BACKPACKER LONG TRAILS

What you put in your tank for fuel is even more important than the gear you carry. That’s why we’re covering it first. While hikers infamously fuel themselves on PopTarts, Snickers, and ramen, I’ve found that the adage “you are what you eat” is especially true when you have a lot of miles to cover. Sure, I’ve eaten my share of cookies and chocolate for breakfast while I’m hiking. Heck, it’s one of the many reasons that I hike. But, ultimately, the foods you choose impact performance, energy levels, and recovery.

In this chapter we’ll discuss how to choose foods that will stay tasty and nutritious throughout your hike (and yes, sometimes part of your resupply option is cookies and chocolate). Then you’ll learn how to get that food to yourself on the trail. We will also discuss sending yourself non-edible consumables on the trail and tricks to make sure you have just what you need when you need it.

What food you eat and how you resupply are personal choices. Most hikers discover the system that works for them through trial and error. Resupplies are one of the big differences between normal backpacking trips and thru-hiking—and it is important for would-be thru-hikers to learn the nuances. In this chapter, we outline guidelines to better direct you towards a method that suits your needs.

Try not to obsess about resupply. While some trails, like the CDT, are not forgiving if you make a resupply error, other trails, like the AT, have bailout options. Know the basics, understand how to get the items you need while you are on the trail, and then move on to physical training and backcountry skills.

Yes, there are food rules for thru-hikers. These are overarching principles and rules about eating on the trail. They’re important to understand as you plan for your trip. Because food is the heaviest thing in your pack, it’s important to make sure everything you bring is something you’re going to love that can also fuel you.

Choose foods you already know you love. On the trail, it’s almost impossible to get too many calories. This is your chance to eat some of your favorite junk foods relatively guilt-free. Remember: The real key to keeping your food tasty is variety. One good way to make sure you’re getting a true variety is to think of all your food, especially snacks, in terms of a “flavor matrix.” Each food is either salty or sweet, crunchy or chewy. “You really want a balance of those textures and tastes in what you’re packing,” explains Claudia Pearson, the rations manager for thousands of students at the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Rocky Mountain branch. “That way you can choose what you’re in the mood for at that moment, and you won’t get totally sick of whatever you’ve got.”

See the chart below for some examples of snacks that fit into each “quadrant” of the matrix. If one of the quadrants is empty, I recommend you try to find a snack you like that would fill it.

Food Flavors Matrix

Keep these four tastes and textures in mind when planning your snacks for the trail. Having options from each quadrant will let you choose what you’re in the mood for and keep you from getting totally sick of what you’re carrying. We’ve given you an example for each; fill in your own favorite snacks as you plan and pack.

Even though it’s easier to make resupplies that look homogenous with all the same four foods, chances are you will tire of them quickly. If you’re resupplying by mail drop (more on that soon), make every box a bit of a surprise. It’ll make each package feel like a birthday present instead of a bill.

Yes, thru-hiking is a great chance to indulge in junk food. But that doesn’t mean you can get away with only eating junk. If you eat nothing but candy on a day hike, your body will still be able to perform. But if you eat nothing but candy, day after day, week after week, on a thru-hike, it’s going to cause trouble (not to mention cavities). The info in the next few pages comes from Pack Light, Eat Right by Brenda Braaten, Registered Dietitian, PhD in Biochemical Nutrition, thru-hiker (AT and LT), and trail angel. This is the only scientific article created by a registered dietitian that addresses endurance nutrition specifically for thru-hikers. I advise reading it slowly, perhaps several times, before buying any food for your trip. She goes into much more detail on her website, but if you’re curious, it’s a great resource. Here are the key vitamins and minerals thru-hikers need to worry about, and good ways to make sure you get them:

HIKE YOUR OWN HIKE

MY BIG FOOD FAILURE

Dean Krakel learned the Rule 2 lesson the hard way on his thru-hike of the Colorado Trail.

I’m a 63-year-old photojournalist, and in 2015 I walked the Colorado Trail from Durango to Denver, including the Collegiate West loop. When I decided to walk the Colorado Trail, I did a lot of research on food, and I spent the whole winter and spring making my own trail food. I had two dehydrators going full blast 24 hours a day, day after day. I made huge batches of energy bars. I bought bulk freeze-dried food and put it into individual ziplocks. I also made pemmican, the food that I was going to rock the Colorado Trail with. Pemmican is a blend of 50/50 lean beef of buffalo and fat that, some say, tastes like a beef-flavored candlestick. It’s very lightweight and incredibly calorie dense, and I thought it would solve my calorie to weight conundrum. I made 24 pounds of it.

I packed every resupply box with my pemmican. When I got into the field and on the trail, I only ate a pound of pemmican before I was totally sick of it. I had to go into towns to restock my food. As I walked on the trail, my needs in food changed dramatically. Going into town allowed me to buy the food I wanted and the food that I was craving, and it also allowed me to buy as much food as I knew I would need because, by that time in the journey, I knew exactly my daily mileage. The moral of the story? Food is about flavor. If it doesn’t taste good, you won’t eat it. And you gotta eat. And if you need pemmican, I still have a freezer full.

—Dean “Ghost” Krakel

Why you need it: Vitamin C is critical for building healthy connective tissue (muscles, ligaments, blood vessel walls—everything that keeps you going, mile after mile)—and for preventing oxidative damage in the water-soluble compartments of your body. It is also beneficial in assisting iron absorption and use.

