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.
Experienced 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 96 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 certain
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. To
save further, you can mail some of these parcels 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
town along the way.
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| Inspiration
and Correspondence, thru-hiker style |
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