how many is tooo many mail drops?

[Jack Tarlin]

Quick suggestion:

I'm sorry we got sidetracked. This thread is about maildrops; it's not about national diets, or racial theories, or me and Smitty disagreeing with each other.

I suggest we get back to the original question, which was maildrops, the necessity for them, how many are needed, if any, etc.

The fact that threads drift kind of wildly here at Whiteblaze is no secret, but every now and again, we need a reminder to ourselves: People start threads for specific reasons, and with very specific questions. We should try and respect this.

[mudhead]

Well said.

Mooseballs' pictures were a tad off subject.

[Tin Man]

Well said.

Mooseballs' pictures were a tad off subject.

Sorry. I wonder if the Road Kill Cafe ships menu items to mail drops? Sorry, I guess that does not make it better. Uh, what's a mail drop? Oh, never mind.

[minnesotasmith]

Out of curiosity, how often do you clap your hands to your ears and start loudly chanting "LA LA LA LA LA LA" when you encounter data that makes you feel uncomfortable? If you can't bring yourself to look at photographs of nothing but buildings and streets (not a human or animal to be seen, alive or dead), something is going on (or not going on) in your mind that holds truth to not be a particularly high value.

I will ask you again: how welcome would you feel residing in the place of which I above provided a set of relatively current photographs?

[SGT Rock]

I would feel very safe if I were picking up a mail drop at those locations.

[Jack Tarlin]

Go read Post #121, Smitty.

This discussion is as stupid as it is out of place.

[Hikerhead]

This has turned into a very informative thread with value for both on-trail and off-trail eating. Back on the protein issues: Speaking as one who has high chloresterol, I've cut down red meat and chicken for a few years and gone semi-vegetarian but based on what I'm reading, I see the benefits of animal sources for protein. It seems to me that after egg whites, the best overall source for protein is fish.

Having said that, what are the tradeoffs of the environmental factors. Meaning: is lean, grass-fed, non-hormone injected beef or free-range poultry safer/healthier than fish subject to mercury or, like Eastern salmon, injected with artificial color?

Another nutrtional subject: my local NPR station has a program Saturday mornings called The Peoples Pharmacy which discusses alternative medicine & treatments. A few months ago, one episode that I still remember well dealt with cherries and how healthy they are because of melatonin, a powerful antioxident. Two of many articles about cherries & melatonin are here and here. And while fresh cherries are only available in season, dried cherries pack a powerful dose; they're expensive but you only need a small handful to get the benefits. So now whether home or on the trail, my oatmeal includes dried cherries.

I picked up some dried Cherries for the first time a couple of weeks ago on my BMT/Old AT lookaround with Sgt Rock and Jim. Them babies were good!

[minnesotasmith]

I would feel very safe if I were picking up a mail drop at those locations.

As, virtually all grocery store chains have abandoned that wreck of a city.

Jack, it's not reasonable IMO for you to bring up a subject, and then object to it being discussed. That's kind of a WD pattern.

[SGT Rock]

As, virtually all grocery store chains have abandoned that wreck of a city.

Jack, it's not reasonable IMO for you to bring up a subject, and then object to it being discussed. That's kind of a WD pattern.

Actually what I think you are missing is the fact that he is trying to gently nudge you away from doing it again - babbling. The problem is you post some darn good stuff, then start going off on a tangent that makes you look like a sexist, racist, or something else and lose that base of credibility. What makes you think that there are not people of mixed ethnic heritage on here that are now taking grand offense to the last few posting you have made?

[minnesotasmith]

Also, a multi-vitamin with minerals is not a bad idea.

Yes to a point. I carried them and took them regularly during my thruhike last year.

However, there are multiple limitations to multivits that prevent them from making up for a typically fecal-quality hiker diet.

1) Certain nutrients are too bulky to fit in a single small pill. For example, Calcium in my experience is not added to multis over about 10% of daily adult needs (and needs to be ingested more than once a day in any event).

2) Not all pills dissolve as intended. If one passes through the digestive system without completely dissolving (known in the trade as "bullets"), its nutritive worth will be below what its label indicates. This is not rare, BTW.

3) There are probably some essential nutrients not yet identified by scientists, which thus MUST come from eating food that contains it. An indication of this is how a defined nutrient growth media (solely consisting of specific pure known-essential chemicals) for microbes will not result in as fast of growth as one including complex supplements. So, frequently eating significant amounts of complex, nutrient-dense foods (primarily milk, liver, wheat germ, oily/cold-water fish and various "true" dark greens, with occasional egg WHITES, unroasted nuts, shellfish, and dark cane molasses) is advantageous for anyone, but especially serious hikers, the ill, young, elderly, etc.

4) The most insidious aspect to multivit pills IMO is how the definition of some nutrients is overly loose, resulting in synthetic versions of them being of reduced usefulness. This is IMO more of a problem for larger-molecular-weight ones such as vitamins than for simple minerals, although even those may have some variation in worth, depending on source. I read an abstract of a study that indicated that synthetic B-6 had only about 40% of the nutritional value as an equal quantity of biologic-(food) origin B-6.

