Miles and meal planning on a long trail

I'm a 40+ woman. I went pretty light hiking the PCT. I took a lot of zeros and often I would exceed my daily goals so that I could bank miles for my last day coming into town. If I got that last day down to only a few miles, I could get BREAKFAST!!!!

These are my miles not averaging in zero days.

• So Cal to Wrightwood - Daily goal 15 miles. Easily met and sometimes exceeded.
• So Cal between Wrightwood and Kennedy Meadows - Daily goal 20+ (22-23 miles). Usually met.
• High Sierras to Sonora Pass - Goal 15 miles (one big pass per day.) When the passes got smaller my daily miles went back up to close to 20.
• Sonora Pass to Oregon - Daily goal 20+ miles. Usually exceeded it by 5-15 miles.
• Oregon - Daily goal 25. Usually exceeded it, sometimes by up to 10 miles.
• Washington - Daily goal 25+. (Here's where I fully committed to a 25 mpd pace, carrying no more than enough food for that pace.) Always met, sometimes exceeded by no more than 5 or 6 miles.

Here's how I thought about planning and miles.

• Your daily goal is X miles. Let's say 20.
• To meet that goal, you must hike no LESS than 20 miles per day.
• If you hike less than 20 miles, you must add those miles to the following day or else you will end up with an extra day. So you hike 19 miles today, tomorrow you have to do 21. Hike only 15 and tomorrow you have to do 25. It can get daunting really fast, so dipping below your goal is extremely undesirable.
• Adding miles is better. You don't have to add a whole 20 miles to subtract a day. Here's why: Hike 25 miles and your last day is only 15 miles long. Hike another 25 miles and now your last day is only 10 miles long. Hike another 25 mile day and now your last day is only 5 miles long. You can do 5 miles before breakfast, so this day has pretty much evaporated!

What this means for planning purposes is that X miles a day is not the maximum you can do it's the minimum you will settle for.

It also means that if you haven't put in exactly the right amount of food, you'll be fine! Short a day of food? (sometimes that would happen to me--moldy tortillas, miscalculated the mileage, whatever) No problem. Start tacking on the extra miles and that last day of starvation will vanish. You'll roll into town in time for a big pancake sandwich breakfast and all will be right in the universe.

When I finally realized how easy it was to control my miles, the need for detailed planning completely evaporated.

Dealing with poison oak

Someone emailed me to ask about poison oak in the Ventana Wilderness after the fires they've had and how paranoid should he be. I remember in Section O on the PCT there were many people freaked out by poison oak. It seems poison oak scares many people more than most things. This is my response to him and I think it applies to hiking in Section O 0n the PCT.

I haven't been to the Ventana wilderness, but if it's anything like the area around Santa Barbara, I can imagine that there is plenty of poison oak. But whether people make too much about it is kind of subjective.

I think it helps to learn all the plants so you don't have to be so afraid. Many people are afraid of Squaw bush because it looks like poison oak. I saw more Squaw bush in the trail in Section O than poison oak.

I always hike in long pants and long sleeves. I use my poles to push the poison oak out of the way. I sometimes hike with loppers and will cut some of it gingerly to get it out of my way. I try to cut it as little as possible (and use gloves if I do) because it will aerosolize if you really hack at it. I will put my clothes in the washer and then take my shower after, (not the other way around) and take my shower with dishwashing detergent. In the field, I will wash with water as immediately as possible if I've touched it. If there is too much poison oak choking the trail, so bad I would have to push through a wall of it to get through, I will turn back. I don't worry about little tendrils crossing the trail that I can step over. I stay as far away from dogs as I can, too. They romp in it so you don't want to touch their fur.

I think it also helps to put it into perspective. It's just a rash. An annoying one that drives you crazy sure, but it's not a disease you will die from. If it's really bad they'll give you medication at the doctor and it'll go away really fast. After many backpacking trips I'll have a few little bits of poison oak. A small rash isn't so bad.

Here in the Santa Barbara area we've had a lot of fires. Many of our trails are not really there anymore, too. In the more open areas I haven't seen that this has caused more poison oak to grow. It likes canyons and shade more than sun (it grows more shrub-like in the sun anyway, easier to avoid.) The canyon areas here haven't burned as much as the slopes. Maybe if you choose a route that is higher in elevation and not so much in the canyons it will turn out that there's just a little bit at the beginning and end and the rest of the way it's clear.

I found a good page online about poison oak strategies in the Ventana. These strategies will apply to anywhere with poison oak.

Town stops vs wilderness experience on the PCT

Many people think that when hikers show an appreciation for towns along the PCT it is because they are not interested in a wilderness experience.

I probably talked about town as much as anybody else, including the venerable Billy Goat who I talked about what we were going to do in town plus what we did in the previous towns for half an hour. We talked about the beauty of the trail for five minutes. And what was our activity in town? Eating.

I and the people I talked to were hungry. It wasn't that we didn't bring enough food, it's that the food we brought wasn't refrigerated, fresh, ample or abundantly available. It didn't have bubbles or ice or 5% butterfat. Walk 20 or more miles a day and these things may become important to you, too.

We also talked about town because of the people we met along the way. Town became where I caught up with people I met and met new people to remember. Town becomes a part of the trail in that respect, part of the trail community.

