has a bad bear population. I am afraid that given enough time (10 days or so) from when I drop the cache to when I retreive it, they will be clever enough to destroy even an approved container (10 days is a long time to work on it). However I’m still considering the option of double-bagging the cache in Aloksak odor-proof bags inside a bear can.

Kingboy

#4

How does one find a llama/horse packer to haul in a resupply? We’ll possibly have enough in our group to split the costs. Of course, that would mean spending five days or so wondering how reliable the resupply party was…

LiteShoe

#5

There’s a woman named Melanie Garside who does resupplies using llamas along the southern part of the JMT. Her phone number (which she prefers to email) is 760-872-7666 (she says call between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) and her website is http://www.qnet.com/~sierramel/. I was just talking with her and she says she still has openings for early July and late August.

Snowbird