If you do post anything, be sure to send it enough in advance that it’ll arrive before you do. And, you might want to avoid mailing things you can’t do without if you don’t get the parcel (maps that can’t be replaced locally, for example). I mailed a box to Dalwhinnie from Oban on the Thursday before the Challenge started last year. I walked to Dalwhinnie faster than the parcel traveled there. I had to wait around for the post on Friday, hoping the box would arrive. I could have replaced the maps and some food I’d dehydrated, but not the contact lenses and an inhaler I’d mailed. (Luckily, the package arrived on Friday). I’m pretty sure a box I mailed to Montrose took two weeks from Oban (getting there the day I did).

If you are heading over Lochnagar after leaving Braemar, a useful resupply point I found last year is the Spittal of Glen Muick visitor centre, Birkhall, Ballater, Aberdeenshire, AB35 5SU. You can get in touch with them via the Balmoral estate website. It meant I only had lunch to carry with me over Lochnagar last year and collected the final 3 day's worth of food on the other side of the mountain as I walked through the centre. They have a coffee machine there as well!

On my second Challenge (first solo) - I dutifully made up and sent 3 parcels ahead for resupplying myself. The first I was a day late collecting due to re-routing for bad weather so I was on my emergency rations by the time I collected it. The second parcel mostly went in the bin as I could not or didn't want to eat or carry what was in it. The third parcel was collected on my way home as I re-routed again and didn't get to it.

So now I do not send parcels ahead. I never pass a shop, cafe or pub without eating or stocking up. The only thing I still do is post maps home to myself when I've finished with them.

Generally I never carry more than 4 days food apart from some emergency rations which I often arrive with in Montrose.

It's a personal choice thing.