[at-l] Drift boxes (was Roni's Ultralight Philosophy, etc.)

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Roni wrote:
This is the reason I'm not happy of maildrops - I will
have to send them myself before the hike and before I
find out what my average preferd distance between
resuply point's is.(I'll have to send myself the mail
drops before the hike because I currently live in
Israel and although I have relatives in the states
asking them to become my "supply base" by sending me
the mail while hiking seems to me too much). By using
prehike maildrops I will be forcing myself to stop at
town's when I might rather just walk on. Doing this a
couple of times seems to me not too bad but doing this
more often (on my northbound section) seems to me just
too big a limitation.

Roni - there is a compromise.  You don't have to do all food maildrops or 
none.  You can just do a bounce/bump/drift box but buy most or all of your 
food in towns along the trail.  A drift box is a maildrop that contains 
certain basic supplies that are either difficult to get on the trail, or 
that you buy in large quantities but only need small amounts of etc.  For 
example - batteries, dried milk, soap, MAPS, etc. are kept in a box that is 
bounced/bumped from town to town up the trail. You can bring or buy the 
basics when you arrive and ship it from your starting point to a town 100 or 
so miles up the trail. That's about a week. Do it longer distances if you 
really don't want to be tied down to the PO schedule.  Then, if a friend 
sends you three lbs of jelly beans, you put two pounds in the box and pick 
the rest up later. If you run across a great deal on Liptons at the store in 
Kent, you ship a few on ahead to the next time you pick up your box.  Since 
the box doesn't go great distances, it doesn't cost much to ship and will 
usually get there in 3 or 4 days.  No one else has to be responsible for 
your boxes, you just mail the one box to start and then pick up what you 
need out of it and forward it to the next town on your list. If you arrive 
in town on a Sunday, and don't want to wait, you put in a change of address 
card at the Post Office and they'll forward it to your next choice, 3 or 4 
days up the trail.  (Just be sure to mail the box first class.)

It may not seem like it now, but you will want to stop in town about once a 
week -- to eat if nothing else.  On the AT there are so many towns that are 
close to the trail, that you don't even have to detour far.  And you'll be 
amazed at how very hungry you get from hiking all day every day.  Calories 
and fresh food will call you into town. As you read other people's 
schedules, it becomes obvious which towns are most often used, either 
because of hiker-friendly services or proximity.  Up in New England the 
towns are farther off trail and farther between, but they are worth the 
extra effort to hitch there - like Manchester Center, Andover, Stratton, 
etc. On my first thruhike I used 14 mail drops, since I assumed that I would 
only stop at towns that were actually on the trail. (I had some very heavy 
loads, with 14 days of supplies in them.  But then, I didn't have an email 
list to teach me about going light before I left, I learned the hard way.) 
My second thruhike I took off with only three weeks notice and did maildrops 
only in the far south (Neels Gap and Fontana) plus a few that I made on the 
trail - i.e. I bought food in Kent and shipped it to Glencliff, New 
Hampshire and bought some food in Andover that I shipped to Monson, as it 
used to have a pretty poor store.  My maps and guidebooks were in a bounce 
box, along with film and a few other items.  (I too love maps and guidebooks 
and wouldn't go hiking without them.  I like to know the names of mountains 
and where the side trails lead and why an area is unique, etc.)  One thing 
Jim taught me that has proved helpful, we keep a copy of a Campmor (outdoor 
gear) catalog in the bounce box, so if we need new 
boots/socks/raingear/water filter elements, etc. we have the phone number 
and item number at hand.


Actually, you probably need to work out some sort of compromise because not 
all Post Offices will hold mail for 5 or 6 months.  Some of them will hold 
hiker packages until the end of the year (probably until the Christmas 
rush), but we've run into some that will only hold mail for 30 days (and 
sometimes less than that).  It's been a few years since we thruhiked the AT 
so maybe someone else on the list can give you updated information about 
Post Office practices.

Ginny

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