Gear: You Are Almost Always Bringing Too Much

It seems that every hiker has almost the same story of their first trip. Load a pack up with everything you think you could possibly need, and hit the trail. Might get bored? Bring a few books! Need more stuff than you can fit IN your pack? Strap it to the outside! Food? An early trip in my career was primarily fueled by canned ravioli and Vienna sausages. HEAVY shit for sure!

My buddy had a full size bed pillow strapped to his pack, which another hiker we saw on the trail exclaimed obscenities about. Good thing he didn't bring the air mattress along after all!

So this first foray into hiking usually involves a 40+ pound pack, insanely sore legs, and a lasting memory of pain you would like to avoid ever repeating.

From there it's a process of cutting items down every trip, and finding lighter alternatives. Also, it's a process of gradually learning what comforts you can really live without, and adjusting yourself accordingly.

Note the size of the cook pot hanging out on the back of my pack - classic!

There's a beauty in the simplicity of it really. It's carried over into other parts of my life as well. I traveled to Taiwan for two weeks this year with a single carry-on bag and 3 changes of clothes. Every time I move, I look at all the crap I've accumulated. Stuff that I've hauled around to three different homes and never really even use. I've begun to look at that with the same mentality of eliminating needless possessions, or convincing myself not to buy them in the first place.

Moving all my crap.. once again

 I've put together an overview of the gear I'll be bringing. The hiker method of comparing pack weight involves the concept of 'base weight'. This is the weight of everything (excluding food and water, which vary in weight due to consumability) that will pretty much reside in your pack. Tent, sleeping bag, and the backpack itself are 'the big three' collectively, as they are typically the heaviest contributors to overall pack weight.

My base weight is currently coming in around 16.6 lbs. With water and a weeks worth of food loaded up, I estimate about 20 to 25 lbs on top of that. I will be carrying this over literal mountains - so I need to be mindful about eliminating the excess!

Wearing     Packed        Total 2.64 lbs 16.62 lbs 19.26 lbs           oz           lbs Gossamer gear Mariposa (BackPack) 31.5 1.97        Big 3    Clothes         misc Marmot Plasma 15 degree + stuff sac 36.4 2.28 6.13 lbs 6.84 lbs 6.29 lbs Contrail Tarp tent + steaks 30.2 1.89 UrSack (food bag) 5 0.31 trekking poles (total for both) 18.8 1.18 ground sheet (tub) 3.4 0.21 pack towel 2.1 0.13 hankerchief 1.2 0.08 DEET 0.9 0.06 Sunscreen 1.1 0.07 compass 1 0.06 bits of rope 1.7 0.11 stick pic (for taking video) 1 0.06 Thermarest pad (14 segments) 13.4 0.84 wet wipes  1.5 0.09 Headlamp 3 0.19 S4 phone (w/ otter box) 7.1 0.44 Cables 1 0.06 Battery pack 4.7 0.29 Knife 0.7 0.04 Journal/Pen 2 0.13 Stove 3 0.19 Fuel 5.9 0.37 Cook pot 4 0.25 Spoon 0.7 0.04 Sawyer mini + filter bag 2.6 0.16 Clothing! Darn toughs socks 2.5 0.16 Darn toughs socks 2.5 0.16 Injini socks (x1) 1.5 0.09 Marmot Precip 11.5 0.72 Marmot driclimb 8.4 0.53 Mountain hardwear Puffy 13.3 0.83 Sleep shirt 8.7 0.54 Capilene pants 4.9 0.31 Patagonia shirt 3.7 0.23 Prana shorts 6 0.38 Prana Pants 13.7 0.86 Ex Officio boxers (x2) 2.7 0.17 Sun Glasses and stow sack 1.5 0.09 OR sun hat 3.1 0.19 Rain Kilt 2.8 0.18 Bug Net (.8 without bag) 0.8 0.05 Howler bros shirt 7.1 0.44 beanie (Arcteryx) 2.2 0.14 sun gloves 0.6 0.04 umbrella 12 0.75 First aid/toiletries 14.8 0.93

Resupply Madness!

