How do you organize mail drop setups??? I am killing my brain trying to figure this one out. For example, how is one supposed to know at what time he/she will be at a specific P.O. Box? I am so baffeled, I dont know where to start. Instead of making this more complicated for myself, is there an easy “no brainer” to this? Ouch’ my head.
Thanks,
BP
WeeWee
if you did a little planning, youd roughly know you could do X miles per day, or its x distance from shelter A to B… and that its gonna take roughly 15 days to go from B to C where C == next town with > 5ppl population with post office…
etc.
thats how you know to send your bounce box set waypoints ahead of you.
also the postoffice will keep it for a while for you, so you get a week or so leeway…
-MadAussieInLondon
MadAussieInLondon
Sending them to your self or having someone send them to you. You need a guide book like, gulp, Wingfoot’s Thru-Hikers HAnd Book or the AT Data Book, both have milages. The average hiker starting out will make about 10-16 miles per day. That depends on your specific fitness level of coarse. Also how fast you feel like going. Some hikers make Neels Gap in two days. We took 4-5. As far as where to send the drop, the closer to the trail the better. No sense in going fifteen miles off trail if you’re going to be stay at a hostel near the trail anyway. Most places along the trail will take boxes. Usually send them a minimum of ten days before you thing you’ll be there and send them Priority Mail, these can be “bounced” ahead at no extra cost if sent to a PO as long as they haven’t been opened. Just call tem and ask to send the box to so-and-so PO up trail. Boxes are labels with [your name, not trail name c/o General Delivery, East Hushpuppy, VT 00001]. In the lower left of the box put [Hold for AT Tru-Hiker, expected 3/27] Adn don’t forget a return address. The sit in a special place for hiker mail and everyone knows what they are. At the PO they’ll get held for weeks, sometimes months. At a hostel they’ll hold them forever. Check out our mail drop list we used.
http://www.trailjournals.com/maildrop.cfm?trailname=111
All these had excellent service and the hours we’re good. DON’T use Ft. Montgomery, NY use the Bear Mountain PO. since you walk right by it.
Bushwhack
Don’t stress over the boxes ! Before you leave send 2 or 3 from home… the po will hold for you for 30 days or so. The towns have decent stores way into the trail. Heck, you don’t have to do many drops for the AT unless you have a specific diet. We hardly did any… for pct was different. once you go for a few weeks you will have a better idea of your pace. You could send all the way to Fontana before you go. then you would’nt have to worry much. They will be there when you get there. Enjoy the experience and all its’ twist and turns. The food will sort itself out
yappy
Speaking as a no-brainer, the best way to make food drops easy is not to do them!
The fact is, is that there’s no dependable way to determine where you’ll be when. And, of course, about 85% of thru-hikers who go through the effort to plan all of their food drops for a thru-hike don’t finish.
Planning all of your food drops carefully makes your life more complicated, and to many people, making life less complicated is one of the great things about the AT.
If I were to do a thru-hike again, the only drops I’d do would be at Port Clinton, where there is virtually nowhere to buy food, Bear Mountain, where it’s tough to get food unless you want to cross over to Ft. Montgomery, and Delaware Water Gap where you almost have to go to the next town to get groceries.
Some people love mail drops for a number of reasons, and for them it’s the only way to go. For myself and many others, it’s great to have the freedom of doing away with as many as possible.
Colter
for the advice you kind folk you! The only reason I am attempting to do mail drops is because i am on a budget. I have let my family know what food I need for the trail and everytime someone goes to the store I ‘happen’ to get a suprize box of Pop Tarts, Energy bars, etc…! And since I havent asked my folks for money since I have graduated from college 2 years ago, they just might pay for the shipping, plus i’m not going to leave any money for the postage and they wouldn’t want me to starve:(, now would you mom and dad??
Any other advice on towns where the shopping is expensive or sparce? What about towns where P.O’s are NOT NEEDED?
Thanks again,
BP
WeeWee
When you’re in town hit the AYCE’s and restock your stomach, then go shopping. Get stuff to make things with as opposed to ready made food. PBJs, loaf of wheat bread and some lunch meats, cheese, deli sandwhiches. Learn to vary what you eat. Go in on a hugh pizza with another hiker and only eat half. Ziploc the rest and fridge it till the next day, there’s lunch. bagels, pepperoni and cheese is a filling fav. Hit the Dollar store for eats. Also do-able in town is to see what the local churches are have on the schedule. We got invited a to a few fish dinners. A few bucks and help out and you’ll eat till you have gills. Five pounds of bananas will go a long way too.
