[pct-l] Food

[spiritbear2k at hotmail.com (Ginny & Jim Owen)]

On my first hike I did a lot of maildrops and I would include one or two 
freeze dried meals in each.  (After that I relied much less on maildrops and 
now mostly buy as I go or buy in a big town and mail to a camp/resort.)  
What I found was 1) the flavors got old really fast.  The only ones I liked 
after the first month were the spaghetti and lasagna flavors.  2) They are 
expensive - even on sale, you will spend $6 or more dollars each.  3) They 
aren't very filling.  I knew hikers on the AT who ate two for dinner and 
were still hungry.  I can't imagine spending $12/day just for dinner, and 
still wanting more.  Given that you can buy Liptons for $0.66 - $1.25 each, 
and supplement with ramen (10 for $1.00 or plain pasta at $1.00/lb) over the 
long haul that makes a big difference in the cost of your thruhike.  For a 
weekend, the freeze dried are fine, since you aren't all that hungry and it 
can be fun to try something different.  But when you are out for 150 nights 
and starving, you want more bulk for less money.  I knew a lot of hikers who 
were eating only freeze dried who ended up either trading with other hikers 
or leaving their rejects behind in hiker boxes and buying pasta at the 
stores.  (One hiker thought that he would like the chicken barbeque flavor - 
turned out he hated it after the second try.  Didn't taste at all like Mom 
used to make ;-)
Ginny

PS Don't worry about what other hikers think - chances are you will be 
camping alone most of the time, so the only person you have to please is 
yourself.