This is the BIG morning

This is the BIG morning! I’m finally leaving! Dad and I are driving down to Campo and might end up sleeping behind the store. I am 100% ready to start this trip. The grandest thing I’ve ever attempted. I can’t wait to be immersed in nature and let it enter me. Already I can feel it when I take a deep breath and I haven’t even started yet.

Today, was spent shoring up odds and ends. Made some stuff sacks with my mom, tried to finish a great book, walked around the neighborhood, bought some new trail shorts, had dinner with family, finished off my gear sorting, cleaned and prepared the house for my departure and wrote tons of email and made lots of phone calls. To think, as of tomorrow I won’t be doing any of that!

I’m a little disappointed with my final pack weight. It’s about 18 pounds without food, fuel or water. I was aiming for 15 pounds but I added the GPS and lots of small things. Plus I have way too many clothes in my pack right now because I can’t decide what exactly I don’t want. I’m not sure if I want shorts or pants, long underwear or none, short sleeves or long. So I’ve got it all. I also have a heavy water filter that I will almost surely send home quickly. I rarely carry one but I don’t have a lot of background drinking desert water sources.

I’m really looking forward to meeting lots of great people at the Kick Off. I’m not sure that I’ll be up for such intense social interaction for the whole event plus the first few weeks on the trail but I’m certain that if I want some alone time I’ll be able to find it.

I wish that I had trained more too. It’s going to be a hard first few weeks on the trail and I hope that the anxiety about that is done with once I actually start walking. I don’t think that there is an inch of my body (or a joint, membrane, or organ) that I haven’t worried about failing me. I really believe though that this hike will be more about mental than physical fortitude. So if I keep positive and confident (acknowledging negative thoughts but not letting them control me) I should be fine. So if you see me on the trail and I’m smiling weirdly (which I almost always am, when I’m not, I have a look of consternation that doesn’t mean much), I’m either truly happy, or just trying to convince myself that I am 

Next update might not come for a few weeks. I’ll be keeping my primary journal on paper and it probably won’t be transcribed. I don’t have a pocketmail device for online publishing for a few reasons. I like the idea spending time away from computers and the internet and I didn’t want to buy even more gear. I still really like trailjournals though so I’ll try to update when there are public computers around.

Time to go to bed filled with a sense of love and adventure. Bye!

 

GPS Enabled

Well, aren’t I lucky?

Just this week I got hooked up with a project for Backpacker Magazine to log my hike through GPS. At first it seemed like an overly daunting task. Too much time plugged in, worrying about quality of the finished product, dealing with battery life and the like. In short, it seemed too much like work! I’ve come to grasp with that though and I’m no longer fretting. It’s actually kind of fun to log way points. I get a decide what’s worthy and what’s not. And for especially worthy spots it pushes me up the trail with aplomb, knowing that once I crest the ridge I get another way point! In reality it is work though. I’ve whittled it down to a few simple compromises. First is weight. The unit plus ten days of batteries weighs one pound. That’s “a lot” when one considers how much time, money and comfort I’ve parted with to loose a pound in other pieces of gear. I’ll have to stop for five seconds every time I take a way point so that I can write down it’s name. And I’ll have to be more connected to the postal service hours of operation for battery resupply. My original plan was pretty much a pure buy as you go strategy. Now I’ll have to pick up battery packages in more places because I’m going to be using lithiums. I’m deciding now how I want to balance buying batteries as I go and having them mailed to me. When I’m done, I’ll have something to be proud of, a connection in the magazine and more money in my pocket. I’m literally getting paid per mile! YEEEEEHAW!

 

Wild Wilderness

o those whom suggest not hiking the PCT as a form of protest against trail markings, I think you’ve missed the point. If you wish to hike a trail that is fully marked and fully safe, go hike the AT or the Bay Area Ridge Trail. If you want to hike the PCT, famed for it’s “wilderness qualities”, then accept that maintaining that characteristic is a noble thing. We’ve paved and signed most of the world. I personally like that there are places in this world where you can walk long distances having to watch your step.

