THE U.S. POSTAL SYSTEM
HOW TO USE THE U.S. POSTAL SYSTEM AS A THRU-HIKER
The postal system. This is something you expect to be pretty simple to navigate in the USA. I, incorrectly, assumed it would function just like it does at home. I was wrong. The USA has a number of different postal services and couriers and some resupply locations only accept one or the other. Make sure you know the requirements for each of the places you are planning to send boxes.
Here is a summary of the different postal systems within the USA and how to ship resupply boxes:
United States Postal Service - USPS
USPS is the national postal service.
USPS Priority Mail is, overwhelmingly, the service you want to be using to ship your resupply boxes on the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Appalachian Trail from within the USA.
This service is usually the most economic and there are post offices even in the smallest, most remote towns along the trails. Postmasters along the trails year-in and year-out deal with thru-hikers and their resupply boxes, so mostly have a very ordered system of managing them, and are usually very good at bouncing boxes and holding packages longer, if you just call ahead. I had an overwhelmingly good experience on the PCT.
United Postal Service – UPS and FedEx
UPS and FedEx are private courier services. Some locations on the trail do not accept delivery of USPS mail, so if you want a package sent there, you’ll need to use UPS or FedEx. If the address includes ‘General Delivery’, you must use USPS, not UPS or FedEx.
How to Ship a Resupply Box
On the surface, the postal service seemed pretty similar to Australia. But there were some key things I had to learn on the fly, and through trial and error. Here’s a step-by-step for anyone who is equally confounded by the U.S. postal service.
- Go to any USPS post office and pick up the amount of Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes you need. They will be on their own stand somewhere in the post office, and are free to take, you’ll just need to pay to post them. I mainly used the medium size, but used large for the Sierra and bigger carries. While you’re there, buy packing tape.
- Bring your boxes home, assemble them, address them, pack them with life sustaining food sources, like Tim Tams and Vegemite.
- Make sure you address them like this:
Hiker’s Legal Name
PCT HIKER, ETA: MM/DD/YY
ADDRESS
- Write your legal name on every side of the box.
- You want to make it as easy as possible for the post office worker to find your box among the hundreds of other PCT hiker resupply boxes, so go crazy and use colourful tape or batman stickers or whatever you’ve got to make your boxes (uniformly) distinct. I used rainbow tape which turned out to be everyone’s go to, so be more bold than that. Honestly, this is one of my biggest tips. Bring distinct tape/stickers from home, because the Americans all use the same limited stuff that is available at Walmart/Staples/the Post Office itself. If you can just say ‘mine’s the one covered in Finding Nemo stickers’, you’re out of there quickly and eating ice cream sooner.
- Take your boxes to the post office and pay postage and wave goodbye. USPS Priority Mail is a set price, and not weight dependent. When I went through it was $17.10 for a medium flat rate (top loading) and $22.80 for a large flat rate box. It’s a good idea to snap a photo of the tracking number and keep that saved on your phone.
- If you have sent your box to a General Delivery address, this means it will wait at the post office for you. You will generally have 30 days from the date it is delivered to pick it up. If you’re close, just call the post office and ask them to hold it longer and give your ETA.
My very extra arrangement of resupply boxes, ready for my trail angel to send out (there was also a very intense spreadsheet).
Mailing Resupply Boxes Along the PCT
If you don’t have someone in the USA who can send you some boxes, you will only be able to prepare and send yourself boxes to where you think you’ll be 30 days after starting. For me on the PCT, that was around Tehachapi.
I was lucky enough to know literally one person in the USA (a colleague of my Dad’s) and he enthusiastically agreed to help me, and send my resupply boxes all up the trail. He is also an alpinist, who has spent decades climbing in the Sierras, so like, yeah. Best trail angel ever.
If you do have someone who can send your boxes for you, it is a bit of mission for them. My advice is to make it as simple as possible:
- Have everything ready to send: assembled, packed and labelled.
- Number your boxes for your trail angel so you can just ask them to send, for example, boxes 1,2 and 3.
- Go to the post office with all your boxes, and ask if you can pre-pay the flat rate shipping. I had to try two different post offices before I found someone who would do this for me (I had 21 boxes so it was no small task). But it is entirely worth it because then the person sending your boxes doesn’t have to front the cash. Of course, you can also give them money in advance, but it might be harder to keep track of.
- Ask your trail angel to send you a photo of the tracking number they get on their receipt.
- Communicate, repeatedly, to your trail angel that you are eternally grateful for their help and the provision of much nicer food than is generally available in many places while thru-hiking.
It is also very common that hikers will prepare a resupply box from on trail, from a well-stocked town, to send up ahead on trail to places they know will be a less good resupply location (I’m looking at you, gas station at White Pass, you still make me shudder in disappointment).
Sending Care Packages from Overseas
If you have parents, mates, strangers from overseas who want to send you the occasional care package from home, this is possible, albeit a little costly. I had a mate from Australia who received a hefty resupply box from home at Kennedy Meadows South, bursting with Whitakers chocolate and Tim Tams (double coat obvs).
Just be careful of the timing. Remind your care package sender (Mum) to put your ETA on the box. And remember, if sending General Delivery, they’ll generally keep the package for 30 days from when it’s delivered.