I'm now completing the final preparations before setting off.. which means I've got my gear nailed down and my resupply packages ready to go (mostly)!

 Resupply is an interesting topic. A lot of the advice I've come across seems to indicate that the preferrable strategy is to primarily fill up at grocery stores in towns along the way, for two reasons: schedule flexibility, and changes in food appetite.

You can skip a town here or there if you are still well supplied, since you don't have make a scheduled package pick-up. If you decide you are absolutely tired of instant oatmeal, you don't have to dread the fact that you've already shipped a million packets of it in your future boxes!

For that reason, I'm going to restock via a small combination of mailed boxes and resupply in town stores. I've prepared 3 boxes to have sent to me, which I can contact my resupply guru (thanks mom!) To add any additional gear I need. For towns that may not have large enough stores, I can plan ahead and even ship myself a package from the town just before!

Check out the map. I'll start with enough food for a week. That should get me to mile 109.5, Warner springs, if I cover at least 15 miles a day. That's where im sending package no. 1.

Then I hit the grocery at the next town at mile 179, Idyllwild, which is also supposed to be a super hiker friendly town. That'll get me to Big Bear at mi 266, etc ect..

Fun part was buying all the resupply food. Criteria for hiking nutrition: lots of calories!   

Bomb's away, I'll let you know how it goes.

Making the leap: Deciding to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail

"Our goal should be not the emulation of the ancients and their ways, but to experience for ourselves the aspects of human existence out of which arose those ancient forms which when we see them elicit such a feeling of... longing. Otherwise the modern will remain forever superficial while the real will remain ancient, far away, and therefore outside of ourselves."

- Mr. Aoki 

(Dog-eared from "A Language Older than Words" by Derrick Jensen)

I've been plotting the path for a thru-hike attempt of the Pacific Crest Trail since October last year. More recently, I've done some thinking about the internal journey for me in this regard - in particular, how did I go from dreaming about this sort of adventure to actually taking the steps to attempt it?

I think I first discovered the Pacific Crest Trail a few years ago in Ray Jardine's hiking book, "Trail Life". Jardine was the go-to source for lightweight hiking wisdom for PCT hikers for many years, and it was actually images from the PCT in that book that ignited the desire for me to attempt it at some point in my life.

Trail Life - Ray Jardine

I am familiar with the book "Wild", though I hadn't read it myself prior to this year.  I've read a number of other long distance hiking travelogues, and am fascinated with the insights gained from such an undertaking. The Appalachian trail is pretty well known today I would venture to say. Lots of people attempt it for numerous different reasons; after being diagnosed with cancer, after losing a job or retiring, or after college/high school with no idea where to head in life.


I read "The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind - and Almost Found Myself - On the Pacific Crest Trail" By Dan White.

And you can't go wrong with Bill Bryson's, "A Walk in the Woods".

But the big one that pushed me forward with my own ambition this past year was a youtube series by a guy named Joe Brewer. Something about his series of video journals for the AT and PCT presented the journey as something difficult, but very possible. Watching a seemingly normal guy (though I still find him to be a inspiring individual) hike all that way made me ask myself, "Why couldn't I do it?"

Here's a link to his Mt. Whitney summit - one of my favorites from his hike. I will be borrowing his method of documenting the journey through video logs most likely..

Joe Brewer's PCT Hike - Mt. Whitney



I will also be using one of the well known PCT guidebooks, "Yogi's PCT Handbook".
The information in this book is ridiculously well laid out. Her list of re-supply towns makes it a breeze to map out a plan (she even lays out step by step how to label and ship the package to minimize any potential delivery problems!)

Also, check out Mac from HalfwayAnywhere.com for some more enjoyable PCT info.

www.halfwayanywhere.com/pacific-crest-trail

I am very much "standing on the shoulders of Giants" as I plan this adventure. The path is well laid out for those who seek to find it, it just takes that last leap of faith to actually leave everything behind.

More blogs to come soon.. definitely expect a gear overview of everything I am bringing with me before I set out, and an overview of food I will be bringing.