Where it comes from: Normally, fresh fruits, fruit juice, and vegetables. But because Vitamin C is not stable to heat, light, and air, dried fruits and dried vegetables have lost over 90 percent of their natural Vitamin C.

Your trail strategy: Because fresh oranges are not likely to be included in your menu, and wild berries along the trail are not to be depended upon, to get the recommended 60 mg/day you will have to make a conscious effort to find Vitamin C–fortified foods or drink mixes (spiced cider, Tang, instant breakfast, some cold cereals—read the labels) or take a supplement (a “one-a-day”).

Why you need it: Vitamin E is an antioxidant in cell membranes and organelles. It is of major concern because exercise may promote more free radical damage within the tissue and Vitamin E protects cell membranes from oxidative damage.

Your trail strategy: Since you may need more on the trail, look for good sources of Vitamin E: vegetable or olive oil, nuts, whole grain cereals, wheat germ, seeds, peanut butter. All you need is 10 to 15 mg/day, so it only takes three or four servings of Vitamin E–rich foods each day.

Why you need it: Iron is involved in delivering oxygen to muscles and turning fuel into energy. As you exercise more and put more demands on your muscles, you need even more of it. This is one very good reason to train before you hit the trail.

Where it comes from: Meat (beef, tuna, chicken—even jerky) has a readily absorbable form of iron (heme iron). Other food sources do not supply iron in a form that is most readily absorbed, but Vitamin C will aid absorption if you drink or eat it along with your iron-rich food. Other non-meat sources: iron-fortified cereals, beans and peas, tofu, dried fruit, and even dried broccoli.

Your trail strategy: Supplements are not necessary for individuals on a balanced diet, but if there’s a nagging doubt about how “balanced” your diet is, and you opt for a one-a-day multiple vitamin with iron, be forewarned. Supplemental iron is not readily absorbed—most will go right through you, turning your stools black and making you constipated. Never exceed the recommended daily allowance (RDA: 10 mg for males and 18 mg for females “of child-bearing age”) or you may “rob Peter to pay Paul.” Minerals are delicately balanced within your body. If you get too much of one, you’ll inhibit absorption of other important minerals such as calcium and zinc. So stay within the RDA. And be consistent. The iron transport proteins will adapt to a certain normal level of incoming iron. If you vary radically from that level, most of the iron will be wasted on days when you take a larger-than-normal dose.

Why you need it: Calcium warrants special attention, since it is critical for muscle contraction, nerve transmission, and the obvious—building strong bones. Even if you think you’re not building strong bones, subtle changes are going on as you hike. By carrying an unaccustomed load on your back, the skeletal system will be receiving messages to increase bone density in your spine and lower extremities. The pull of the muscles on your skeleton will also send signals to lay down thicker bones. (Women: Backpacking is a wonderful way to decrease your risk of developing osteoporosis because it strengthens your skeleton. Exercise can be as important as getting enough calcium for building strong bones, so do both!)

Where it comes from: Milk or dairy, salmon, sardines (or any fish with bones in it), eggs, dried beans and peas, and dark green vegetables (broccoli again!).

Your trail strategy: With the additional demands on your system, you’ll need more calcium than usual. The “usual” is supposed to be between 800 and 1,200 mg calcium/day. Set 1,200 mg/day as a reasonable goal. That is easily achieved if you eat or drink three to four servings of milk or dairy.

Try to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of powdered skim milk to every meal. If you don’t “do” milk, nuts and seeds (including sesame seeds) are rich sources of calcium, so eat some every day. In baking trail goodies, use blackstrap molasses rather than white sugar. Molasses is a good source of most minerals—calcium, iron, zinc, copper, chromium—you name it.

If you normally take a calcium supplement at home, continue to take it on the trail. Familiar lesson, repeated: Enzymes need a consistent message. In this case, it’s the calcium transport molecules that need a consistent message, but the outcome is the same. The transport molecules get accustomed to seeing a certain level of calcium and adjust their activity accordingly. Don’t send them mixed messages, or your bones will pay the price. Be consistent!

Can I know if I’m not getting enough calcium? Although there are other causes, “charley horses” or muscle cramps are often caused by inadequate calcium, so your body may send you a message loud and clear if you are not getting enough calcium. Fortunately, the calcium deficiency can be quickly remedied by boosting your calcium intake.

Staying healthy as a thru-hiker isn’t just about micronutrients, though. We are out there for months—so how our bodies convert food into energy and muscle is different than other athletes. Here are some key rules to keep in mind:

For a long duration hike, boost the fat to 35 to 40 percent of your daily calories by selecting high-fat foods. Besides keeping your pack weight down, more fat will make your food taste better. And your breakfast will hold you longer since fat slows down digestion, giving you a more even distribution of fuel being absorbed.

Proteins contribute a little, not a lot, to your energy needs—10 percent at most (although more in males than in females). Protein will not make a perceptible difference in your performance level, so it’s not the fuel needs you’re concerned about, but the building of tissue—especially muscle tissue—that is taking place.

For the muscle-building/restructuring that is going on, an adequate supply of protein is necessary. The general recommendation for athletes is 1 gram protein/kg body weight or 12 to 15 percent of your diet, only slightly higher than what is recommended for the general population.

