So, your friends/relatives/random acquaintances are attempting to through-hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
DON’T PANIC! We will get through this together. Let’s break it down:
the Pacific Crest Trail a.k.a. PCT
A
national scenic trail with its southern terminus at the U.S.-Mexican
border near Campo, California and its northern terminus in Manning
Provincial Park, British Columbia. The trail is roughly 2664 miles long
and runs through the Laguna, San Jacinto, Tehachapi, Sierra Nevada, and
Cascade mountain ranges.
Learn more about the PCT from the Pacific Crest Trail Association and Whiteblaze.net PCT forum.
through-hike a.k.a. thru-hike
Hiking
the whole length of the trail in one go (as opposed to hiking only a
section of the trail). Paradoxically, one can only truly call oneself a
through-hiker at the moment one ceases to be a through-hiker -- at the
moment one completes the trail.
Some questions we have frequently been asked (and the answers):
- How long does this take?
- Four
to six months, depending on assorted factors including the
(in)experience of the hiker, the weather, and luck. Because we have
little experience with long-distance hiking, we’re expecting the hike to
take us six months. We’re leaving during the first week of April and hope to
return near the beginning of October.
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[MiguelVieira on flickr]
- Wow! Wish I could take a six-month vacation.
- We are terribly excited and grateful to have the opportunity to make this journey. We expect to come back revitalized, but not especially rested. If hiking 10-30 miles per day through the mountains, six or seven days per week for six months sounds like a vacation to you, perhaps you should consider hiking the PCT.
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- What will you be taking with you?
- We
expect to be carrying between three and eight liters of water each,
enough food and fuel for five to nine days, and the gear we’ll need,
including a tent, sleeping bags, clothing, a stove, journals, maps,
trekking poles, a camera, and first-aid supplies.
- How will you get food and water?
- We
will head off-trail every five to nine days to obtain food from nearby
towns and will treat naturally occurring water we find along the trail.
- What about bears?
- The
number one cause of injurious bear/human interaction is related to
improper storing of human food. Bears come looking for food, either
because they have found humans and their food in the area before or
because they are drawn by the smell of food/cooking. Often humans
purposefully or inadvertently get in the way of their search for that
food. To keep ourselves and the bears as safe as possible, we will be
using a combination of a bear canister, the Ursack, and
cooking in places where we don’t plan on sleeping.
- Why?!?
- Why
not? We find ourselves, perhaps uniquely, at a time in our lives when
we are not in school, don’t have a mortgage, and our employers are
willing to let us take six-month leaves of absence. We have also
received (and will continue to receive while on the trail) a tremendous
amount of familial support without which we never would have been able
to make this attempt.
- So I won’t be able to contact you for six months?
- Currently,
we’re planning to carry cell phones, which we plan to turn on at least
every few days, and only access the internet every two to four weeks
when in town for resupply.
- I will be updating interested parties on our progress via this blog, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Google+. The content will be virtually identical, so just use whichever is most convenient for you.
- If you would like to receive a postcard or two from us while we're on the trail, send your snail mail address to cultofbeautifulpain at gmail dot com.