I only spent perhaps 5 days of the entire 6 months I spent hiking the PCT hiking deliberately (as opposed to leap-frogging) with another person. I hiked the trail in two sections, 2008 and 2009, with a little additional section in the Sierra this year. I forged my own route from Santa Barbara to Hiker Town via trails in the very lonely and very remote mountains behind Ventura/Ojai/Filmore. I saw no footprints on that portion of my journey except for those of bears. I had a very solitary, wilderness experience throughout my entire journey.

I feel that I lived outside of civilization for 6 months. I came to dislike walls and ceilings, dislike pillows and padding, dislike paying to sleep, dislike cars and noise and the way civilized people shout when they talk. I still looked forward to town for the chance to rest, the shower, the laundry and mostly the food. It was indeed a necessary evil. We are not rugged individualists living off the land. We are just backpackers and we're dependent on modern technology to accomplish this incredible journey. Not a single person on the trail could have done it without the help of the internal combustion engine and cheap oil at the very least.

Town also marked my progress in a concrete way.

You can take zero days on the trail, but you still have all these tasks to complete when you get to town. It becomes more efficient of your time to take zero days in town so you can complete your tasks and return to the trail. No need to stop at every town. No need to party with frat boys if you aren't interested. No need to visit some of the famous trail angels if you don't like crowds. It's not a total either/or thing.

You can enjoy town, look forward to it and talk about it and it doesn't take away from having a wilderness experience.

Camp shoes

I've tried all kinds of camp shoes:

• Extra insoles with homemade elastic flip-flop straps: Worked okay but you can't walk very far in them. Can be stored inside your shoes under the top set of insoles.
• The existing insoles tied on with extra shoelaces: Worked okay but they don't stay on very well and you can't walk very far. The extra shoelaces can come in handy for other things.
• Flip-flops: When dry I was able to walk 15 miles in them one day when I had bad blisters. When they get wet they are very slippery and difficult to walk in.
• Crocs and crocs knockoffs: Could potentially hike the whole trail in them. Can add superfeet or whatever for extra support/protection. Heavy and bulky.
• Loosening my hiking shoes: Probably the best of all solutions I found. Sucks when your shoes are wet or frozen, though.
• Leaving the hiking shoes at home and wearing the "camp shoes" (hiking in Chaco sandals): I like hiking in Chacos. I never stub my toes. They work great most of the time. They have limited grip on some surfaces resulting in several nasty falls, snow gets trapped under my toes, and after a very long hiking day the lack of cushioning can be painful.

I still haven't found the perfect solution.

Surviving mosquitoes

What really works to protect against mosquitoes is a physical barrier, lots of layers.

To survive the ferocious Oregon mosquitoes I wore pants and a skirt over them (they bit through my pants alone), a T-shirt with a long-sleeved shirt over it (they bit through the long-sleeved shirt without the T-shirt.) I wore thick socks with my shoes (they bit through my shoes!)

My shirt was buttoned to my collar and the sleeves were buttoned at my wrists. I wore a headnet cinched at my collar with my collar turned up so there would not be a gap (they still bit me at the tiny little triangle exposed at my collar button and where the headnet cinched.) I tucked my shirt in so they would not fly up my shirt and bite my chest (they would do that.)

I held my trekking poles so that the straps flapped over my exposed hands. I sprayed 40% DEET on my hat, my shirt and pants. I put some on the backs of my hands and the heels of my hands (they bit the palms of my hands even when I held trekking poles.) That much DEET made me feel sick sometimes.

When I had to pee I used a urinary device so that I could pee standing up without exposing any skin. I made sure to apply DEET strategically in my tent before getting out of it in the morning to begin my hiking. I wanted to be ready for when I needed to do more than pee. I would dig my cathole away from my pack, hoping my pack would serve as a decoy. I would run back to my pack before using my cathole, then run back, hoping the mosquitoes would be confused for a moment and give me peace. That didn't really work, but DEET did.

I lived that way for a month through Oregon. I saw the whole state through a green haze of mosquito netting and DEET-induced nausea. I'm pretty certain that no matter how safe anybody says it is, DEET is quite toxic. At least I have pictures so I can see what I missed.

Getting on the trail quickly

It usually takes me 15 minutes to 1/2 hour to get going in the morning.

Things I do to save time:
Rinse my breakfast bowl with a small amount of water and drink the water. No elaborate dish washing. Or I eat no-cook food or eat while walking down the trail.

Pack everything in the same order every day. Unpack everything and leave it in the same place every night.

I usually do not camp near water. That wastes time. Instead I bring enough water at the end of the day to get through dinner and breakfast.

I might brush my teeth in camp or I might do that on the trail instead. If water is scarce, I won't do it at all. Brushing my hair wastes time so I have a hair style that requires a minimal amount of that.

Hot breakfasts and coffee waste time. But they are nice luxuries. Campfires and picnic tables also waste time and cause you to spread your stuff around making it harder to keep track of and locate.

I save time on clothing by sleeping in my hiking clothes. No change of clothing means no time spent changing clothes.

I save a lot of time by not being sentimental about my camping location. This sounds silly, but sometimes it seems like people are simply reluctant to leave. Once my stuff is packed I put my pack on, take a really quick look (really quick because I haven't spread my stuff out all over the place) and then I just GO.