Most Americans regularly consume twice that much protein, so your trail diet can have considerably less protein than you normally eat at home and still supply more than ample protein for the muscle building and energy needs of your body.

Eat frequent carbohydrate snacks, especially during and immediately after a hard workout (15 minutes to 1 hour after quitting for the day). During the day, about 20 to 30 grams of carbohydrate per hour is a reasonable goal: 20 grams for easy hiking; 30 grams for more challenging terrain.

That fuel should come from complex carbohydrates (starch, whole grains, high fiber foods), which are better nutrients all around. Complex carbohydrates release sugar over a longer period of time, rather than giving one big dose all at once. A second benefit of complex carbohydrates is that they are more likely to supply the B vitamins and minerals you need.

Insulin, a hormone released when sugar is eaten, stimulates cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream, thus causing blood glucose levels to fall. If you then begin to exercise, glucose levels will further plummet, thus decreasing your endurance. Drinking water or milk would be better than drinking a sugar-laden soda just before you exercise, since the sugar will cause you to run out of energy faster. If you must mainline sugar, eat it in small doses during or after exercise, but not before!

For long-distance hikers: Half the fat that you burn is from storage, and half is supplied by the food you eat. To minimize pack weight, choose a higher fat menu. A 50-35-15 diet on the trail is reasonable:

Do the math: If you need 4,000 calories of food per day, you could carry 40 ounces of food that has 100 calories per ounce. Or you could carry 30 ounces of food that has 125 calories per ounce. Ultimately, by choosing more calorie-dense foods, you can get similar nutritional benefits while carrying 10 ounces less food. Backpackers often spend hundreds of dollars on gear items that are 10 ounces lighter than other gear. By choosing more calorie-dense food, you can get the same weight savings benefit for free.

Remember that density doesn’t just refer to calories per pound—it also refers to bulkiness. Potato chips, for example, have a high calorie-to-weight ratio (usually around 150 calories per ounce). But because of their shape, they can take up a lot of room in your pack. Many hikers reduce the bulk of their potato chips by crunching them into potato chip dust, and eating the dust either with a spoon or by sprinkling it on top of other dinners. (I personally prefer to only minimally crunch my chips, if I carry them at all.)

If you’re not accustomed to thinking through the density of your food, here’s an easy trick: Remember that you want to be carrying as little water in your food as possible. Water is both heavy and calorie-free, so foods with lots of water in them (fresh veggies, for example, but also, say, applesauce) are choices that aren’t very calorie dense. Dehydrated or freeze-dried versions of water-heavy foods are almost always a lighter weight choice (dried apple rings, for example).

Not all foods are created equal, even if they have the same calories and weight density. Calories are not the only way to measure nutrition. Foods with a lot of processed sugars tend to give you quick energy. These are great for when you are bonking (hitting the wall)—but ultimately your body runs through the sugars very quickly, and you will crash if this is all you’re eating. Slower-release sugars and carbohydrates found in complex starches like whole grains are used by your body less quickly. When you eat these on the trail, you will have sustained energy for a longer time than if you were to only eat quick-release sugars.

How fast or slow sugar is released from a particular food is its glycemic index (GI). You can find a database of the glycemic index for many foods, plus tons more information on the concept, at www.glycemicindex.com. The short version: Foods with a lower glycemic index release their energy more slowly and stay in your system longer. Foods with a high glycemic index give you an instant hit of energy (which can be good on the trail, but reduce overall endurance if you start your day with it). Make sure your rations include both kinds, but especially lean toward low-GI foods at meals and the beginning of your day.

This isn’t just fancy theory; you can feel it for yourself. On the AT, I decided to do a comparison with my trail food, testing how much energy different foods gave me. I compared a normal toaster pastry to a whole-wheat toaster pastry. While fairly similar items with similar calories per packet, they had a big difference on my energy levels in a way I never would have noticed at home. One day I would eat two normal toaster pastries and have energy for an hour. Then I’d be starving again. Another day I would eat two whole-wheat pastries and have energy for 2.5 hours. The whole-wheat pastries cost a bit more—but I got 1.5 extra hours of energy. This experiment made me realize that on the trail, food is not just what I eat when I’m hungry. It is my fuel, and my body is worth using premium gas.

What Is a Resupply?

Hikers spend more time thinking about food than pretty much anything. And no, unless you’re hiking just a section of a long trail or one of the shorter long trails (seven to ten days), you won’t start your hike with enough food to last you for the whole trip. Instead, you’re going to learn to resupply, which means going into a town and getting the food, fuel, gear, and medical supplies you need to cover you until you hit the next town.

Planning your resupplies can be a little tricky. You never really know how much food you’re going to eat until you get out there. I usually lose my appetite for the first two weeks of hiking, and then my “hiker hunger” kicks in, and suddenly I can eat twice as much as I do normally. You never really know what your body is going to be interested in eating either, until you get out there. I’ve carried homemade granola bars that I thought would be awesome, only to ditch them for candy bars. Knowing how much and what food to carry is an art, so don’t worry about getting it perfect. The more you hike, the more you’ll know what you like and how much of it. But the tips you’ll learn here will help you make better decisions.

For me, planning resupplies and thinking about what to eat is one of my favorite parts of prepping for a long hiking trip.