Bushwhack
i used maildrops and bounce box the whole way. What I did was I mailed the first 2 neels gap and Helen Ga. I started my bounce box in Neels Gap. All the the other ones I would call from eG. helen and say I ll be in Franklin in 7 days. MAlwyas Mail proirity, it gets there in 3 or 4 days and can be forwarded for free if you miss it or dont need it. It workrd well.
Chef
I personel haven’t used food drops. I like to buy my food along the way in the towns near the trail. However, if you are doing mail drops a method that worked well for several of my friends was to prepackage food in one and two day bags using large zip locks. Then they would call home every town and tell their parents or supply person home many days to put in a box and where to mail it. If you call about 10 days ahead of time it works out okay. Then you don’t have any set schedule and you can always buy extra food in towns. Both mail drops and buying along the way works. I feel it’s really a matter of personel preference. If you do buy food along the way some town have a pretty bad selection for resupply but that just add to the adventure. If you like planning lots of details do the mail drops. If your more layed back just wing it and buy food in towns.
Darth Pac-man
Your first maildrop or two shouldn’t be tough to plan. Just send them yourself before you leave for the trail. Most places will hold the boxes at least a month. After that have someone you can rely on mail your packages to you. Once you get going it is easy to estimate where you will be for the next couple weeks plus or minus a day or two. We went with the rule of thumb that our maildrops be sent 9 days prior to our arrival and that went good. Just make a phone call and keep the sender of the boxes posted on where you are and when you need packages mailed. If you miss a box - no big deal. You can just stock up in town. Many people do this the entire length of the trail. So try not to stress out about it and everything will fall into place.
Presto
We looked at about 10 journals on this web site that posted their maildrops. We followed their journals to see how close they were to their drop schedule. We determined which towns were good and which were bad. The 10 journals were chosen by the time it took them to complete their hike. We laid all of them out on a spread sheet and most of them were about 90% in common. We then chose the same days and places that were in common. Our maildrops were on time almost to the day 75% of the time. The only thing that caused a problem is when we got behind our schedule because of time off for an injury or time off for things like Trail Days. But the towns for our drops stayed the same. The only thing I would do different would be to put less food in the box. We packed about 5 to 7 days of food. I would only pack 3 to 4 days. At Neels Gap we saw hikers picking up their first mail drop and have huge boxes of food. One hiker had an 80 lb box!!! He had two gallon zip locks full of GORP. One hiker mailed himself 31 days of food!!! Keep it light!! After you get past VA you are in areas where food is available almost every other day until you reach NH. In the Whites we only carried 2 days of food because of the food we could find at the Huts. In Maine we carried 4 to 6 days. Towns are few and far between. Good luck on your hike.
Papa Smurf
Thanks Papa S., Presto, Darth Pac-man, and all you other wonderful folks. I am now clearheaded about this and know exactly what I will do about mail drops. Well, maybe not exactly, but I am less stressed out about it. Thank you all for the advice!
Beers,
BP
WeeWee
Here is what I did.
I started by making a base line schedule. For this, I made some basic assumptions about daily mileage, etc.
Then, using the data book, I figured out where I might stay each night.
Then, I started to think about resupply. Some places are no brainers, where you walk right past the grocery store or through a town. Then, I filled in the gaps with towns that were close to the AT, and the ones that are popular places listed in either the ALDHA Companion or Wingfoot.
I refined this baseline schedule over several months. I left a copy with the home base, and instructions to mail packages 2 weeks before my estimated arrival date.
All packages were assembled and lined up on a table in the basement, ready to be sealed. As I hiked along, I would call home and update my schedule, and adjust the content of any packages if necessary.
Peaks
I preped 7 mail drops and threw away about half of that when I opened the box. Get the Thru hikersd companion and read it as you hike. When you see a place that looks like there will be poor resupply, purchase food a couple of town before that, and mail it to yourself from that town. Other than that just stop evry 3 to 4 days and resupply in what ever town you are close to. The price you pay will be about the same as the postage you would have paid. White Blaze North, PACK ON BACK!!
Virginian
I have a list of towns I would do mail drops to if anyone is interested. I’d have to dig it up since it’s buried some where in my house but I’d be glad to give my views on the trail.
Darth Pacman