When you are hiking a long trail, you are on a hiking trip, not a camping trip. So while this list may sound austere and punishing, it is really just a set of things to do to help maximize the hiking and minimize the camping. Now that I hike shorter trails, I do not do these things as much anymore. I drink the coffee, brush my hair, camp near water. Different techniques for different kinds of backpacking.

Finding injury and relief from different kinds of shoes

From trial and error with different kinds of footwear I've come to the conclusion that I overpronate in my left foot. I'm finding Chaco sandals to provide tremendous relief but I am not sure I would be able to hike the Pacific Crest Trail or long distances with them. I had to modify them some, too.

I wore a wide variety of shoes on the PCT. I had a lot of success with a couple of different brands of shoes and some terrible failures. Everybody seems to love the Montrail Hardrocks (or at least they did a couple years ago.) Those sent me off the trail with stress fractures after I had been doing so well in other shoes. I learned from them that I can't tolerate shoes with too much stiffness or other corrective properties (motion control and all that stuff.) I also had a lot of trouble with shoes that were too narrow. I spent a lot of time with my womens size 7 feet wearing mens size 9 or 10 shoes and feeling great. Then I found some 4E mens shoes and was in heaven. But even after finding shoes that didn't hurt me too much I still ended up injured because hiking the PCT is a repetitive stress injury machine. In my search for relief after the trail I've tried the motion control shoes again (reinjury), I've tried moccasins (some relief but not enough) and Chacos (hooray, relief at last.)

You have to do what works and be willing to get rid of or make modifications to any shoes that are giving you trouble out there. No matter how much you paid for them, no matter how much other people rave about them, no matter how much you like them, if your shoes are causing you pain you must get rid of them quickly and move on to something else. I used to walk into shoe stores and let shoe salesmen fit me. No more. I know so much now about my feet I tell them what I want and they look at me like I'm nuts but in the end they say, "wow, I thought you were nuts but I think you are right."

So really I don't have any advice. After all I am injured (tendonitis and sesamoiditis). But whenever I hear someone say the answer is boots I have to say something because it's not. Boots are tight, stiff, hot, have tremendous toe-spring, immobilize your feet and would have driven me off the trail in 3 weeks.

More on navigating

A nice man on the PCT list described how the PCT is so easy to walk that you lose your place on the map. You can walk for tens or hundreds of miles without having to ever look at a map. His term for it is you "become situationally disconnected" from your progress on the map.

That's the best description of the experience I had trying to use maps on the PCT. I started to feel like maybe I didn't have any idea how to use maps anymore. I almost never had to look at the maps. So when I did, they were nearly useless because I had no idea where to begin looking for my location. I just couldn't figure the maps out. Even in the snowy Sierras when we had been using maps I felt like a map dunce.

As we neared Sonora Pass, my friends and I had been using a really nice Green Trail Map to find our way. It was very helpful as we traveled on top of snow. Soon we descended out of the snow into more forested realms. We followed the nice wide trail for a long time and did not look at the green trail map again.

The following morning, I set off ahead of everyone. I climbed into snow again and eventually I could not find my way. There was a post with directions but it was pointing the way I had just come and calling that North. My maps were useless because I had the little guide book maps. I never could figure those out. They are all out of order in the book and too small to be of much use. The description didn't help much because it mentioned a dirt road and I could see one but no way in hell was I going to risk my life trying to hike on it when it was covered in vertical snowfields.

All I knew was where North was and that there was an east-west road coming up. So over I go cross country down a large canyon. Eventually I find a trail. Eventually a lake. Faint foot prints. Then people. I knew by the time I saw the lake that I'd gone the wrong way but I figured out what lake it was by the shape so knew where I was. I found my way to the east-west road and back to my friends.

As an aside, at one point we were unsure of the direction, we were in deep forest and off trail due to looking for safe stream crossings and at that time, it was the guide book description that saved our butts. We found a dismantled bridge mentioned in the guide book described as one we would cross and from there deduced the way to where the bridge had been prior to its dismantling and found the trail again.

I believe it's good to have a lot of tools in your box. And when you are stupid, like perhaps I am, or when they fail to help you, then a great tool to have is to just not panic and use some horse sense. You are not guaranteed to die or be rescued just because you aren't following a path.

A GPS is superior in some ways to a compass

A GPS is superior in many ways to a compass. It is very hard to locate yourself with accuracy on a map on a clear day let alone under conditions where you cannot see or identify the surrounding peaks. I have triangulated myself using a geologist compass and protractors and even with perfect conditions it was still hard to place myself on a map. With a GPS I would be able to place myself perfectly even if there was fog or trees to block my view.

On the PCT I didn't have or know how to use a GPS and most of the time I never bothered with my compass. Instead I relied on my watch. After a few weeks I knew what my average pace was. With the data book and guide book and my watch, I could pass a point of interest, check the time, check for the distance to the next point of interest in the book and then calculate the time it would take to get there. At the appointed time, I could look around me for the point of interest. I could be within 5 minutes accuracy on a regular basis this way. I came to rely upon this means of navigation almost entirely.

By looking around, I mean really looking. I met a many people who missed things because they didn't look. I would find sticks that perhaps had once been aligned as arrows but now were scattered, very faint tracks in the dirt, signs facing the wrong way on trees that had fallen over, rocks that appeared out of place to me. With my watch, I'd know it was time to start looking and I'd look very carefully.