Shelf-stable food often comes in boxes or plastic packaging to make it look prettier. But—along with everything in your pack—if it doesn’t serve a purpose, it doesn’t need to get hauled up the mountain. Packaging makes food bulky, so if you wanted to keep your food in its original packaging, you’d need a much bigger pack. Master the art of repackaging. Remove boxes and wrapping and dump your food into plastic ziplock bags. Less to carry is, well, less to carry (both in and out), and that’s a good thing.

For most thru-hikers, by the time you get into camp for dinner, you want to eat now. Unlike shorter trips or camping trips, thru-hiking is not a time for back-country gourmet experimentation. It’s a time to quickly get warm calories in your mouth. These are the types of meals thru-hikers tend to like:

HIKE YOUR OWN HIKE

ON NEVER COOKING AT ALL

It’s less popular, but there is always the option of not cooking at all during your thru-hike. Hiking stoveless isn’t for everyone. I recommend you test it for a week or so before fully committing. My friend Steve "Twinkle” Shattuck explains how he makes it work.

I’ve hiked roughly 4,000 miles on long trails going completely stoveless. Many people would consider my style of hiking a minimalist approach, going as many miles as I can each a day. To do this, I carry very little, and going stoveless just fits that approach. I eat mainly maltodextrin, a food additive product that is a starch in powder or sugar form. Put some water and juice with it, and it’s a drinkable meal. Malto is actually the main ingredient in a lot of name-brand sports energy drinks used by ultrarunners and endurance cyclists like Hammer Nutrition, CytoMax, or Gatorade. It’s great as an on-the-go food source for thru-hikers, too. I can get roughly 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day from maltodextrin.

On top of malto, I supplement with bars, such as Probars or Clif Bars, and nuts and a lot of chips. All these are food and drinks that I can eat on the go, which fits well with my approach of hiking as many miles in a day as possible to maximize what I see on my vacation. Cooking takes time and energy and has an added weight cost. Things can go wrong too, including forest fires, which I think are a huge danger on the long trails, especially in desert areas. Without a stove, I don’t have to worry if I have enough fuel to cook the foods that I have. If I don’t have to worry about that, it’s one less care I have on the trail. With my stoveless system, it’s pretty easy for me to get into camp and throw food in myself, whether it’s a bar or chips, and go to bed. I don’t worry about setup and breakdown and cleaning of pots and pans. Going stoveless is just a pretty easy approach to fueling myself on the trail. Don’t worry—if you try malto on trail, the Post Office won’t give you too hard of a time about the resupply boxes full of white powder.

—Steve “Twinkle” Shattuck

Many thru-hikers tend to prefer foods to which you can add boiling water and then let soak for a while before eating (this system is used by a lot of freeze-dried food companies). This system uses less fuel than cooking or simmering your food for a long time. (Note: You can actually cook a surprising number of foods this way, including pasta. Flat and angel hair noodles cook faster than shell or curly noodles.) If you choose foods that need simmering or boiling for a few minutes, you’ll find a canister or woodstove to be more fuel efficient (more on this in the “Gear” chapter). Also, the less water your dinner needs, the less fuel you need.

That said, some thru-hikers like to make more elaborate meals with real vegetables on their first night out of town. And I always stick at least one pricier “treat” dinner into each resupply. This can serve as a motivator and celebratory meal after a hard day.

A majority of thru-hikers do not cook breakfast. You certainly are welcome to start your day with a cooked breakfast, but over time many people decide that it is easier to eat a cold breakfast. I usually do not cook, but on cold mornings I pack up quickly, eat a cold breakfast, and then stop later and cook up hot coffee and hot oatmeal.

You may recall learning in school about water boiling at lower temperatures at altitude than at sea level. This is very relevant when cooking backpacking food. Unless you want your rice, pasta, and veggies to be crunchy, remember that dehydrated and freeze dried foods will take longer to rehydrate at altitude. You’ll need to simmer meals that require cooking longer, too. Atmospheric pressure is lower at altitude than at sea level, so while water boils at 212°F at sea level, at 5,000 feet, it is 203°F and at 10,000 feet it boils at only 194°F. Most backpacking food companies suggest adding 1 minute of cook or soak time for every 1,000 feet over 5,000 feet. Water also evaporates faster at altitude—so if you don’t use a lid with your pot, you’ll need to add 1–2 tablespoons extra per 5,000 feet.

Although many hikers are tempted to eat pizza and burgers in town, it’s also a great time to catch up on vegetables and fruit. I often make the produce aisle my first stop in town. Then, after gorging on fruits and veggies, I find a restaurant to order pizza and a burger. I try to make a habit of getting at least a side salad with my meals. Most hikers reach town at least a little dehydrated. Start your time in town with a drink more exciting than water.

Men over 50 years old who are long-distance hiking have told me they tend to lose body fat and mass more easily and quickly than other gender/age groups. This is great at first—until the body runs out of fat and starts attacking muscles, including organs. I have met several older men who had kidney problems because of it. They typically notice that it has become an issue because they start urinating blood.

According to some hikers who have suffered this problem, their doctors recommend getting enough carbohydrates and proteins in their diet to replenish glycogen stores and eating frequently so that the body does not start attacking itself for fuel. All hikers—especially older ones—should talk to their doctors about how nutritional choices can safeguard then from falling victim to this or other health issues.

