The towns along the trail are big enough that many PCT hikers just buy their food as they hike along, but I'm planning to send myself pretty much all the food I'll be eating. There are some really good reasons for the buy-as-you-go method, including saving money on shipping, and not having to try and predict 2-4 months in advance how much and what kind of food you'll want to eat. But I guess I'm a bit picky about what I want to eat, and I felt I could have a better diet (especially dinners) if I sent food to myself rather than rely on whatever I could find along the way. Also, this preparation time is sort of a way to extend the trip a bit, and even though it's a bit tedious, I've been enjoying redistributing food into smaller bags over the last several days then sorting those bags into the appropriate resupply box. Finally, I hope that putting in the extra time now will allow me more time relaxing during my town stops, rather than having to spend more time on my feet in the grocery store.
For the most part I won't be sending myself non-food items like sunscreen, spare batteries, toothpaste, stove fuel, etc. I'm a bit less sure how quickly I'll be using these sorts of things, and I figure they'll be relatively simple to find along the trail.
Abbey the dog thinks its time to play, not time to pack boxes
I'll be sending myself 26 resupply boxes, and the details of where they'll be sent are below. I'm hugely thankful for Craig's PCT Planner for helping me figure out which locations to send resupplies to, and how many days and miles there are between resupply stops. This is a great free online program which allows you to enter your estimated hiking pace, number of hours hiking per day, and how much hills slow you down, and the program will calculate how many days between stops, and your average miles hiked per day. After inputting that information and your start date, you can play around with the different possible resupply locations and the program calculates a good estimate of what your resupply schedule will be.
Most of my resupplies will be sent via the USPS in Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes. My wife Libby will be sending the boxes for me as I go, and also hopefully she'll be able to come visit at resupply locations along the way, so some boxes she'll just deliver by hand. I fit my 3 and 4 day resupplies in the medium flat rate boxes, and used the larger boxes for the longer resupplies. I'm packing the boxes with the low end of what I estimate I'll need for the number of days in each section, and I expect to be supplementing somewhat with extra snacks bought in town.
| Box pick up location | Box # | Distance to next resupply | Days to next resupply | Average miles/day |
| CA | ||||
| US/Mexico Border | 0 | 42.3 | 2 | 14.5 |
| Mt. Laguna | 1 | 67.3 | 5 | 16.2 |
| Warner Springs | 2 | 69 | 3 | 21.2 |
| Idyllwild | 3 | 95.5 | 4 | 21.8 |
| Big Bear City | 4 | 89.5 | 4 | 23.0 |
| Wrightwood | 5 | 80.6 | 4 | 22.2 |
| Acton KOA | 6 | 114.1 | 5 | 22.3 |
| Tehachapi | 7 | 144.5 | 6 | 22.3 |
| Kennedy Meadows Store | 8 (in bear can) | 87.4 | 5 | 19.3 |
| Independence | 9 | 87 | 4 | 19.1 |
| Vermillion Valley Resort | 10 | 65.5 | 4 | 19.9 |
| Tuolumne Meadows | 11 | 151.8 | 7 | 21.7 |
| Echo Lake Resort | 12 | 103.1 | 4 | 22.5 |
| Sierra City | 13 | 91.6 | 4 | 22.1 |
| Belden | 14 | 88.5 | 4 | 22.1 |
| Old Station | 15 | 128.8 | 6 | 23.5 |
| Castella | 16 | 155.6 | 7 | 22.7 |
| Seiad Valley | 17 | 64.5 | 3 | 21.0 |
| OR | ||||
| Ashland | 18 | 103.8 | 4 | 23.0 |
| Crater Lake (Mazama Village) | 19 | 81.8 | 4 | 23.1 |
| Shelter Cove Resort | 20 | 88.7 | 3 | 23.3 |
| Big Lake Youth Camp | 21 | 154.2 | 7 | 22.7 |
| Cascade Locks | 22 | 147.7 | 7 | 21.4 |
| WA | ||||
| White Pass | 23 | 99 | 4 | 22.9 |
| Snoqualmie Pass | 24 | 74.5 | 4 | 20.3 |
| Skykomish | 25 | 97.8 | 5 | 20.6 |
| Stehekin | 26 | 89.4 | 4 | 21.2 |
Links to other preparation pages
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