A.T. FOOD IDEAS & RESUPPLY STRATEGY || Post-Trail Series

my name is Liz but they called me handstand on the Appalachian Trail with absolutely zero backpacking experience I traveled down to Georgia to begin my 2190 mile hike up to me I spent 161 days walking hiking and climbing through snow rain Maurine and occasionally some sunshine while on the trail I turned 30 years old had a belt with Lyme disease and even got married it was the experience of a lifetime now that I've survived my through hike I'm super excited to share everything that I've learned with you while on the trail food is one of the things we end up thinking about the most or at least I do how we're hungry the food that we're craving if we have enough food to last until we get into town how much food we're gonna have to buy when we get into town everyone approaches food and resupplying differently on the trail just depends on what you enjoy and what works for you after completing my own through hike this year here is my best advice for you on food first of all how much food should we be carrying they say whoever they is that we should be carrying about two pounds of food per day although I wasn't really weighing my food on the trail I would say that's probably pretty accurate but of course it's gonna vary from person to person either way no one is weighing their food so I wouldn't get hung up on that little detail as far as calories per day go I did look into that a lot before my hike and that's another thing that's gonna vary from person to person a very large male is probably gonna need a lot more calories than a smaller female but I would say on average like three to five thousand calories per day is probably pretty accurate I was probably eating about 3,000 to 3,500 calories per day but again most people aren't setting their calorie counting you're just gonna go down with your best educated guess and then you're gonna figure it out along the way and really fine-tune how much food you're gonna need how much food are you gonna need at a time usually I would say I was resupplying every three to five days seven days would be at the absolute most on the Appalachian Trail and there were places that we could resupply every one or two days if we wanted but I would say three to five is like the average amount of food that you would need to carry so at two pounds per day you're looking at maybe ten pounds what are you gonna put ten pounds of food in your food bag so this is the Z packs food bag bear bag kit it's a 14 liter bag so that fit everything fine at 6 days of food I'd say it's a little bit of a tight fit but it's doable I ate well on the trail now before you go on your hike and figure out what your resupply strategy looks like you're gonna have to decide a few things are you going to want to stop in towns along the way and resupply along the trail or you're gonna want to set up all of your food in advance and have someone mail them to you or you can do sort of a combination of both which is what I did there's definitely pros and cons to each of these scenarios so first let's talk about resupplying along the trail in town there's going to be quite a variety of places that you can do this so in some towns along the trail there's large grocery stores or Walmart was definitely the holy grail of resupplying but some of these tiny little towns along the trail don't even have a grocery store nearby you're on foot you can't really drive obviously so you're limited to resupplying maybe a convenience store or gas station it usually wasn't an issue though most of these gas stations even that are around the trail cater to hikers so they're gonna supply a lot of the basic foods that we eat the benefits to resupplying along the trail one of them is that you're going to crave random things and you're gonna really nail down like the type of food that you like to eat the amount of food that you like to eat so you can adjust for that as you go if you're shopping along the trail if you've already set up resupply boxes for yourself you're kind of stuck eating that food that you plan for in advance a downside to Rees planning on the trail is sometimes the lack of variety so not only may not have a lot of options at these little stores but sometimes you have to buy a box of ten of the exact same granola bars so now you're stuck eating 10 of the same granola bar for the next three days whereas when you set up your resupply boxes for yourself in advance you can include a lot more variety if you're sending yourself mail drops then you're kind of restricted to going to these towns that you've already planned on advance or sticking to a certain schedule so to give me an example I didn't really plan my hike I didn't resupply myself the whole way I just did a few here and there but all the boxes I had set up for myself were five-day resupplies because I didn't know what town I was even going to get this box and never mind the style I was gonna stop after that and how much food I would need in between so I figured five-day resupplies will go for it well a lot of these towns that I end up getting these boxes I might have only had three days until the next town that I was going to so now I'm either stuck carrying two extra days of food which is kind of a lot of weight but while you're on the trailer you just don't want to carry or I would have to throw away a lot of food so there was a lot of waste so when you set up these mail drops and advance you either have to plan your whole trip to at ease so you know exactly how much food you need in each mail drop or you're just gonna set up a basic mail drop and either be carrying extra food or not have enough food and have to supplement that by going to the grocery store anyways you may even in towns like run out of things like toothpaste or other things that aren't in your mail drops so even though