But! I didn’t know that Fuller Ridge and the section of trail in question was already marked. Knowing that, I would fully support raising those signs above the average snowpack. This just makes sense and we wouldn’t be losing anything that hadn’t already been lost. So, for this issue, I’m ok with temporarily flagging the trail while the push to raise the signs is underway. (EDIT: this entry was an email in response to this issue)

What troubles me is that the discussion of reducing trail risks can go too far. Already, people are talking in broad strokes about “dangerous sections”, not just Fuller Ridge. Should we put a bridge over every “dangerous” stream? A lightning rod or a hut on every pass? Water caches in the desert? (oh wait..) All of these things might seem very reasonable. But it’s a slippery slope. After we’ve taken care to mark Fuller Ridge, surely people will want to mark another new area. I REALLY don’t want to hike a trail that has a marker every 200 feet. Do we want someone to put wands up through the Sierra this year so that we can stay on trail? Forester has posed a particular risk to a wide variety of people. But I’d hate to see it fixed with ropes. If you want ropes, go climb Everest. Keep Forester Free.

This discussion has been going on for a long time in Wilderness Areas. What modifications should we allow to create safety in a backcountry setting? I think that the Wilderness Act strikes a decent balance. Trail blazes are discouraged, mechanical tools not allowed, huts taken down,… Risk is created again. Yet they still maintain trails and supply maps. It’s doable but not easy. Safe but still risky. I’m sure that many (most?) PCT hikers value wild wilderness. I’m hopeful that the PCTA does as well. I greatly appreciate all of the hardwork that goes in to maintaining the trail and helping out hikers. But there is still a limit. I wouldn’t want someone sweeping the trail before me, thank you very much.

My reasons for maintaining wildness on the PCT aren’t merely aesthetic. I genuinely think that we get more out of nature than a pretty picture.

That’s enough of this never ending debate for me. Let’s continue it on the trail someday.

 

A letter to Friends

Hey Friends!

As most of you know, I’m hiking 2600 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail this year! While I’m away, sprouting my beard and working on my dirt tan, I’d LOVE to stay in touch. I leave home on April 26th and will start off from the border on the 27th. Hopefully I’ll be in Canada before October.
Primarily, I’m going to be in touch with my parents. So if you really need to contact me, give them a call in addition to e-mailing me. I’ll have a phone card and will probably be able to make calls to them once a week.
I’ll also have limited computer access at nice people’s houses and libraries. So, every once in a while I’ll be updating my online trail journal or sending out a mass e-mail. My town stops are sure to be hectic though so don’t get upset if I don’t respond to your e-mails right away. Likely another good way to keep track of me is to read other PCT hiker journals at trailjournals.com. Many PCT hikers can update their journals on the trail (I can’t) and my mention that they’re hiking with me or saw me somewhere. Be advised that I’ll probably be assigned a “trail name” and won’t be going by my given name.
For the next five months the US Postal Service will be a true lifeline for me. I’ll be stopping at post offices to pick up packages of equipment and food on a regular basis. If you’d like to send me a letter or a package, read how to on the attached letter. (attachments not included on trailjournal post)
Many of you have expressed the desire to see me on the trail. Why you’d want to pollute your nature stay with the stench of my BO is beyond me but I’ll still welcome the company. The PCT passes roads frequently and all of these would be suitable places to meet up. We could also see each other in one of the many towns along the way. If you’d like to hike a section of the trail with me we could do that too. If you’re interested in hiking more than half of the day though beware that you’ll have to at least keep up a reduced PCT hiker pace of 15+ miles per day. A rough guide of when I’ll be passing through where is on the mail drop list. The dates are for when I’ll be in town resupplying. There are a lot of other places that we could meet that aren’t on my list. If you’d like to smell me, pick an area or a time frame now and we’ll work something out. Then, a week or so beforehand I’ll call you and we’ll confirm an exact time and location.

 

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.