When I hiked the CDT, I purchased a lot of bulk discount food items near their expiration date for the trip. Before leaving, I divided out the items into twenty different boxes, which a friend mailed to me over the course of my five-month trip. I particularly remember opening a bag of chocolate that I received in my last resupply box. The chocolate had clearly gone bad; it was full of spiders.

Many raw or minimally processed foods have short shelf lives. If you intend to send yourself that kind of food, I’d advise not buying all you need before you leave for the trip. Instead, ask your resupply person to get a few batches of the food and refrigerate or freeze them until right before sending them off to you. It may prevent the heartache associated with opening some rotten food.

Thru-hiking food can get boring, which is fine for some people, but unacceptable to a foodie like me. To keep costs down, most thru-hiker dinners are based on five boring simple food groups: instant mashed potatoes, ramen, noodles, beans, and rice. To make every meal a little different, I carry a variety of spices and hot sauces, as well as freeze dried and dehydrated vegetables. I try to bring cheese—especially nice cheese—to make any of those staples a little tastier. Olive or coconut oil or butter makes everything taste better. Bacon bits or store-bought fried onions and garlic turn your meal gourmet.

This isn’t exactly a food rule, but it’s important to think about as we move on to talking about resupplying. Food isn’t the only thing you’ll consume/use up as you hike, and it isn’t the only thing you’ll need to think about resupplying. Here’s a list of common non-food consumable resupply items to consider:

• Any extra gear you may need for the next section, including shoes, socks, a bear canister, an ice axe, crampons, water treatment drops/pills, etc.

Now that you know some of the basic principles of how to decide what goes in a resupply, it’s time to think about the specifics of how you’ll get those things on your particular hike. You have a few options when it comes to picking up more food and supplies: mail drops, grocery/convenience stores, a hybrid or combo of those, or friends and family. Each hiker has a preference, so you’ll need to figure out what’s best for you. We’ll go over the pros and cons of each option to help you choose, then explain how to do each type.

Remember, don’t forget to think about how you will get into town, which could impact your itinerary and your resupply. If you must hitchhike into town to resupply, you will have a better chance of getting a safe ride before dark. If your itinerary shows you will reach that road after dark, it’s best to camp at least a mile from the road and try in the morning. Or choose a resupply where you can walk into town (or call a shuttle) and that will still be open later at night (i.e., not the post office).

This is where you prepare your food and other supplies ahead of time and mail them to yourself at various points along the hike. There are pros and cons to this strategy.

• Often a place that accepts mail drops is located right on the trail, which helps avoid hitchhiking and saves you time by not having to go into town or spend time shopping in town

• You pay for your food and shipping ahead of time so can budget your trip better

• Requires a friend or family member to send the packages and be responsible enough to send them on time

• Shipping costs can be pricey (expect at least $200 in postage costs alone for a 2,000+ mile hike)

• You often get tired of the food you send yourself, or food that sounded great before you started is awful on the trail (remember Dean’s pemmican)

• Food must be nonperishable (e.g., you can’t send yourself fresh fruit or veggies or cheese)

Along with the post office (PO), you can also send your mail drop resupplies to hostels, hotels, trail angels, or businesses. The advantage of sending to a non-PO location is that those businesses tend to be open longer hours (and on the weekend), unlike many POs. On the other hand, any packages you send Priority that you don’t pick up from a PO can be sent back home for free (say if you were to decide not to go into that town or to quit the trail). Packages delivered to a business may not be returned at all. Packages sent to a PO using Priority Mail can be bounced to another PO for free. Packages sent to businesses cannot be bounced for free. Call or email any non-PO mail drop point before you leave for your hike to ensure that they accept packages, and if so, how they would like you to label the box. Sometimes, businesses charge a nominal fee to hold your package.

With this method you buy your food and other needed supplies at stores along the way as you hike. Like mail drops, there are also pros and cons to this strategy.

• More flexibility to get the food you’ve been dreaming of (assuming the store has it)

• Depending on the store, choices might be limited, which can be especially difficult for those with dietary restrictions or vegetarians/vegans. The “usual” choices can become tiring.

• Individual items are more expensive that what you could buy in bulk or at a store at home

• Can be overwhelming to make food decisions while hiking; easy to end up with too much of one item or a non-balanced diet

• May require hitching into town or hitching from your hotel in town to the grocery store

• More difficult to budget how much you’ll spend on food because it is an as-you-go expense. You may run out of money at the end of your trip and have to quit because you can’t buy food. In comparison, someone who has sent themselves boxes has paid the cost upfront.

This method uses a mix of mail drops and local shopping. It works well for those who like the convenience of mail drops, but don’t have a lot of time to prepare mail drops before starting the trail. It also works well for those who are hiking internationally.

My good friend Brian “Buck-30” Tanzman sometimes works 80-hour weeks during the winter and spring. When summer comes around, he likes to spend all his time on the trail. For that reason, Buck-30 prefers to save putting together mail drops until he has hiked a bit. He uses the hybrid method to maximize his non-hiking/not-working time; he can take care of logistics while giving his body a rest day from hiking.

If you are hiking abroad (or if you are a hiker visiting from another country), you will find that shipping food and gear to yourself from another country is prohibitively expensive. For this reason, international hikers find that the hybrid or buy as you go methods are best.

