Category: Pacific Crest Trail
The only powder to get high on falls from the sky
About a month ago, PCTers were in a blissful mood. Our start dates were coming within reach and the Sierra snowpack looked to be on the “lightish to normalish” side of things. But by now it’s been raining and snowing for pretty much a solid month and we’ve come to grips that this year’s snow will likely be on the “huge-ish” side of things. With a little more than a week before I head to the Southern California desert, it’s time to make my first set of snow decisions. I’m likely to hit snow after Idyllwild, after Wrightwood and after Kennedy Meadows. Idyllwild leads me onto Fuller Ridge. From what I hear, it’s not a good idea to go there without an ice ax and crampons when there’s a lot of now. It’s been hard to find good beta on it over the net though. The problem that I’m faced with is that Idyllwild is only 180 miles from Mexico and I’ll be there quickly (May 9th). So if I want my snow stuff there, I need to decide soon whether or not I want them sent to me. I can’t wait until my first real stop, Warner Springs, to call home for them because there won’t be enough time to get them before I leave for Fuller Ridge. I’m still going to wait until the last possible moment to call for them. I guess that means that I’ll make this decision at the Annual Day Zero PCT Kick Off (ADZPCTKO2006). I bet there will be someone there with good beta. Otherwise, I’m definitely carrying my ice ax and crampons from Kennedy Meadows north through the Sierra. I may also choose to have my snowshoes sent there but I’m highly unsure about that. I haven’t come across any (recent) past hikers that brought slow-shoes. But I have come across many of them that complained about some sort of “post hole hell”, as if there was ice in hell and the “god’s country” the Sierra Nevada was that hell. I don’t think John Muir snowshoed and that man barely ever had a negative word come from his pen.
Aren’t you going to starve?
| Arequipa, Peru – Click picture to see full size |
I’ll be buying food as I go pretty much the entire way. Many hikers send out food boxes all the way up and down the trail. I’m only planning on having food boxes at six stops (Warner Springs, Kennedy Meadows, Shelter Cove, Timberline Lodge, Skykomish and Stehekin). About an average of once per month. It was a very easy decision for me to resupply in this style. Buying, preparing and sending out 5 months of food would be quite a feat!
Lately, I’ve been trending towards simplyfing most things including my outdoor trips. While I love to crank up my dehydrator, I don’t really enjoy it that much. So I tend to do it when I have lots of time and lots of cheap food to put in it. The task of preparing (possibly cooking full meals) and then dehydrating for a PCT hike must take hundreds of hours. Some weekends I’ve even taken simplicity to the next level of stopping at grocery stores on the way to the trailhead. I’ve easily been able to buy a weekend’s worth of hiking food in fifteen to twenty minutes. So that’s what I’ll be doing. Buying as I go.
Admitedly, there are a few drawbacks to this strategy. Firstly, I won’t be getting all of the excellent foods that my favorite natural food stores carry. Probably no fresh peanut butter, pinto bean flakes, tofu-jerkey, soy-sticks, and the like at most of the stores. How I’m going to deal with odd package sizes I don’t know yet. I like having olive oil, but if I don’t have anyone to split a bottle with then I won’t be buying it. If I was mailing my food, I’d probably have all of the ziplocks I wanted, but since I won’t be buying and carrying boxes of 100 for myself I’ll just have to scrounge in hiker boxes or make due with basic white grocery bags.
This train of thought is a little boring though. I think I’ll write about something else!
Chatter
People ask lots of interesting questions when I reveal that I’m hiking Mexico to Canada. Some are totally unexpected. Some get repeated a lot. Perhaps the funniest comes from people clearly struggling mentally with such a walk. More than a couple of times I’ve been faced with disbelief. They ask, “Wow, how long will that take?” I respond unsurely with “Well, it depends how fast I walk… maybe five months?” Then they say “You can’t possibly carry all of that food.” Uhhhh, yeah. I can’t. But to humor them I tell them about my light base pack weight, my ability to hike far and plan well, and my strategy of rationing for two peanuts and one rasin a day. I say with that I’ll have to start with about 50 pounds of food. Next, roll the smile….. 
I can’t wait to be on the trail goofing around full time! Funniest thing was the reaction of dibelief from a Patagonia employee yesterday. I was too confused to provide my usual retort.
One thing’s strange though. Some people seem really interested in my trip but some don’t seem to care at all. And I can’t figure beforehand who will care and who won’t. It’s not like outdoorsy, or liberal, or well traveled people are more interested. Sometimes they just seem to feign it. Then, a while ago I was talking to someone who I wouldn’t expect would care and he was facinated. Not that stereotyping matters but my friend was from the ghetto, a recent immigrant, and the type of guy that’s more interested in fast cars or football. Well, he asked the most interesting, thoughtful and extensive questions. So now I tend to nonchalantly slip it in that I’m about to walk across America (well, not really) in two weeks.
Endurance athelete I am not. Yet.
“Training” for me hasn’t been much. In fact, I’ve definitely slowed down in the past month! It seems that after moving back home to San Francisco I’ve lost a lot of motivation to hit the trails. When I was working and in school, I took every chance I had (at least every weekend) to get outdoors. Now I’m unemployed and vegetating. What gives? Well I’ve got a lot of excuses… But they’re just excuses. At least I’ve been getting out and going on urban walks. I don’t really know the milage of them but they’re probably 7-15 miles. It’s fun walking up and down SF hills and being able to people watch. I’m hoping to get a 70 mile trip in maybe next week so that my calves can at least remember what real hiking is before I hit the trail.
First PCT post
Wow! I really need to get this journal started! I’ve been dreaming of hiking the PCT for at least a few years now and finally decided to do it. I was graduating college and was ready for a real adventure. Life spent doing weekend and summer trips wasn’t going to satisfy me fully. I knew that in my life I’d have to take off at least a couple of times for real grand adventures. Something truely challenging, something longer and farther. Since I’ve been a backpacking obsessive all of my life, it seems right that this adventure should be a backpacking trip! So the PCT it is! And let me tell ya, I’m looking forward to it.
I'm Jack Haskel 