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.

 

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.