Arequipa, Peru – Click picture to see full size

I’ll be buying food as I go pretty much the entire way. Many hikers send out food boxes all the way up and down the trail. I’m only planning on having food boxes at six stops (Warner Springs, Kennedy Meadows, Shelter Cove, Timberline Lodge, Skykomish and Stehekin). About an average of once per month. It was a very easy decision for me to resupply in this style. Buying, preparing and sending out 5 months of food would be quite a feat!

Lately, I’ve been trending towards simplyfing most things including my outdoor trips. While I love to crank up my dehydrator, I don’t really enjoy it that much. So I tend to do it when I have lots of time and lots of cheap food to put in it. The task of preparing (possibly cooking full meals) and then dehydrating for a PCT hike must take hundreds of hours. Some weekends I’ve even taken simplicity to the next level of stopping at grocery stores on the way to the trailhead. I’ve easily been able to buy a weekend’s worth of hiking food in fifteen to twenty minutes. So that’s what I’ll be doing. Buying as I go.

Admitedly, there are a few drawbacks to this strategy. Firstly, I won’t be getting all of the excellent foods that my favorite natural food stores carry. Probably no fresh peanut butter, pinto bean flakes, tofu-jerkey, soy-sticks, and the like at most of the stores. How I’m going to deal with odd package sizes I don’t know yet. I like having olive oil, but if I don’t have anyone to split a bottle with then I won’t be buying it. If I was mailing my food, I’d probably have all of the ziplocks I wanted, but since I won’t be buying and carrying boxes of 100 for myself I’ll just have to scrounge in hiker boxes or make due with basic white grocery bags.

This train of thought is a little boring though. I think I’ll write about something else!