[pct-l] Gluten free resupply

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

On Jan 5, 2010, at 5:24 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

>  we're still feeling a little unsure about the decision as it's
> going to be a fair bit of work, we're concerned about freshness of  
> all the
> ingredients in our boxes

The hike is really just a series of 3-6 day backpack trips strung  
together, right? Iin addition to these small segments, consider that  
it's also comprised of several larger segments. You could see it like  
the Data Book does as 5 segments, the So Cal, Central Cal, Nor Cal,  
Oregon and Washington sections. Or you could divide it into sections  
that make better sense to you.

For those larger segments, send your food _in its original packaging_  
to the biggest town at the start of that section. Retrieve it and  
take a zero day to assemble the individual resupply boxes for the  
smaller segments in that section. Then mail from there.

Here's how it might work. Send out all of So Cal from home and send a  
large box to maybe Tehachapi or somewhere with a good post office.  
You take a day off in Tehachapi to package up the stuff into smaller  
packages and mail them to your resupply locations between Tehachapi  
and, say, Chester.

In Chester you have a big box waiting for you that you shipped from  
home. You take that stuff and repackage it to send to places all the  
way to Oregon. In Ashland you pick up another big box and do the  
same. In Washington you do the same.

Now that you have 4 larger mid-trail resupply locations, consider  
that in Tehachapi you'll have really large grocery stores at your  
disposal. They had as many gourmet options at the grocery store as  
they do in upscale Santa Barbara where I live, but not so many of the  
specialty healthfood store stuff that you might require. So don't  
ship anything to Tehachapi that you might be able to buy at your  
nicest regualar grocery store. Ship only necessities you might not be  
able to find.

Chester has a very large grocery store, but not as well-stocked as  
the nicest regular grocery store, but pretty close. No specialty  
healthfood stuff but plenty of regular and some gourmet stuff.

Ashland has a super crunchy-granola food co-op. If you have special  
healthfood dietary needs, you can probably find stuff there. They  
also have regular grocery stores. I'd still send a big box if you  
have hard-to-find items you can't live without.

Cascade Locks has a grocery store like you'd find in the low income  
part of town. Still, don't ship anything to Cascade Locks that you  
might be able to find in a low income grocery store.

I did it this way myself, but what I did was send a big box of  
specialty stuff to my mom's house in Chester, the half-way point.  
That way it didn't matter how long it took me to get there. After  
Chester, I sort of bounced my specialty stuff up the trail in smaller  
and smaller boxes as it got used up. Since you don't have a mom in  
Chester, you might try finding somewhere else you could do that or  
see if there's anyone at home who could send your later big packages  
for you.

Hope that helps.
Diane