Dan's Outside

A Food Drop – My First

As I wrote yesterday, I’m taking a 14-day Sierra pack trip later this summer. I was going to try to carry 14 days of food – as I did when I was (much) younger. I know from my 9-day trip last summer that I can definitely carry 10 days of food and I think I could get a few more into the pack if pressed.

However, my friends, either being lazier or (more likely) smarter than I, have decided that we’ll do a food drop at Muir Trail Ranch. This means putting about 5 days worth of food into a 5 gallon bucket and mailing it to Muir Trail Ranch about 3 weeks before I’ll pass through there.

This raises a couple of interesting questions. First, I recently read a trip report by someone who did this a few years back – and arrived at Muir Trail Ranch only to find that the food cache had not made it there. This hiker was doing the complete Muir Trail and, unfortunately, ended up bagging the trip and hiking out at that point. Ouch! I hear that I can get a return receipt from the Postal Service and that MTR may be willing to confirm receipt by email. I think I’ll try to get my cache in the mail a bit early.

The second issue is what to pack. Some of the things I typically rely on probably would not survive 3 weeks in a plastic bucket – much less a trip through the postal system and then by pack trail to MTR. For example, I love to carry a few pieces of good cheese with me. That would never last long enough to include in the cache. So I’m going to have to rethink some of my food practices for the final 5 days of this trip, particularly regarding some of the perishable foods that I often carry for lunch.

On the other hand, it just occurred to me that I could put more food into the cache than I think I’ll need and include a few items that may or may not survive. If they do survive I’ll use them. If not, I leave them and take the backup food.

Now I just need to figure out the very best treat for nine days into a pack trip. Hmmm…
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June 30, 2005 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Technique