Many international hikers will bring extra gear or special items with them on the plane, and then create a bounce box (more on this later). The bounce box serves as a wandering garage that allows you to keep a few expensive or harder-to-find items relatively accessible without requiring you to carry them the whole way. For example, my German friend Buttercup hiked the CDT in 2016 and used a bounce box to mail his cold weather gear, special foot-care items, and extra camera equipment from trail town to trail town. He would use the items in town, take what he needed for the trail, and then mail the box ahead. I used a similar strategy in 2016 when I hiked the Great Divide Trail in Canada.

I shop at grocery stores in towns that I know have good supermarkets with wide selections. In towns where the grocery stores are not great or are very expensive, I send mail drop boxes instead.

When I reach a big town with a supermarket, I take a zero day (a rest day) and plan, purchase, pack, and ship mail drops for towns I will hit in two or more weeks. When I reach the next big town with a supermarket, I repeat those steps.

I start with mail drops that I packed at home and use them until I get tired of them. Then I call my resupply person, tell him to stop sending my boxes, and switch to grocery store resupply. This strategy is usually not something I plan in advance but becomes an inevitability when I tire of my boxes.

This method works best for shorter trails where a friend or family member would only need to intercept you once or twice on your hike. It’s best suited for hikes like the JMT, where the trail is very far from trailheads and to get off the trail into a town would require a two-day detour. My family came to visit me on the PCT and brought a resupply with them—but that was only once on the whole trail. I had to figure out other resupplies for all the other towns.

• Difficult to get a loved one to meet you at every resupply point over a long hike

There are steps and tricks for planning the various kinds of resupply. By definition, a general delivery is a means by which you can pick up a package addressed to you at a post office by presenting a government-issued ID. In this scenario, you or a family member ships you a package to pick up at a trailside post office. Most POs will hold your box for two weeks; some will hold it for longer. Remember to be nice to your postmaster, as he or she controls whether you get your package. Address your box like this:

You can also send boxes to yourself at some businesses or trail angels’ houses along the trail. Always call or write to ask a business before you send them a package. Most trail angels or businesses have specific requirements for how they would like mail drops addressed or packaged. Please follow their requests. Some businesses charge a small fee to hold your box. This level of detailed information will be available in your trail’s specific guidebook. In general, when mailing yourself a box to a business or trail angel, it is best to address your box like this:

This method works great if you think you may get into town after a post office closes, on a weekend, or on a federal holiday when the PO isn’t open. Remember that if you send a box to a business, like a hotel or restaurant, you are committing to patronize the business. It’s just plain rude to use a business to hold your package and then patronize a competitor. If you aren’t sure whether you will have enough money to patronize this business, send your box to the PO.

If you assemble your boxes before you leave for the trail, you will need a person back home to ship them to your resupply points. Because the post office and some businesses generally will not hold a box longer than two weeks, that person needs to send you boxes about a week before you arrive. Figure out who this person is before you even start prepping your boxes.

Be sure you set aside at least 3 hours to explain the entire process to your friend—including how much room these boxes may take up at his or her house!

Make sure your friend knows all the work that being a resupply person will entail, including ensuring your packages get sent out on time.

It’s best to choose a friend who won’t be on vacation when you need his or her help. But if your friend is leaving town for a while and can’t get a package out, be sure to come up with an alternate plan before you go.

Once you know you’ve got someone able and willing to send you your mail drops, it’s time to start putting them together. Unlike shipping your sibling a birthday present, hiking mail drop boxes need to be labeled specifically and sometimes have very specific shipping requirements. As a result, experienced thru-hikers sometimes feel like they know postal service regulations even better than postal employees. I have always found postal employees to be very helpful, but here are a few tips to make sure your box has what you need and to ensure that it reaches its destination in one piece.

If you are shipping your box via USPS Priority, you can pick up free boxes at the post office. I like the large flat-rate option. You can also have them shipped to your house for free by going to the USPS website and ordering free priority flat-rate boxes available in their store under “Free Shipping Supplies.” Boxes of all sizes and shapes are available, but for most of my thru-hikes, I use both kinds of medium flat-rate boxes or, if I need to send a lot of food or shoes to myself, the large flat-rate box.

I am a very big fan of the post office and have used it extensively over my twenty thru-hikes. I’ve always thought I would be their ultimate athlete to sponsor—but they haven’t gotten back to me yet. I could write a whole book just on how to send food and supplies via the post office, but here are a few tips in choosing which boxes to use:

Flat-rate boxes must always be shipped Priority, but this provides speedier service, tracking, and $50 insurance should it get lost. If I am hiking a trail relatively close to where I live, the regional flat-rate boxes (only available online, but are free) can sometimes save some money. If the trail is very close to where I live, shipping my box first class tends to be the least expensive option. If I choose to ship first class or parcel post (the very slowest and sometimes the cheapest way to ship), I cannot use the flat-rate boxes. Instead, I use empty boxes and cross out names and logos that previously were associated with the boxes’ contents. First class and parcel post boxes do not come with free bouncing if I don’t pick up my box at its labeled destination. (I learned this the hard way when a friend sent me a package, I bounced them to another post office, and then had to pay shipping for stale cookies.)

Create an address label for each box. The addresses for your trail towns can be found in your trail-specific guidebooks. Sometimes, rural locations do not receive door-to-door postal service delivery, but UPS or FedEx will work. Take note and label any boxes that need to be sent UPS or FedEx (as opposed to USPS).

