[pct-l] Trail magic on this list

[Paul Mitchell]

Ø  The thing is, I don't know if the costs of such a service could be made
cheap enough.... cheaper than, say, buying your food along the trail.
Perhaps if the service was non-profit.  I don't know.

Good questions.  It’s a big task, getting all the ingredients together for a
half year’s worth of meals and snacks and sorting them out.

Our food needs on the trail are complicated by my partner Maggie’s allergy
to gluten.  That means no pasta (lipton, KD, ramen, whatever) no wheat
products (crackers, cereals, flour tortillas, etc).  We have lots of great
alternative options, but I know they’re not available along the way.

Being in Canada adds a HUGE cost, not just in sending out the finished
resupply boxes, but also in ordering the bulk products to begin with.
Almost all suppliers offer free shipping on large orders in the US, but to
ship to Canada adds hefty shipping costs plus duty, brokerage fees and tax
over the border.  All in all I think the costs of shipping up bulk and then
shipping back down resupply boxes would be at the very least $1000 more than
doing it all in the states.  

So at this point we’re actually looking for someone not only to hold our
boxes and ship them out over the summer, but first to hold the original bulk
shipments and put us up for a couple days in early April so we can sort out
the boxes.  It feels like a pretty big favor to burden someone with, even by
PCT community standards, but it’s also a huge cost savings.  Either that or
we’ll have the bulk supplies shipped to a post office in San Diego and sort
them into resupply boxes at a hotel.

Anyhow, it may not be a common challenge for foreigners considering resupply
on the trail really isn’t a problem unless you have special dietary needs or
don’t want to compromise on higher quality food than what’s available along
the way.

P178