One reason for this phenomenon is based on vitamins being organic (carbon and hydrogen) molecules, many of which exhibit a "handedness" called optical orientation, or "chirality". Consider your left and right hands; they are quite similiar in shape, but are not the same, being mirror images of each other impossible to superimpose on each other. Pairs of compounds with this property are called "enantiomers", or "racemates".

It is common for the simplest, least-expensive organic molecule syntheses to produce mixtures of equal amounts of the two racemates, often called "racemic mixtures". Unfortunately, it is common, even routine, for the human body to only be able to use one of these two racemates.

That said, it's best by far IMO to devise one's diet to try hard to not need multivits, while still making use of them. And, one should obtain the best-quality (ideally, biologic-origin) supplements.

[Kirby]

If it has not been mentioned, read Jack's resupply article in the article section of this website, it is very informative, and I have had several thru-hikers said it is a great tool for resupply planning.

Kirby

[minnesotasmith]

What makes you think that there are not people...on here that are now taking grand offense to the last few posting you have made?

Anyone mortally terrified of offending others by holding a viewpoint different from theirs will have great difficulty arriving at, or discussing, controversial-but-important truth.

[minnesotasmith]

If it has not been mentioned, read Jack's resupply article in the article section of this website, it is very informative, and I have had several thru-hikers said it is a great tool for resupply planning.

Kirby

I printed it out, and carried it with me on my thru last year. I also used it extensively for prehike mail-drop planning. Thank you, Jack, for sharing this great resource from your AT experience.

[SGT Rock]

Anyone mortally terrified of offending others by holding a viewpoint different from theirs will have great difficulty arriving at, or discussing, controversial-but-important truth.

That still isn't the point. Are you that thick?

How can someone be so smart and be so dull at the same time? Do you respond to directives?

Try this - drop it.

[Kirby]

I printed it out, and carried it with me on my thru last year. I also used it extensively for prehike mail-drop planning. Thank you, Jack, for sharing this great resource from your AT experience.

Anyone can chime in on this question.

When using Jack's resupply article, did you buy food as you go, and create mail drops as needed, or did you create your mail drops ahead of time based on the article?

Kirby

[Skidsteer]

Actually, I think Smitty would be happiest here:

www.whitecounty.net

Gotta love than name.........

Hey! I live there, you know.

True story:

Around 1990 I lived in San Antonio, TX and my Father-In-Law, from Cleveland(White County), GA found a great deal on a pick-up truck for me. I took the bus to GA and drove the truck home to TX.

At work the next week I took my friend(black)out to the parking lot to show him my new truck. I pointed out the "White" decal on the license plate and told him that if he lived in GA, his plate would have a "Black" decal.

He thought about it long enough to give me a good headstart.

[Hikerhead]

That was funny.

[minnesotasmith]

When using Jack's resupply article, did you buy food as you go, and create mail drops as needed, or did you create your mail drops ahead of time based on the article?

Kirby

The majority of the food I ate while out on the Trail during my thruhike came from maildrops from back home. I set up most of them ahead of time, not sealing the boxes. My support person both adjusted those preset packages, sending them up to 3 weeks ahead of time, and made up new ones at my direction, sent to locations as I told them during my hike (normally 6-12 days lead time). I used Jack's resupply schedule suggestions (in combination with Wingfoot's book) to space out mail drops, to determine where to send them, and to figure places I did not need drops for significant percentages of my food. The latter mostly applied to large supermarkets either highly convenient to the Trail, or easily available to me BC I was going to go into the town in which they were located (usually to clean up, etc., at a hostel).

I had some specialty food items sent to me, even in the best/cheapest resupply locations, as they were difficult/impractical/impossible to find in regular grocery stores. Examples include freeze-dried broccoli and spinach, shelf-stable cheese (was rare then), dried cuttlefish, sushi-grade black dried Japanese seaweed sheets, various useful cherry-picked items from the 7 cases of MREs I obtained pre-hike, and compressed shelf-stable whole-grain imported (German) bread (also easier to find these days).

[astrogirl]

*** does THAT mean?

BTW, I probably ate more nutritiously on the Trail than 90% of other thruhikers last year. How many carried dried sushi-grade seaweed and freeze-dried spinach and broccoli, and never cooked ONE Ramen their whole hike?

I love ramen AND I carry wakame to put in it.

Seaweed is full of minerals lacking in a thruhiker's diet.

I loathe instant potatoes, and I don't know how hikers can eat so much of them.

[minnesotasmith]

I personally delivered a couple of boxes (including some infamous distilled water) to Neels Gap (my first resupply point) when I went there about 4 days before I started at Amicalola to buy some final gear items. I had planned to later that same day drop off a box at the Blueberry Patch hostel in Hiawassee, but one of the employees at Neels graciously offered to drop it off for me (they were going to drive to Hiawassee in the next several days in any event), so I appreciatively took them up on it. I also mailed a drop to the NOC before starting. I do not remember if I mailed my drop to Fontana before starting, or had my support person mail it after I started.