Madelyn and I have spent a lot of time discussing resupply strategy, reading Halfway Anywhere survey's, trying to determine what our best course of action will be.
I'm sorry to admit, but we made a novice Thru Hiker mistake back in November. We jumped on an ad posted by a 2018 PCTer, she was selling $1,000 worth of food for $400. After we received the giant boxes of 90+ meals in the mail, we finally read the resupply section in the Yogi's Pacific Crest Trail Handbook that warned us "If this is your first long hike then I suggest to NOT use food mail drops from home."
WHOOPS, well too late. What can we do now...
Answer: more reading.
We both agreed we would NOT let this $1k food go to waste.
According to the 2018 PCT Survey, an average of 9 resupply boxes was sent while on trail. We read up on the most unlikely trail towns where resupply can be done, and we put them on the map! Interestingly, most are in Oregon and Washington.
The last 2 days we've put together an inventory list and labeled the boxes per the requirements, we guestimated our days on trail between towns, and filled our boxes with the meals needed. Our smallest box is 3 days worth, and our largest box is 6 days worth.
In total we have 8 resupply boxes.
They are filled with the yumminess and convenience of Mountain House and Backpackers Pantry, sleeves of Oreo's (yes!), protein bars, trail mix and instant coffee. Cream and sugar anyone? darn.
There will soon be a separate page at the top of the blog that will provide our current known stopping addresses- I would invite you to feel welcome to send us care packages. But please be mindful we are traveling with everything on our backs. We would welcome edible items (candy, cookies, sweet breads- anything that can potentially last about a week in a box), notes of encouragement, etc.
Unfortunately I have read that mail surprises are impossible- i. e. we must know to walk to the post office and request mail. If you ship us something, please be sure to drop us a note of where it was shipped so that we can go get it and relish in your compassionate sweetness. We promise to take a picture and blog it!
No comments:
Post a Comment