I am reminded of the book Clan of the Cave Bear. It's fiction, but I always remember how in this book when the people needed a map, it would not be a diagram of a bird's eye view of the land but of the points of interest you'd see as you went along. I read the book a long time ago and thought if this really was how things had been done at any time in our human history, it certainly makes a lot of sense to me because it is how I make sense of my landscape on a daily basis all the time. I am also reminded of the trees they have found throughout the eastern US that had once been purposefully bent so that they would form a directional pointer to the way to go to get somewhere.

Navigating by such ground-level means has been with us a long time. They are good skills to have and seem to be dying as much as compass-reading due to our overly distracted, non-introspective, non-observant culture.

Use of phones on the long trails

The only real problem I have with cellphones is that the constant connectivity is becoming a mandate. It's great that people can go for a hike for two months and still do their jobs, but that is a two-edged blessing. If it becomes possible for the boss to have that "freedom", then how will the rest of us plebes get to take a two month vacation without being expected to work?

The other mandate now is that some people consider you to be irresponsible if you go into the wilderness without a phone or SPOT. It's fine if you want all that safety and security, but it makes it harder for those of us who feel we don't need this to do things our way.

I brought a cellphone on the PCT and was happy to have it. I used it to keep in touch. I didn't use it very often. I am not against cellphones.

I do kind of feel bothered by this new situation that seems to be happening where people have all these phone numbers pre-loaded so when they approach a town they just call someone for a ride and arrange their hotel accommodations before they arrive. I suppose I shouldn't be bothered by what other people do, but with the water caches and now even little stores popping up on the trail it kind of takes the "seat of the pants" adventure out of things. Makes it too easy. Lowers the bar so more idiots can get into trouble, too.

I tried the pre-arranged ride once on the PCT but it didn't work out for me. When I got to the pre-arranged meeting place two hours early there was somebody there willing to give me a ride right then. I canceled the pre-arranged ride. I decided that trail magic and serendipity would do the job well enough and just went with that from then on and had some of the most amazing adventures of my life.

People who rely too much on cellphones are starting to morph the meaning of trail magic and trail angels to mean mundane things like coolers of soda (often with advertisements for accommodations in town) and people who you can call to give you a ride when it used to mean learning about the gift economy of the trail, how it takes care of you when you let it. I feel sad that people are missing out on that very special magic.

The So Cal section of the PCT is NOT DESERT!

Someone asked why PCT hikers tend to be so ill-prepared for the weather in southern California. This was my response:

I see a pattern that if someone can't find the road to Cabazon or they turn up freezing cold at Mike Herrera's house or their tent falls down in 50mph winds (really, whose wouldn't?) the list (PCT-L, an email list about the PCT) tends to bring out discussions of why these people were so ill-prepared.

But okay fine, let's go on the assumption that these people are ill- prepared. Are they entirely to blame when the tendency for PCT listers and hikers, including seasoned PCT hikers, alike is to dismiss the entire first 700 miles of California as "the desert"?

I have argued with people that it's not the desert and they've disagreed with me despite me providing links to show the facts, so ingrained is the belief that it's all desert. I even spoke to someone on the trail who told me how much they loved the desert, having never visited before. Easy to say while they were under the forest canopy of the Lagunas.

There are only a few small places where hikers are actually truly in the desert as defined as a place with very little rainfall and sparse vegetation. The rest of the time you are hiking through all kinds of areas from riparian woodlands to oak woodlands to oak savannas to juniper and pine forest to the big cone spruce forested north facing slopes to interior live oak, blue oak and black oak forests and yes, a lot of chaparral. But chaparral isn't desert either. It's a forest adapted to conditions of hot dry summers, frequent droughts, wildfire and a COOL WET RAINY SEASON that stretches from OCTOBER TO APRIL.

But most people dismiss southern California as "the desert" and say things like "only 700 miles of desert and you'll be in the Sierra where the real hike begins". The tendency then is to believe you can start your hike in March as if you were going for a hike in Tucson. When my boyfriend wanted to start in mid-April I thought that was a little early but since previous years have been pretty nice and more and more people seemed to be starting earlier and earlier, maybe it would work out. I started my hike in May using Ray Jardine's PCT Handbook itineraries. I think it's interesting to note that even his longest itinerary doesn't start until May 7.

So maybe the blame lies in people using the shorthand "desert" to talk about hiking in hot, dry southern California. It's no desert. You are hiking from sky island to sky island. You are reaching nearly 10,000 feet forested mountain conditions within a few days. You touch true desert only a few times and spend only a few days here and there in it. And if you start your hike in April, you are still within the rainy season.

(P.S. I still wouldn't bring an ice axe. I would find another route or turn back. I am pretty sure you can still get injured falling with an ice axe. I believe every hiking party needs one scaredy-cat female not afraid to turn back with them.)

The Man has hiked to Warner Springs

The Man has hiked all the way to Warner Springs. He got there in less than 5 days. He says he's not tired or sore or anything. The hiking has been easy. He's very strong.

He says he has been trying to advise people on how to take advantage of the water on the trail. Too many hikers seem to just blow by the natural water sources on their way to the ones published in various books and online resources. Suffering in the heat, suffering under the weight of their packs loaded with water and struggling with hot, sore feet, they just walk past all the nice little creeklets on the trail. He suggests people stop at the natural water and soak their feet. Put their shirts in the water to cool off. You can't regret this, he says. He's right, of course.

