PCT Resupply

Resupply. It’s one of the unavoidable (and sometimes annoying) logistics that hikers are forced to deal with in order to thru-hike.

We tried to find a balance between mailing resupply boxes and buying food along the way. We determined where to send our resupply boxes using information found on Halfway Anywhere’s 2015 PCT Thru-Hiker Survey and Craig’s PCT Planner.

In the end, we mailed 10 boxes, had food brought to us at three locations, and bought food everywhere else. The table below shows all our resupply locations. Highlighted rows indicate pre-packed resupply boxes.

What would we have done differently?
We should have sent boxes to Kennedy Meadows Resort (at Sonora Pass), Burney Falls State Park and possibly Timberline Lodge. Kennedy Meadows Resort had an okay selection of food, but it was pricey. Bridgeport (to the east of Sonora Pass) has real grocery stores, but the hitchhike is significantly longer. Similarly, the town of Burney has grocery stores, but we stayed at Burney Falls State Park and were limited by the selection in the expensive general store. Timberline Lodge only has vending machines. We carried enough food out of Bend to make that work.

Other thoughts on food and resupply…
We met many “cookless” hikers. They hiked lighter and faster than us, but they were often rushing to get to the next town for a hot meal. I suspect we enjoyed our time at camp (with hot dinners and hot coffee) a lot more than they did.

We underestimated the sheer quantity of food that we’d be consuming toward the end of our trip. A lot of the dinners in our resupply boxes were too small. We supplemented them with food we pulled out of the hiker barrels. Hiker barrels always seemed to have bags of pasta, minute rice, or mystery grains.

We added olive oil packets to everything. Delicious and extra calories.

Surprisingly, we never ate ramen or mashed potatoes. These two items are staples for other hikers. They are often combined into some kind of casserole.

A lot of our dinners were some combination of either rice, pasta or couscous, mixed with freeze dried vegetables, tuna packets, and sometimes jerky or diced Epic Bars. We also occasionally made chili, pad thai with eggs, or “fried” rice.

Tortillas are a staple. We liked them best with Bonne Maman jam packets and peanut butter. Actually, even better was HUMMUS!. Hummus was heavy, but it was a nice treat.

Mountain House meals are tasty, but they are bulky, expensive, and generally needed to be supplemented with other foods to be filling enough. Lasagne, Chili Mac, and Mexican Rice with Chicken were our favorites. Typically, 1 pouch is a meal for one person, even though it may claim to be 2-3 servings.

We found that the “microwavable” pastas and rice all cooked much faster than the traditional versions. This shorted our cook time and saved fuel.

For dessert we often had chocolate bars. A couple times we splurged and had freeze dried cheesecake, or instant pudding.

Our Favorite Foods
Here are a few items that we ate often and did not get sick of during our 5 months on the trail.
– Rice-a-roni – Microwavable cups, repackaged into ziplock bags.
– Mac and Cheese – Typically microwavable Annie’s or Pasta-Roni
– Tuna packets – Eaten with tortillas or added to dinners.
– Epic Bars – Added these to all kinds of dinners.
– Freeze dried vegetables – Peas, mixed veggies, tomatoes… all were good!
– Milk and granola – Ate this for breakfast almost every day.