you're getting a mail drop you might have to go to the store to buy stuff anyways so now it's kind of double the project or something where you have to make two stops another downside to mail drops in general is just the logistics of it so a lot of people have their mail drops sent to like a post office and I don't know how many times I saw people along the trail having to book it to town to get there before the post office closed otherwise if you get there Friday night and the post office is already closed you might have to wait until Monday to get your box so it's kind of defeating the purpose in general if you have to hang out in town for three more days aside from post offices you can have your packages sent to hostels which is a little bit easier because usually the hours are more flexible to get your package however if you're not staying there sometimes there's a fee that goes along with it so that's another thing the mail drops end up I think almost evening out cost wise a lot of people think that the mail drops are gonna save them money because if you can buy stuff in bulk in advance it's less expensive than buying like single items when you need them but when you factor in like the cost of postage to mail yourself these packages and then fees for picking them up I think it kind of evens out one benefit to mail drops is if you have any dietary restrictions you're gonna probably want to do mail drops if you're vegan or gluten-free or whatever other restrictions that are are out there a lot of these towns like I said only have like gas stations or something to resupply it so you're not gonna be able to find any of those like specialty food items most of these towns down south don't have any like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or anything like that so you're restricted to kind of the basics so you're definitely gonna want to set up mail drops if you have restrictions over all your resupply strategy is totally up to you like I said there's pros and cons to both I felt that resupplying along the trail was a better choice for me it allowed me to be more flexible with my schedule I never had to go to certain towns or be there by a certain time so when you're hiking with other people sometimes it's fun to just kind of wing it and go wherever they end up going rather than having a strict schedule that you have to stick to but depending on your needs and ones you're gonna find the strategy that works best for you the next decision you're gonna have to make before the trail is whether you want to bring a stove or go stove list and I know that this is not even a question for most of you so I'm sorry I have to bring it up but I did choose to go stove less on my hike so I ate mostly cold food options and even if that isn't for you I'm sure you're only cooking like one or two meals a day and the rest of the day you're eating cold food anyway so hopefully this video is still useful to you and gives you some good cold food ideas back to stove or no stove so there's pros and cons also to each of these the reason that I chose to go stove list is basically just for simplicity it seemed like a lot of hassle and work - first of all carry fuel and have to keep up with getting fuel along the trail knowing when you're gonna run out how much you're gonna need certain towns have fuel for sale other towns don't that seems like a hassle in itself and then on the day to day cooking is a little bit time-consuming and then the cleanup is not fun in my opinion so it was just simpler for me to eat cold food I am a coffee drinker in real life but on the trail it really didn't bother me to not have coffee in the mornings it made my morning a lot simpler to just wake up eat whatever here we go those are some of the benefits of not having a stove but obviously people that have a stove love their hot meal at the end of the day I understand is a morale booster the coffee drinkers will never not carry a stove I totally get that as far as weight saving I think it kind of balances out if you're bringing a stove you've got your stove your pot your fuel etc but a lot of the food that you're carrying is a little bit lighter weight because it's all dehydrated and you're gonna add water to it later whereas a lot of the cold food options you're not carrying a stove or any of that stuff but the actual food itself isn't dehydrated usually so it might be a little bit heavier you'd have to be really conscious of choosing lighter weight food if you want to not bring a stove in order to save weight so stove Earnest of the up to you but don't forget you can always change your mind I went down with the mentality of I'm not gonna bring a stove but if I decide I need one I'll just freakin buy one and I never felt that I needed one so I didn't but you could do the same thing vice versa some people start off with a stove and then especially in the hotter months and the summer decide they don't really need it and then they send it home so not a big deal either way okay now let's run through like a typical day of food what I would eat on the Appalachian Trail firstly breakfast in the morning I would usually make one of my oatmeal concoctions so that usually consisted of about a half a cup of oatmeal a quarter cup of granola one of the breakfast essentials instant breakfast packets and then some dried fruit usually raisins and craisins or something I would set these up in advance in a ziplock bag and then in the morning I would dump the contents into my pot and then add water to it let it rehydrate for like five to ten minutes and it's good to go so I would eat that first thing in the morning and then get on the trail after a couple hours I would usually come to my first snack break so for my first snack break I would typically have some sort of a granola bar protein bar and some fruit snacks after a couple