[pct-l] Resupply strategies

[Mary Kwart]

My re-supply strategies change according to the trail I'm going to do,
my financial situation and how much weight I feel like carrying. On my
1000 mile section hike of the PCT in 2010 I only prepacked at home for
the first leg of hiking. I then re-supplied totally from towns along
the way. My finances were not an issue at this time. I like supporting
local business. Then I went through a phase of trying to save money
and I prepackaged all my food at home--made granola, beef jerky and
custom inexpensive meals from the usual list of suspects--mac and
cheese, dried potatoes, spaghetti, ramen, etc etc, supplemented by
freeze dried veggies from the company "Just Tomatoes". I carried olive
oil in small plastic containers and parmesan cheese in ziploc baggies.
I did this for the Grand Enchantment Trail in 2013 because I was
unsure of food availability at re-supply towns and I wanted to save
money and got a lot of satisfaction out of making my own beef jerky
and granola.
I really got tired of the work of pre-packaging and this kind of food
is heavier and I am not a picky eater, so this summer I experimented
with using Mountain House freeze dried for dinners, resupplying lunch
and snacks along the way, but still making my own beef jerky and
granola.  it definitely was  lighter and I re-packaged the Mountain
House dinners  in freezer ziplocs, so just added boiling water to the
bag and let it sit in the pot cozy for the allotted amount of time to
cook. I don't care about repetitive meal choices, although with 7 or
eight choices for Mountain House dinner it was far from monotonous.
But this was only a 5 week trip.
Now I am going to do a combination of pre-packaging and buying along
the way for hiking the New Mexico section of the CDT this spring. I've
acquired quite a bit of backpacking type food from sales at the
grocery store and want to use that up, but I will also buy some #10
cans of Mountain House freeze dried dinners which can be on sale. I
also make about 1/3 of my meals cookless for the days I can't camp by
water or am too tired to cook. I will buy all snacks and lunch stuff
on the trail. I really want to avoid spending most of my zero days on
the trail packaging food and dinners are the most intensive packaging
work for me.
I guess the moral is--your re-supply strategy will change with time if
you do different trails, your personal tastes change or your finances
take a dive. Cheapest is doing everything for yourself ahead of time
and most expensive is buying along the way. Although you should factor
in the cost of mailing if you pre package everything at home. There is
also the hassle of having someone send your boxes to you.
--Fireweed