Write the number of days’ worth of food and resupplies are in each box. You should be able to determine this from the itinerary you put together (see chapter 4).

I usually aim for 2 pounds of food per day between resupplies. At the beginning of the hike, I eat less per day. Toward the end of the hike, I may eat more like 3 pounds per day. Your average food per day differs depending on your body size to begin with and metabolic rate, but I’ve found regardless of what that magic number is, it’s easier to think of your resupplies in terms of pounds per day than calories per day (assuming that in your 2-pound resupply, each ounce of food generally contains 100 calories). Make sure you have enough dinners and breakfasts for each day. Most thru-hikers enjoy eating snacks for their lunch, grazing on food every few hours instead of taking a big lunch break.

Days before your resupply x pounds of food you’ll eat per day = pounds of food to carry on the next leg of your trip

If you are putting together mail drop boxes at home, buy the food you need for your trip in bulk at stores like Costco or on the Internet. Don’t forget that you will likely get tired of foods that you buy in bulk, so show some restraint. Remember the food matrix (see “Eleven Food Rules for Thru-Hikers” in this chapter)—get a good variety of flavors and textures.

Now comes the best part: putting it all together. Start by making your boxes distinctive. You want them to stand out on overly full shelves. One option: spraypainting the boxes a bright color. (Note: In a few very rare instances postal workers will have a problem with boxes that are decorated or made to look distinctive. Check with the postmaster of the local PO before going to town on the ornamentation.) Next, repackage anything that came in bulk or was prepackaged to fit into smaller Ziploc bags. Then figure out what goes in each box.

Let’s use my own real-life PCT example of packing a resupply box that I will get at White Pass, Washington, and that will hold me over until Snoqualmie Pass, about 100 miles later. This resupply needs to last me four days. That means that at 2 pounds of food per day, I need 8 pounds of food. First, throw your box on the scale and hit the zero or tare button. This allows you to calibrate your scale so it doesn’t include the weight of your box in the weight it shows on the dial. This allows you to get an accurate weight of the food you have without letting the weight of the box throw off the calculation. Next, toss in four breakfasts, four lunches, and three dinners (I’m planning to eat my dinner on the fourth night at the Aardvark Express restaurant). Add some drink mixes. Check how close the box is to 8 pounds. Add in some more snacks if it’s low or take some snacks out if it’s too high. Sometimes, if I know the section will be particularly cold or difficult, I add a little extra food to the 8 pounds that I’m “supposed” to be eating. Also, toward the end of a thru-hike, I like to have a little extra food because my metabolism gets faster.

Once your food is in the box, add in non-edible items. I like to send myself new shoes every 400 miles. I like getting a new pair of socks in every other box, too. I also add in sunscreen, hand sanitizer, OTC meds, and anything else I need to maintain hygiene. Note that the post office requires you to double-bag any liquids or things that could leak (e.g., olive oil, shampoo, or wet wipes).

I also send myself stuff to use in town, like razors, good shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. If the town I’m sending my food to doesn’t have a restaurant, I send myself some heavier food to eat—ready-to-eat entrees (I like Tasty Bites or Fish People food packets), sardines, or shelf-stable tofu. I always pack extra ziplock bags to carry trash and protect electronics, or to sort out my daily snacks. Don’t forget to add maps for your upcoming section to each box. You can add some types of fuel to your boxes—but it must be declared to the postal person and sent ground shipping, which is a lot slower. I normally don’t bother and instead buy my fuel locally.

I also leave my resupply person with gear that I may want added to my boxes when the weather changes. Family members or friends may not always be knowledgeable about what gear you need. To make it easy for them, I gather all my extra gear that I may want on the trail and put the items in labeled and numbered Ziploc bags that reference their color. That way, when I call up my resupply person from the trail asking for “the blue Montbell wind shirt,” I won’t get the “blue Montbell wool shirt” instead.

When I’m done, I prepare a spreadsheet itinerary for my resupply person. This itinerary includes all the locations I need boxes sent to, the addresses, phone numbers, and my ETA. Then, I’ll take that ETA and pick a date two weeks before, and ask my resupply person to send my boxes by that date. Trail towns are often in remote areas, so be sure to leave plenty of time for your box to get to your destination—especially if there are holidays like Memorial Day or Columbus Day in between. Update whoever is mailing your boxes if you are ahead of or behind schedule. Leave your itinerary with your friend in both paper and electronic versions. Carry your itinerary with you on your trip—both paper and electronic versions. That way, you both will not lose your shipping plans.

When I’m done, I don’t seal up my boxes. That way, if I decide that I am tired of a certain food item, my resupply person can take it out and replace it with something good. Be sure to include the cost of shipping your resupplies into your budget, and be prepared to hand that cash over to your resupply person before you leave. Resupplying is a big and very time-intensive job. You may want to look into the USPS’s online shipping option like Click N Ship. This can make shipping a little easier for your resupply person, take them less time, and will be less expensive.

Call your resupply person regularly to let him or her know if you are running ahead of or behind schedule. That way, he or she can adjust when to ship boxes accordingly. Also, if you decide to quit the trail, let your resupply person know as soon as possible to avoid wasting money sending out unneeded boxes.

Thank your friend many times. Send your friend postcards. Take your friend out to dinner before you leave and after (if you have any money left). Being a resupply person is a huge task, and you should be enormously grateful that someone likes you enough to do it.