He met Billy Goat, Unbreakable and No Trace, three people who I met last year. They remembered me. Billy Goat lost his hiking poles when he left them by a tree and someone took them to try to find their owner up the trail. He's got bamboo poles now and doesn't want metal ones again, even though someone tried to give him some.

The Man is soaking now in the hot spring-fed pool and enjoying the luxury of the resort. He plans a zero day. He'll probably be in Idyllwild this weekend. I wish I was with him.

Hiking with long hair

I have long, straight, fine hair. It can get incredibly tangled. It's also brittle and prone to static electricity, especially around the types of synthetic fabrics used in backpacking gear.

I used to have short hair. But with hair like mine, if I put on a hat, it would put dents in my hair. Hat hair. That sounds so vain, but I get killer hat hair. It can be so bad that even wetting my hair won't take out the dents that form. Worst of all, if my hair is short and I wear a hat, I look bald. I decided at one point that short hair and backpacking just don't work for me so I decided to grow my hair long.

Now it is very long, down to my waist. It clogs the tub and breaks the vacuum cleaner every time I vacuum. But it's perfect hair for backpacking. All I have to do is put it in a pony tail, then braid the pony tail. I don't have to comb it for several days. The braid keeps it tangle-free and clean. Sometimes, even after several days, I can take the braid out and still smell the shampoo. Sometimes I can take the braid out after one day and my hair is still wet from the shower. A braid really keeps my hair safe.

The only trouble with my hair being so long and with it also being brittle, is the weight of the braid can not only cause a headache pulling on the top of my head, but hairs break from the weight. I always have short hairs around my face that can't be pulled back in the pony tail and that blow around in the wind and tickle my nose or get stuck in my teeth or eyes. The only solution I have found for that is to wear a headband to keep those hairs pulled back.

A braid, a headband pulling the stray hairs away from my face and a hat is my hiking hair management system.

Hummus

Hummus is a paste of chick peas and sesame seeds with a little garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Maybe other things as well. You can buy powdered hummus in boxes in the supermarket or in the bulk bins at the health food store. All you have to do is add water. Olive oil is optional. A little hummus powder goes a long way and takes more water than you think to reconstitute.

Hummus is like miracle food for me. I ate it often on my PCT hike with crackers or fried pita chips. I could just crumble the crackers into it and eat it with a spoon. Add olive oil for extra calories.

Now that I'm not living on the trail I put hummus in a big tortilla with fresh onions, lettuce, tomatoes and anything else that looks good like cabbage or red bell peppers.

I can eat a hummus burrito and hike for hours with no hunger and plenty of energy. Of all the foods I ate in the middle of the day, hummus seemed to provide the best energy to lack of stomach rumbling ratio of anything I ate.

Going light doesn't have to be expensive

My tent and quilt were the most expensive things. The next most expensive were my two jackets and my titanium pot. Everything else was pretty cheap.

My clothing was either old stuff I've had for years or stuff I bought at the thrift store. I made a fleece balaclava out of an old fleece sweater from the thrift store. I also cut the sleeves off and used them as arm/leg warmers. These turned out to be really useful and light, serving also as a pillow and a pot cozy. I probably could have found jackets to use at the thrift store. I still have a down jacket that I used to always use that I bought at a thrift store for $10, but my new one is warmer and lighter.

My pack on the PCT was only $80 new. The pack I use now was only $40 from the PCT Kick-off ULA bargain bin.

For sleeping, I used half a z-lite which was a costly $35 but I also used half a blue foam pad from K-mart which was less than $10 new.

I used a few tiny containers that once held other things like medicine for my pet bird or visine. I refill my little travel-sized toothpaste over and over. I even refill a sample-sized foil pouch of anti-biotic ointment. It's tricky but can be done. All my hygiene and first-aid stuff is tiny and there isn't much of it.

I only brought one stuff sack (that's another place people waste a lot of weight), which was a pocket shower. Basically a dry bag with a shower nozzle. I put my sleeping bag in it when I thought it might rain and used it for a shower once. It was kind of wasted weight, except that it did work for my sleeping bag. For other stuff sacks, I just used ones that other things came in. I only had one other stuff sack anyway, which held all my hygiene items. Otherwise I used trash compactor bags for food and clothing. Compactor bags last a long time and if they get a little hole, just patch with duct tape. I used a trashbag for a pack cover. I paid the lady at White Pass a quarter for it.

Containers for drinking once held Gatorade or Naked Juice. I did have a few Platypus containers but they are relatively inexpensive and last a long time. I got the Naked Juice container in Stehekin for free because the juice inside was expired by a day. I still use it.

As a backpacker, I feel like the queen of trash, the dumpster-diver of backpacking. Going light can be way cheaper than going heavy because you need less gear overall and much of it can best be found by scavenging.

Washington resupplies

Washington is quite a bit more remote than Oregon. When it comes to resupplies, you end up sending boxes mostly. But do remember the guidelines:

• Don't ship candy, cookies or other junk food. That stuff is everywhere.
• Any place that has people will have food of some sort available.