more hours I would take a lunch break so my lunch break would usually consist of one or two more bars a package of peanut butter crackers usually some sort of jerky or like beef stick with cheese and some sort of a dessert so like a KitKat bar after a couple more hours of hiking then I would stop for another snack break usually that would be one more bar a fruit roll-up and rice krispies treat once I got to camp and started setting up I might snack a little bit depending on what time I got there so I might have some trail mix or some gummi bears and typically an iced tea drink mix then for dinner I would usually do some sort of a wrap so my go-to favorite was a tortilla with a couple scoops of peanut butter drizzle some honey on it and add some more dried fruit so more raisins etc after dinner is dessert obviously so usually I would have a couple scoops of Nutella really good source of fat and calories and then maybe end the night with some more gummy bears or peanut M&Ms so there's a typical day of food for me on the Appalachian Trail like I said I think I was usually taking in about 3,000 to 3,500 calories per day I maintained my weight along the trail I didn't really lose much if you're a man especially a bigger man you may need to eat more than that in order to maintain your weight now let's go over some other food ideas because if you ate that every day you'd get pretty bored for breakfast on the trail a lot of people other than oatmeal do pop-tarts not exactly the most nutritious thing but it is a lot of calories some people do cereal bars or even actual cereal with powdered milk a lot of people are eating honey buns or donuts in the morning I've seen people pack out bagels you could put peanut butter on it or evening cream cheese if you want to pack that out I hear that some people are doing protein shakes in the morning I didn't really see that on the trail but that could be a good option for you throughout the day for lunch and snack so you've got a lot of options bars are definitely a staple so you've got kind bars Clif bars Larabars Luna bars rx bars etc etc you can also do any sort of jerky or slim-jim type sticks or summer sausage pepperoni salami those things keep pretty well cheese is awesome certain cheeses keep better than others I think Gouda is probably one of the better ones and all those things keep better in colder months I didn't carry cheese in the dead of summer you could bring dried fruits fruit snacks or other variations of that fruit by the foot fruit roll-ups any sort of chips or crackers I loved cheez-its Triscuits sometimes I put Pringles on the outside pouch and candy lots of candy for most hikers the staple of their hike is Snickers for cold food options for dinner I personally really loved raps so I already talked about my peanut butter dried fruit honey wraps that I did in addition to that you could do a tortilla with pepperoni and cheese a makeshift peanut butter and jelly sandwich a tortilla with peanut butter and a strawberry pop-tart hummus and cheese or freeze dried veggies tuna is a huge one for a lot of people they sell it in single serving packets there's a million flavors it's a great source of protein you can eat it plain or put it in a wrap with some cheese and of course spam is another big one on the trail also sold in sick serving packets you can eat that plain or put it in a wrap - and in place of these tortillas you could always do pita wraps or bagels or something heavier with cold food you also have the option to cold soak I didn't do a ton of this because it kind of defeated the purpose of the easy cleanup but some things that you can cold soak are ramen couscous works really well dehydrated refried beans put that in a wrap with cheese mashed potatoes rehydrate really quickly a couple things I would not try to cold soak would be like mac and cheese or certain pastas just take way too long or I tried quinoa ones that didn't really work when a cold soup things I put them in my pot so this is a Vargo titanium about 700 I started off the trail without this I used a peanut butter jar to cold soak things and then I ended up buying this at raildays and that way I could cold soak with it or I could use it to cook on fire on days that you're leaving from town you can always get a little more creative and pack out more perishable foods for that night so a lot of times leaving town I would bring real fruit or pack out a sub or something so you have some more options at least for day one I know that a lot of the food that I mentioned is not the most nutritious of foods but it is what it is your body just needs a lot of calories you're gonna burn it right off and hopefully when you go into town you choose some healthier options when I would get into town I definitely ate my share of huge burgers and steaks and pizza but I also tried to get salads and eat some fruit too I'm sure there's a ton of other things out there that I didn't mention or forgot to mention if you do some research online there really are a lot of things that you can eat along the trail and definitely if you're cooking there are way more options where I didn't really cook along the trail I'm not gonna sit here and try to give you advice on that I mostly wanted to share with you from my experience what works for me I hope that you guys got some ideas from this video and it helps you plan your thru-hike if you have any questions or comments about anything please leave them in the comments below I'm always happy to answer your questions if you like this video give it a thumbs up and I'll see you guys on the next one you

Channel: Liz Kidder

Views: 35,353

Rating: 4.9224205 out of 5

Keywords: appalachian trail, thruhike, backpacking, resupply, food resupply, mail drops, food ideas, nobo, stoveless

Id: VW4QX9JHRSU

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2018