If you pick up your mail drop box and realize you have things in it that you can’t or won’t use, you have a few options. You can mail things back home (expensive) or bounce them ahead to yourself (more on that soon). Or you can leave your items in a “hiker box,” something many trail-town post offices, trail angels, and businesses have. A hiker box is a place to leave unwanted items for other hikers to use—and a place to take needed items that other hikers have left behind.

For most first-time thru-hikers, I recommend that they not use the mail drop method for all their resupplies. Most people learn a lot about themselves, how much they eat, and what they like to eat on the trail while they are hiking. The mail drop–only method works best for those who have a thru-hike or extended backpacking trip under their belt already and know their on-trail eating habits better. Furthermore, it is very easy for first time thru-hikers to obsess about food and let other pre-hiking preparation go on the back burner. I feel that your time is best spent doing other planning, as the food can be done locally (for the most part) once you are on the trail. Statistically, first-time thru-hikers are the most likely to quit. So if you quit the trail, you don’t want extra junk food around. I know from experience—12 Costco-size bags of Fritos are hard to get rid of. A better option for first-time thru-hikers is to choose the other end of the resupply spectrum—buying all their food locally at a grocery or convenience store.

First, during a grocery store resupply, make the best of the full store at your disposal. This means grabbing a few fresh foods that you could never get using the mail drop strategy. Think cheese, fresh garlic, or even broccoli. A good rule of thumb (for long trail preparation—and for life!) is not to shop while hungry. Eat first. I will usually enter a store and grab a few fresh foods to eat, leave the store, and eat until I am full. Then I’ll return to do my resupply.

Don’t buy too much food. You can use the produce section’s scale to weigh your resupply. Remember to get a variety. Because grocery store food is sold in big packages, it’s easy to buy too much of a single item. For example, two blocks of cheese could easily be half your needed food weight for the next section. Instead, actively remind yourself of the food flavor matrix (see “Eleven Food Rules for Thru-Hikers” in this chapter).

Obviously a nice grocery store or supermarket is ideal for on-the-go resupplies, but you can actually get away with shopping at a gas station. A gas station certainly doesn’t have the selection of backpacking foods you’d find at a natural food co-op or even a grocery store or supermarket, but every year thousands of thru-hikers manage to resupply out of convenience stores.

Look for foods with high calories per ounce. Include enough dinners and breakfast choices for all the days you are out—and pick foods you can easily cook on your camp stove. Don’t forget—one of the huge benefits of resupplying locally is getting some semi-fresh food. I like to grab cheese, prepackaged hardboiled eggs, lunch meats—even pizza. These “real foods” might be a bit heavier than other backpacking foods, but will feel like a huge luxury and treat once you’re 10 miles away from town.

Decide on a set number of snack choices per day. And don’t buy all the same thing, like cookies or cheese. Balance your snack choices between crunchy, chewy, sweet, and salty. Don’t forget electrolytes and drink mixes.

As you load up your shopping basket, keep track of the total number of pounds of food you’ve collected versus what you estimate you’ll need to fuel your body through the next section. If the store has a produce section, use a scale to check yourself. Otherwise, use the package weights and take notes to keep track. This matters—it’s easy to buy way too much. Once you’re done with getting all your food, grab some non-food consumables, like sunscreen, hand sanitizer, bug spray, and toilet paper.

Finally—and I’ve learned this one the hard way—when you leave town, don’t forget to top off your water bottles or buy a bottled drink in town to take into the woods with you.

Whether you use mail drops, local resupplies, or something in between, consider using a bounce box for at least some of the towns you visit. A bounce box is a box that contains many useful items that aren’t found in all trail towns. One box or bucket is used over the course of the entire trail and “bounced” (forwarded) ahead—hence the name. This box or bucket is not sent to every resupply town, only to selected resupply towns. When you get your box, take out the items you need right away, and send the rest ahead.

If you get a bounce box in town and decide you don’t need anything, as long as the box isn’t opened and hasn’t left the post office counter, the box can be bounced ahead for free to another PO. To qualify for free bouncing the box must have been shipped Priority Mail in the first place.

Consider adding town clothes in a bounce box. This is a chance to include the comfy shoes and cotton you’ll be craving. And you’ll have something to wear while you do laundry. Or consider including gear you need to add along the way or replace, like gloves, socks, gaiters, or a bandana. You may also want to keep cold weather gear in here, like microspikes, an ice axe, and cold weather clothes (we’ll talk more about gear in chapter 6).

Sometimes you may want to include replacement gear, like tent stakes, a new spoon, extra buckles or shoelaces, a sewing kit, or even supplies for cleaning up in town, such as shampoo, conditioner, razors, deodorant, and nail clippers. Or include consumables—toilet paper, hand sanitizer, first-aid supplies, Gold Bond powder, bug spray, toothpaste—that are often sold in containers that are too big to carry, but that you can bounce from place to place, topping off smaller containers. Extras of items, like Ziploc bags, are helpful for protecting electronics and maps, or for dealing with trash.

A cheap netbook, laptop, or tablet will let you take care of any computer work you need to do, even if the trail town does not have a library whose computers you can use. Don’t forget headphones or chargers, extra SD cards, and any specialized camera equipment that you may want for certain scenic sections and not for others.

+ ESUPPLIES