My plan for Washington was to do as the Yogi book said and shop in Cascade Locks for all of Washington, assembling boxes and shipping from Cascade Locks. I found the town names in Washington to be incredibly confusing. Here's what I planned:

1. Send box to White Pass to the Kracker Barrel
2. Send box to Snoqualmie Pass to the Post Office with a note to keep it behind the counter at the Chevron
3. Send a box to Skykomish Post Office
4. Send a box to Stehekin

Here's how it worked out.

1) Picked up box at the Kracker Barrel
The Kracker Barrel is a minimarket at a gas station. They actually had a decent supply of food. You could almost shop here. What you could do is consider the food you can't live without and send only that. For me that was hot dinners. Then buy junk food for all the rest. I learned in Washington that you really can live on junk food.

2) Picked up box at the Chevron in Snoqualmie Pass
The Chevron has a huge mini-market. The post office is inside the mini-market, that's why they'll put the packages behind the counter. Actually, they put them in one of the beer coolers.

You could resupply here easily. There was all kinds of stuff in the mini-market, even shoes, clothes and books. There was also a grocery store, but I never looked inside. You could definitely skip sending a box.

3) Picked up box at Skykomish Post Office
This is a stop I kind of have mixed feelings about. But you kind of have to stop here. If there is a closer post office than Skykomish and you don't feel you have the need for a zero day, I would suggest you send your box there instead of going through the rigamarole of Skykomish. Skykomish is to the west of Steven's Pass where the trail emerges. Some people go east instead to another town that I forget the name of.

If you go to Skykomish, the host family actually drives you to another town further west called Baring. There's a post office there. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just send your stuff to that post office instead. Anyway, with all the driving around and having to wait for rides between the two towns of Skykomish and Baring, it almost isn't worth it.

Both towns of Skykomish and Baring have very small stores. You could probably make do if you are not picky, but sending a box of good meals is probably a good idea.

4) Picked up box at Stehekin Post Office
Some people try to resupply with just stuff from the bakery. Baked goods are heavy and are not as good the day after they are made. Day old pastries taste day old even on the trail. They have a restaurant and store. The store had a small selection but probably not enough to adequately resupply. You could do it if you had to, though.

After that, it's only about 4 days to the Canadian border and you are finished.

About those remote, Oregon resupplies

When I went through Oregon, it wasn't quite as remote as most resources out there led me to believe, as far as resupplies go. Yogi's book suggested I buy all my food for Oregon in Ashland and ship to various suggested locations throughout the entire state. So that is close to what I planned. However, not all my plans worked out and I also had time to observe a few things.

My planned Oregon resupply:

1. Ship to Crater Lake
2. Ship to Shelter Cove Resort
3. Shop in Sisters
4. Shop in Government Camp

These were all viable things to do. What I ended up doing:

1) Stopped in Fish Lake Resort for a meal.
They had a small store with food I could have purchased for hiking. They had a great breakfast and according to the hiker register, great lunch, too. They also had a full hiker box as apparently many section hikers do the whole state of Oregon and Fish Lake is their first stop.

2) Picked up box in Crater Lake post office
Mazama store had enough food to shop. I could have skipped sending the package. I was glad I sent my bounce box, though, because I needed my cotton skirt to protect me from mosquitoes that bit through my pant legs.

3) Picked up box at Shelter Cove Resort
It turned out Shelter Cove had a small store that was better stocked than expected. I could have found enough to eat there with a little flexibility. They also made a great cup of cafe Americano. Best I ever had. They also had a t-shirt and DEET to protect me from mosquitoes biting me through my shirt.

4) Stopped at Elk Lake for emergency shipment of a new tent and shoes, shopped in Bend
My tent zipper broke and the mosquitoes would have driven me insane without refuge, so I had a replacement tent shipped there. Also asked The Man to send some new shoes while I had to wait anyway. They had almost no food at all in their store. This was probably the only place on the whole trail with so little food for sale. Only candy bars, chips and granola bars.

There is a restaurant at Elk Lake Resort. It seems the biggest meals are the burgers and they're pretty good. The beer is great.

While I was here waiting for my tent and shoes, I learned it is easy to get a ride from Elk Lake to Bend which is a good-sized city with major grocery stores. They have an REI, too. I ended up going to Bend and shopping there instead of Sisters.

5) Skipped the trip to Sisters

6) Stopped in at Big Lake Youth Camp for a meal
Turns out you can send a box to Big Lake Youth Camp. The meal was excellent, cheap and all I could stuff into my belly.

7) Attempted to stop at Ollallie Lake for a meal or snack
They were closed. I was like a lost puppy searching for food. It's not that I didn't plan enough, it's that there was simply never enough food. More was always welcome.

8) Shopped in Government Camp.
I hitched down from Timberline Lodge. Government Camp is a ski town. They have a mini-market and a small grocery store. There was ample food available for the two days to Cascade Locks. I made sure to eat at Timberline Lodge, too.

With the last two days completed from Government Camp to Cascade Locks, I was finished with Oregon. I learned a lot in Oregon about how hiking the trail is a lot like regular life. When you get hungry, you go get food. Plans can easily change and it doesn't ruin anything. Everything works out.

Resupplying and planning on the PCT

I'm watching The Man planning his hike on the PCT. It is hard not to butt in with advice. At some point, people have to do their own thing.

How resupply works
Here's how resupply and planning ended up working for me after I got the hang of it all.

All you have to do is take the distance you have to the next town and divide it by your daily pace. Carry that amount of food.

