I prepackaged food for my hike. There are 2 ways to resupply on the AT. One method is to purchase food at grocery stores, gas stations, hostels, outfitters and convenience stores along the way. The other is to have boxes of food sent to AT maildrops. I will be doing both. There are 4 locations along the trail with meager provisioning. For those, I will receive resupply packages. For the majority of the trail, I will purchase what I need at the available sources. Of course, there are also restaurants, hotels, and hostels which will provide much needed protein, fruits, and vegetables.
Here’s some of the staples I’ve packed:
- BREAKFAST: Oatmeal, Pop Tarts, Carnation Instant Breakfast, hot chocolate
- LUNCH: Peanut butter, Nutella, Granola, chai tea, powdered drink mix
- DINNER: Ramen noodles, Knorr side dishes, Idahoan powdered mashed potatoes, tuna, mac n’ cheese, Mountain House freeze dried meals
- SNACKS: Kind granola bars, dried apple chips, marzipan bars, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, beef/pork jerky
I’ve repackaged most of the food to reduce weight and volume (1st picture below). I spooned peanut butter and Nutella in snack size zip-locks for easy sqeezin’ onto tortillas. Ramen noodles, mac n’ cheese, and Knorr sides are crushed, extra spices added, and placed 2 per quart zip-lock. Oatmeal has coconut, raisins, dried cranberries and brown sugar added. For most meals I will heat water, pour into zip-lock bag, wait, and then eat. Each days worth of food is placed into a gallon zip-lock for easy shipping (2nd photo). I calculate each bag has approximately 3500 Calories of nutrition. Not enough to maintain weight, but enough to get me to the next all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffet.
I would hike the AT just to justify eating Pop Tarts. Enjoy!
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Awesome! Can’t wait to hear about it and follow your footsteps on a map… and someday hope to walk it too (after retirement like you). Best wishes! john Dabs
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Yum! Like Camp Alpha.
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Meat tent!
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Okay… Okay.. So this fascinates me!! (The whole adventure.)
How many of those pre-packaged bags of food will you carry at once?
Will you be letting everyone know when you’ll be near the mail drops?
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Hey Becky! I’ll probably carry 3-4 days worth of food at a time. For the 100 Mile Wilderness section, just prior to Mt Katahdin, I will need about 6 days worth. Food is heavy and if there’s resupply available ahead, you carry just enough to get there. I’m not sure if I’ll post the location of maildrops – there’s some effort/timing to meet the maildrop while the post office/outfitter/hostel is open. If I’ve mistimed it, I have to wait to get my package. Let me get started and we’ll see how it goes.
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