On the Way

The Plan

I love mountains, but I’ve lived in Florida most of my life. However, I had the great fortune of spending some time in the Sierra Nevada a couple of years ago. While I did spend some time in the Appalachians as a child, I was super impressed by the towering granite peaks and precipitous cliffs of the High Sierra. While I currently live under the massive canopies and Gaudi-esque branch/root configurations of South Florida banyan trees, I was awestruck by the looming stature of the monumental sequoias and redwoods in Sequoia National Park. While I enjoyed tromping through the remnants of an early December blizzard in NYC a few years back, I was thrilled by making snowballs in Carson wilderness during the month of June!  

In February 2015, after watching a quirky documentary about a group of friends thru-hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT), called ‘Mile… Mile & a Half’, I decided I needed more mountains in my life. So I began planning a southbound thru-hike of the ~210 mile JMT, which ends at the summit of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that there is a short supply of permits for a very high demand. I learned that one way of getting around this complication is to hike 500+ miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, for which the Pacific Crest Trail Association provides permits. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is a 2660 mile trail that runs through a multitude of mountain ranges from Mexico to Canada. It merges and runs with a very large portion of the JMT, and it is very common to take the short side trip to summit Whitney. Every year hundreds of people attempt to continuously hike from one end of the PCT to the other. More recently, especially after the release of Cheryl Strayed’s book “Wild”, close to 1500 people attempt this thru hike every year. So I started planning a section hike from Walker Pass, which is in the southern Sierra, to Truckee, which is in the northern Sierra.  But after hearing about the beauty of the stark desert landscapes and rolling mountains of the diverse southern California section of the PCT and the majestic Cascades of Oregon and Washington, I decided not to sell myself short and to attempt a thru-hike of the entire trail. After all, the hike takes 4 months and this coming summer is likely the last time in the coming years I will have the time for this awesome endeavor. Will I finish? I'm not sure. But finishing isn't the main motivator nor the main goal.

Will I Survive?

The two most common questions I'm asked when I tell people about my plan are: What are you going to do for food? Is it dangerous? For food I'll be resupplying in the larger towns as I pass through them and mailing food ahead to the smaller towns. The biggest concern for the first 700 miles of the trail (and parts of northern California and southern Oregon) will be water. I will mostly drink from natural sources, which I will treat with aquamarina. However, there are 20-30 miles stretches of the trail with no water, which means I'll sometimes have to carry 6-7 liters (a little over ten pounds). 

Usually people have bears in mind when they ask me if the hike is dangerous. However, bears are not aggressive and tend to avoid people. Bear/human interactions tend to occur when food is involved. Bears become a potential threat when they become habituated to people, so in order to protect both humans and bears proper food storage is important. Throughout the Sierra Nevada, where black bears are more common, you must use a bear canister to store your food. This practice greatly reduces the chances of unfortunate interactions between humans and bears. Rattlesnakes are a potential danger, especially in southern California. However, rattlesnakes are not aggressive and tend to avoid humans or make their presence known with rattling. So the best way to avoid being bit by a rattlesnake is to pay attention. This means I won’t be jamming out to the Wu Tang Clan while I’m walking through the desert. 

There is very little risk of getting lost. The trail is well marked for the most part and I have topo maps and a compass and a GPS app. The biggest dangers are probably hypothermia and sliding down an ice chute into a rock pile or off a cliff. However, this rarely happens on the PCT during the thru-hiking season. More importantly, I have a good shelter and a nice, warm sleeping bag, and I also have an ice axe and crampons for the snow chutes.

How Did You Physically Prepare?

I will be walking 20-25 miles every day with a loaded pack. All in all, my base weight (my pack weight before food and water) is about 18lbs. I had hoped to keep that number at or less than 15lbs, but couldn’t quite manage. It is possible that I will shed some gear as I start the hike. With food and enough water for the desert, my total pack weight will often be close to 40lbs. So another common question I get is: how have you been getting ready---have you been hiking a lot with a loaded backpack? Such a strategy seems reasonable enough. However, I'm not sure that I entirely agree that the best way to prepare for a hike is by hiking a bunch. A lot of injuries on the trail are overuse injuries. Overuse injuries, especially those involving joints and ligaments, often occur because of muscle weakness and poor form. For example, if your muscles are weak, instead of lifting with your quads, glutes, and hip flexors, you lift with your knees, and this puts too much strain on the knees overtime leading to injury. Something similar might be said for the ankles, hips, back, etc. A large point of training for a big hike should be the prevention of injury, and it doesn’t make sense to try and prevent overuse injuries by overusing your body before the hike. I’ll get plenty of hiking on the trail, so to train and prepare I have been doing a lot of strengthening and stretching. I've been focusing on my core, in particular my back and abdominal area. But of course I've been focusing a lot on my legs, in particular my hip flexors, quads, plantar flexors and calves. However, I did complete a couple of practice hikes with a pack, which allowed me to practice my form while hiking with a loaded pack. I'll start slow and build my way up as I hike.

Motivations

Like so many others, I have always been drawn to the idea of making a trek through the wilderness. There are obvious aesthetic reasons to make such a trek—as John Muir (in his usual somewhat hyperbolic fashion) notes,

“No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty!” 

Of course, there are more personal reasons to make such a trek. This kind of experience will be an opportunity to strip down to the more essential aspects of life, which can create some space in which one can find inspiration and perhaps see what one really values in life more clearly. However, while it is easy to give this kind of endeavor a Transcendentalist, romantic gloss, the reality is that for four months I’ll be sleeping in a tent, pooping in holes that I dig, walking through cold rain, fording turbulent and icy steams, managing blisters, etc. all the while having the easy option to quit and seek the warmth and comfort of four sturdy walls and a bed (and perhaps a little whiskey). I can voluntarily quit at any time, and I imagine sometimes the biggest challenge—even more than the physical—will be not doing just that. Fortunately, my time as a graduate student of philosophy has prepared me for this. But another, more important motivator is all of the wonderful support and encouragement I have received from my colleagues, friends, and family. I have been a bit surprised at how exited people have been when I tell them about this trip, and so I feel that I am attempting this hike for all of us.

Citations

The thru-hiking community is big and there are thousands that have thru-hiked the PCT. I have spent almost a year reading various books, blogs, and online resources. I feel obliged to cite the following, which have helped me prepare immensely: the PCT-L listserv; Mike Clelland’s “Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips”; Karen Berger’s “The Pacific Crest Trail: A Hiker’s Companion”; Travis “Duke” Baron and Eric “ET” Timmerman’s documentary ‘Do Less with More’; and Jackie “Yogi” McDonnell’s “Pacific Trail Handbook 2016-17”.