Have you ever had that one book that you’ve always wanted to get, but never found the chance to get it?  Well thanks to my brother and his wonderful gift card, I finally bought that book.  That book is the Appalachian Trail Food Planner.

For most hikers that have experienced the joy of the AT, they realize that it takes careful planning to resupply their larder of goods and equipment.  You can not rely on finding a store or a ride to said store anymore.  So a wonderful alternative is a process called Mail Drops.  The concept is that you will send yourself a package in advance of your arrival at a predefined post office and then hike to that office, picking up your package.  It takes a bit of future prediction, but if you design it right it will make your time hiking and your food stores much easier to plan and resupply. 

The Appalachian Trail Food Planner is the book that helps you accomplish that planning.  The book begins with a quick lesson on how much food to take with you, explaining how much (per pound) food you should take, and how many calories you should ingest each day.  This is a valuable part of your planning, as taking something weight-intensive (i.e. canned goods) will cause your pack to be too heavy and leave with you with lots of large trash to hike out.

The next section is perhaps my favorite; recipes.   I will admit, as I am a pseudo-ultralight backpacker, these recipes are rather large, and use a vast amount of water.  I guess these recipes would be good if you’re just planning a trip that will last a week or under, but I would think that perhaps you should read these and rethink the water and amount ratios, otherwise you will be carrying quite a bit of water to do your cooking. I’ve tried several recipes already and they came out rather well, with a little doctoring. 

The last section of this book contains mileage charts on each leg of the AT.  The best part of that is it also contains the distances between trail legs and the closest post office.  How could you make that chart even better?  They’ve included 3 columns, based on how much you hike a day, and the days until your next leg, and post drop pickup.  Wonderful!

If you are thinking of hiking the AT, or any leg of it, I would seriously recommend that you read this book before hitting the trail.  It will educate you on what to expect, and give you a better bearing on how to plan.

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