Resupplying
The Grand Enchantment
Trail passes within range of 12 small to medium-sized communities
in its total distance between Phoenix and Albuqueque. Each of these
features a post office or other facility where hikers can pick up
food and supplies mailed to themselves, usually via the standard General
Delivery method. A majority of towns also have restaurants and
grocery stores which can be used to supplement a maildrop, or in some
cases to avoid the need for one. Other services available in certain
towns include motels, hardware stores and other sources of stove fuel,
libraries with internet access, laundromats, discount stores, medical
facilities, taxis, and Forest Service and BLM offices. All but 4 communities
have ATM machines, though even here you may be able to use a debit
card to obtain cash at a post office.
A complete description
of trail towns and the services they offer is available in the G.E.T.
Town Guide. Some communities, such as Safford and Magdalena, are
directly on the route, while others like Superior and Gila Hot Springs
are a few miles away, easily reached on foot. A few towns - Mammoth,
Morenci, Monticello, and Mountainair (the "M" towns!) -
lie 10 or more miles off-route, and it may be worthwhile trying to
hitchhike in and out of these places when feasible. Seasoned long-distance
hikers may find that the G.E.T. offers a redundancy of town stops,
and that they can skip one or more distant options in favor of higher
daily mileages between convenient resupply points. Using all towns,
the longest distance between resupply would be about 100 miles (Gila
Hot Springs to Monticello), with an average distance of around 60
miles.
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G.E.T.
Trail Town Experience: (left) Evett's Ice Cream Fountain in Magdalena
NM;
(right) Klondyke Country Store (with maildrop hold) east of Aravaipa
Canyon |
Resupply
Strategies
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Clifton
AZ
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Some long-distance
hikers like to resupply at grocery stores along the way, while others
prefer to use post office maildrops. Each approach has its merits
and drawbacks. In the context of a G.E.T. thru-hike, however, a combination
of the two approaches may be the most efficient strategy. Some towns
simply lack the necessary provisions to see you happily on your way
again, and so suggest the need for maildrops (or resupplying elsewhere).
The communities of Klondyke, Monticello, and Polvadera offer no services
at all (except for postal facilities). Other towns with only marginal
resupply potential include Mammoth, Glenwood, Gila Hot Springs, and
Tijeras. As in most small towns, the quality and variety of groceries
available along the G.E.T. tend to be limited, and may or may not
be acceptable to some hikers. On the other hand, some towns with grocery
options may be needed for only one or two days worth of rations. In
such cases, you may find it more convenient to simply buy whatever
food is available, forgoing a maildrop, and then move ahead to the
next resupply point in short order.
Mailing expenses
can become a factor on longer hikes, especially the farther away you
live from the trail. Rather than buying and mailing all of your groceries
from home, though, one solution is to make up maildrops from the route
and then send them ahead to less accommodating town stops. This approach
can be particularly effective on the Grand Enchantment Trail since
its end points are near large urban areas. After arriving in Phoenix
or Albuquerque, you might consider allotting a full day to the maildrop
task, mailing packages to the towns you'll reach within the first
month of the hike. For further savings, you can mail some of these
parcels (those going to the towns you'll reach later) via slower third
class mail, confident that they will arrive before you. Maildrops
for those towns that you'll reach beyond the 30 day window for General
Delivery mail hold can be made and shipped from another accommodating
town along the way (such as Safford, Morenci, or Socorro).
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| Inspiration
and Correspondence, thru-hiker style |