What is your daily pace? You'll get to know it after the first section or two. Plan the first two sections based on what you think you can do, then plan the rest of them after you know for sure what your pace is. That way you won't end up with too much food in your resupply boxes or become a slave of the post office, forced to time your schedule around the hours/days the post office is open.

To give you an idea of pacing on the PCT, before around Big Bear, my pace was around 15 miles a day.

After Big Bear, my pace was 20+ miles a day. Usually I did just a little more than 20.

Once I hit the High Sierra, my pace went back down to around 15. That took me by surprise and I ran out of food. Next time I will know and plan better.

After the High Sierra my pace started to rise to over 25 miles a day. Except for a few times in Oregon, my pace stayed around 25-30 miles a day.

Figure out how many days it'll take to the next store and buy that many days of food. It's that simple.

You will soon learn that most towns have grocery stores and even those that don't will have small markets. Many of these little markets are well aware they are on the PCT and try to carry stuff that hikers will eat. That's usually Pop-tarts, pasta sides and similar items.

With a little research, you can learn which towns have better stores. Then you can shop at those stores and from those towns, send ahead a package to a town that has limited supplies. By doing this, you don't need to rely upon a person at home to mail stuff to you. Also, if you do this a lot, that is to say, if you ship a lot of small boxes to little places in between the big ones, you don't have to carry as much heavy food.

Where do you find info about towns? The Yogi book is good. I also found good info on the Purebound PCT resupply page, As the Crow Flies resupply page, and Mara Factor's page. Sometimes towns change, stores go out of business, better stores open etc. But when people live somewhere they usually have to eat, so as long as there's a town there will be something to eat. And the bigger the town the less likely it is they'll lose their grocery store. Plan accordingly.

Towns with big grocery stores:

• Tehachapi
• Mammoth
• South Lake Tahoe
• Chester
• Ashland
• Bend

Towns with medium-sized, full grocery stores:

• Idyllwild
• Big Bear Lake (different from Big Bear City)
• Wrightwood
• Agua Dulce
• Lone Pine
• Bishop
• Bridgeport
• Burney? (Not the falls but the town)
• Etna
• Cascade Locks

Anywhere else will have a medium market, small market, mini-market or less. You can usually make it with what's available at these kinds of markets if you aren't too picky.

How does the daily mileage planning really work?
If your pace is 15 miles a day, you have to do at least 15 miles a day. Every mile less than that is a mile you have to add to the last day. So try to add miles to each day to chip away at the last day.

Once you reach your maximum speed, you can risk putting the pressure on yourself. For me the pressure was 25 mile days. Despite a little anxiety that it might be too much pressure, I was able to achieve it. The sad thing is that a 30 mile day doesn't chip much off that last day, but it sure does add a lot to the day you're doing it!

A few more general rules and tips for resupply

1. Never ship candy, cookies, junk food. You can get that everywhere.
2. Don't ship Pop-tarts, Pasta Sides, instant rice or similar hiker fare except to some of the more remote locations in Oregon and Washington.
   
3. If there's stuff you can't live without, it is worth it to make resupply boxes of it to ship.
4. Sometimes you can just bounce a box of special stuff. For me that was powdered Nido milk, Just Fruits, Emergenc-C and a few other similar items.
5. Learn to be creative. You can carry peanut butter and a loaf of bread or bagels, breakfast pastries or muffins, takeout pizza and sandwiches, even pancakes.
   

Really, it's a lot like regular life. You don't plan your resupply for regular life. You just look at the empty pantry and refrigerator and go to the store. It's the same on the trail. Really.

Hiker Hunger

I remember the day my hiker hunger kicked in. It was the day after Mission Creek Canyon, the day before Big Bear.

I struggled up Mission Creek Canyon with no energy at all. I could barely make it. I couldn't figure out how it could feel so steep and look so level. At the end of the canyon it gets really steep as it goes up to Mission Creek Camp. I thought I would never make it.

The next day I was sitting by the side of the road casually snacking on one of my tiny little bags of dried fruit and nuts. I would normally ration one bag for the whole day. Before I knew it I had eaten the whole bag. I suddenly had more energy. Then I found bananas and mountain dew a little further on the trail. Now I felt great. I did my first 26 mile day. Duh! I need food! In Big Bear I really started eating.

In the Sierras I shrunk and shriveled up from starvation. At one point in the Sierras, because I didn't expect to do so few miles each day (I started doing 20-ish but then two passes a day was too much so had to cut back), I ran out of food and was rationing. A handful of nuts for lunch, diet Crystal Light for dinner. Oddly I wasn't really that hungry although I was very hungry, if that makes sense. I lost whatever was left. My breasts became empty sacks. I became an emotional wreck.

