[at-l] Fwd: pt 2: A question of money: estimation of throughhike costs

[Raphael Bustin]

At 12:26 PM 9/20/2006 -0400, Art Cloutman wrote:

>WOW,  does anyone do 18 days between mail drops/resupply/towns?  I
>tried to get maildrops as often as possible.  Sometimes after 2 or 3
>days.  I had drops mailed to hostels, outfitters, campgrounds, like
>Neel's Gap, Rainbow Springs Campground, Elmer's,  I rarely used a
>post office.  I made a maildrop to a hardware store in Stratton
>Maine.  Miss Janet accepted a maildrop for me.  Believed it our not I
>had 42 mail drops.  It is probably some kind of record.  I carried at
>most 6 days worth of food.  I had a maildrop in 100 mile wilderness
>at Whitehouse Landing but almost ran out of food before then when
>foul weather slowed the hiking down by a couple of days.  But, just
>as I ran out of food I found trail magic in the form of "Knuckles"
>waiting for her hiking partner on a logging road and she had several
>days worth of extra food that she gave me including mac and cheese,
>tuna fish, hot chocolate  and a lot more goodies.


My own experience, and the overall trend (it seems to me)
is to use mail drops less and less, or not at all.

In my last few section hikes they've been more trouble than
they were worth, and in this last section I didn't bother at all.

The guides that throos carry have detailed info on what's
available along the trail, and it's rare that you'll walk more
than three or four days between reasonably-accessible
re-supply points.

In fact, my "major" mistake on this last hike and in general
has been to carry far more food than I needed to, under the
circumstances.  I felt foolish arriving in Unionville (for example)
after four days of hiking, and not really *needing* anything
at the grocery there.  That meant that I'd been carrying at
least 3 lbs. more food than necessary.

The guides say you want about 2 lbs of food per day, but
I found that to be too much.  I was eating about half of that,
and still feeling fine.  Particularly if you take advantage of
town food as you can (say, every 3-4 days.)  I was able
to do that several times on this last section, without ever
losing more than a few hours of hiking (per stop.)

Much more serious (IMO) is the availability of water and
various strategies for keeping hydrated, especially late in
the season in states like PA.  Fortunately, this was another
place where Trail Angels helped out a lot, and it was not
uncommon to see several gallon-jugs of water at the trail head.


rafe b
aka terrapin