Date: 2010-02-13
To: This That and the Other Thing.
Miles today: 0.0

Get everything in town, get some of it, mail some of it, the AT allows for lots of options.The mastery of this, that and the other thing is also linked to your daily mileage ¢ actually, everything is linked to our daily mileage. The shorter the days mileage the more snacks and dinners and weight. But how do you figure out what you need, when to swing into town other than the obvious empty food bag? How do you even start to know?Putting together several months of food and other helpful goodies for maildrops seems a bit daunting at first. The where and how many that worked for me is best illustrated in my 2006 Thru-hike TrailJournal under Maildrops. After discovering my mileage range from my first hike, I sat down over a period of a couple evenings with my Thru-Hikers Companion and all my profile maps from the ATC. I never carried the full map, but cut only the long profile section off them, then each got included in the corresponding maildrop to save weight.Back to sitting down with them ¢ over those evenings I hiked the entire AT from my chair by using those profiles and counting the days to determine my breakfast, lunch and dinner needs to the next maildrop. By hiking the trail ¢virtually,¢ and putting it in a document, I had a starting blueprint for maildrop requirements as well as a sheet on the trail to speed up resupply. I had 31 maildrops so I never carried more than four dinners except once ¢the Hundred Mile Wilderness, which had me at the camp store on the morning of the sixth day. A five-day passage is very doable, I like stopping at the last shelter before leaving the 100-mile to savor the moment, my 2006 AT journal can help you with that.Maildrops, no maildrops, sort of comes down to control, I think. If you have special foods, they allow you to have them. My Muscle Milk powder is my breakfast milkshake as well as vitamins, Excedrin, etc., I¢ll still hit the big grocery stores for the perishable stuff ¢ precooked bacon, cheese sticks and sandwiches and burgers for carrying out, and while I¢m hanging out at the motel. And thanks to a new campaign by the U.S. Postal Service with those flat-rate boxes, it¢s even a bit cheaper now.I don¢t like embracing my inner Grizzly Adams on my hikes, too itchy. I like to shave every town stop and include a disposable razor in each box. Other items that go in are my solid fuel tabs (the number determined by the dinner, hot coco nights by that ¢virtual¢ hike I did with my profile maps.) If you went page by page on my 2006 journal, you could shortcut your own virtual hike and have daily mileage and food requirements, as well as the maildrop locations. PLEASE ¢ double check all locations to current guide books to see if they are still there and accept boxes. I did it for this half-hike of mine and found some changes. Once again, this is only if planning doesn¢t make you hurl.For you free spirits of the journey, remember you can use a bounce box on the items giving you a brain cramp. In two thru-hikes, I only once had to wait a day for the Post Office to open (In Maine) requiring me to take a zero, which I needed anyway ¢ so no bother. Turned the day into a Lord Of The Rings marathon with a bottle of red.Make sure to mail your boxes Priority, which is what the new flat-rate boxes are anyway, 10 days before your arrival date (Arrival date determined by that virtual hike exercise) and always error on adding days rather than subtracting them. That virtual hike also helped me to know when I¢d be coming into a place during a holiday weekend that usually messes stuff up. Hope that helps. See you soon in Awes.