They say hikers need anywhere from 3000 to 10,000 calories on the trail. Closer to 3000 if you hike less than 10 miles a day. Closer to 10,000 if you're up to 30 or more. It's really strange to need so much food. But you learn soon the more you eat the farther you can go. In 2009 I was regularly hiking 30 miles a day. No way was I eating 10,000 calories, but I bet I was close. My typical day of food was:

• Two trail bars, or 1/4 bag of fig newtons, or one bowl of dense cereal with powdered milk
• 1 stack of Pepperidge Farm cookies (some have 2 stacks per bag and some have 3)
• About 2 inches deep of hummus in my 1 liter pot with crackers to scoop it up
• 1 King sized candy (M&Ms, Reeses Pieces, Candy Bar)
• 1/3 box of Cheese-its, sometimes with a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter
• At least one diet hydration drink and 2 Emergenc-C packets
  
• Almost 1 liter of dense pasta with 1 packet of Alfredo cheese powder, 1-2 individually wrapped cheese sticks and maybe some dried veggies
• 1 King sized candy or large candy (gummy bears, 1/2 giant Hershey bar, M&Ms, Reeses or Candy Bar) for dessert
  

I don't think that adds up to 10,000, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's over 5000. I can guess that some of the trail towns I was consuming close to 10,000 calories to make up for the deficit on the trail. The truly great thing about long distance hiking is that it's the only time in your life when it's not just guiltless but it's your grave responsibility, your duty, your job to eat all you can.

In 2009 my hiker hunger hit quickly within about 200 miles. I made sure to eat as soon as the hunger kicked in. I lost the padding from off-trail life, but otherwise I had no sunken cheeks, no shriveling.

I still get hungry easily but I'm getting better. The hunger has mostly subsided, but it comes back easily. I think I'm actually starting to lose the weight I gained since returning home again. Maybe I'll finally even back out to normal or reach a place where I can lose weight and be fit like a hiker without having to hike all day like a hiker. I can only hope.

Letter to someone on how to keep going

Someone asked me how to deal with emotions on the trail and how to keep going when the desire to quit comes over you. Since I had said that I got emotional quite often on the trail, I was contacted for advice.

I don't know if I have useful advice or not. I don't really consider myself too terribly emotional, but something about being on the trail I felt more of everything. Everything was so magnified. I would cry most often just because I finally had something good to eat or somebody was nice to me! So many times I would be blubbering over a plate of food in a restaurant. It was embarrassing.

I guess what helped was that I wasn't hanging around anybody, especially not 25 year old guys. The only person I had to prove anything to was myself. I did hike with people a few brief times and that was helpful, too. But I preferred to go it alone.

As for wanting to quit? I wanted to quit only twice. Once was in the High Sierra. It's just too rugged there or maybe the high altitude messes with my mind. I gave up before Muir Pass and actually hiked out to Bishop, rented a car and drove home. I cried the whole way up and over Bishop pass. When I got home I was like, what the heck am I doing home?

My boyfriend said let's go back to the trail and hike a small section together so we drove back and hiked from Mammoth to Yosemite. Along the way he said to me that I had to keep going, I had to finish what I started. My story didn't have a happy ending and he was living vicariously through it. He said it was the only thing making his work stress manageable. So I agreed, but no more High Sierra. He bumped me up to Sonora Pass and I hiked north from there.

I have since completed the section between Yosemite and Sonora Pass, but I have not completed the 60 miles I missed between Bishop Pass and Mammoth. Hike your own hike. My hike just doesn't include that part and I'm at peace with it.

The other time I wanted to quit was after putting up with the mosquitoes for several weeks in Oregon and then being rained on for a couple of weeks in Washington. But I didn't want to quit enough to actually quit. I knew that if I quit so far north I would never return. I knew if I quit I would feel disappointed and angry with myself. So I just kept going.

Little things kept me going, things like knowing that I was doing something I had always wanted to do, feeling at home in the forest and hating how awful it is in cities with all the cars and ugliness, and being able to eat as much as I wanted didn't hurt! The beauty of the wilderness and knowing it was my home, feeling so completely at home in it, was uplifting.

Taking rests helped. I spent 3 days out of the mosquitoes in Oregon and after that I was able to laugh at them a little more. I spent 4 days out of the weather in Washington and after that I was ready to keep going. Anytime I wanted out of the wilderness I just got out and rested. I was so strong I could look at 60 miles ahead of me and know I could be out tomorrow if I wanted. As long as I never went home, I knew I could continue. So that was my rule. Never go home. I carried a Canadian flag on my pack to remind me.

The kindness of others helped. And having people be really interested in my experience helped. They would help me remember that what I was doing was worth completing.

What I wish I could have done differently was have a better attitude about the mosquitoes and rain (actually, it was the overgrown, wet bushes on the trail). I wish they hadn't ruined my morale. I was having the time of my life until then, and then I let those things get to me. I couldn't snap out of it. I wished I could have changed it, but I don't know how. So I just kept going no matter what.

I have to say when I got to the last day on the trail and I wasn't able to find the sign-in register at the Canadian border, the idea of going back the 8 miles to sign the register was something I turned down. I was ready to go home. The time when I had gone home from Bishop I hadn't really been ready. The times I was miserable with mosquitoes and wet bushes I wasn't ready. But when I got to the border, I was ready. Even now, with my boyfriend planning to hike from Campo to Kennedy Meadows I have no desire to do all that with him. I am very happy that I completed it. Knowing that I would be happy with the completion is what really kept me going.

Good luck and I know you can make it. Just don't go home no matter what. It's totally worth it to have this kind of achievement. You will carry around a secret understanding of how powerful you are, what you are capable of, that nobody, no mean boss, no petty co-workers, no abusive people can ever take away. You will know where the hole in the fence is and that this so-called "real world" isn't real at all and you know where to go to find the true real world. It's incredibly powerful to have this knowledge.