Dogs on the PCT

Since this is a blog about hiking with dogs I thought I ought to address this. Just in case some random internet troll comes along and starts yelling at us about how we're torturing our dog. Don't worry little troll Jaxx isn't going. This is a bummer for me, but it's the right choice.

Dogs are allowed on a large portion of the PCT, but in my opinion it is a cruel thing to do and not terribly practical either. Here's why:

• Your dog cannot mentally prepare for what it's going to mean to be hiking every day for 3 months. 
• There are places on the PCT where you go 30 miles without water. Are you really going to carry all the water you need, and enough water for your pet? If I really skimp I could make it two days on 6 L, having to carry double that for my dog as well is a LOT OF EXTRA WEIGHT.
• Same thing for food. Except multiple it by 3 months, and remember you're eating more, your dog would need to also.
• You can mentally push yourself through pain. Blisters. Toenails falling off. Etc. What do you think you'll do if your dog just stops? I've carried Jaxx 1.5 miles when he couldn't hike anymore and it sucked for both of us. 
• For the sections where dogs are not allowed, are you planning on having somebody pick you and your dog up and drop you off on the other side? Logistical nightmare.

Instead, Jaxx will be staying with my Mom for the three months we'll be gone. I'll miss him, but he probably won't miss me too much. My mom has two dogs, that Jaxx loves playing with and she lives on half an acre so he gets to run around and play ball everyday. On the whole a much better option than misery and cracked foot pads.

Iron Horse Trail (Lake Annette Trailhead to S.E. Keechelus Lake)

Iron Horse Trail - June 22nd, 2014

I-90 Corridor

Mileage: 14 Miles (One way)

Elevation Gain: 400 ft.

Dogs Allowed

I mentioned in an earlier post about the grand summer 2014 hiking plan Allison and I created for this hiking season. One of the problems that continued to cause us headaches was the unpredictability of the snow levels in the mountains. The snow level and dates the mountains are finally clear of snow can vary greatly from year to year and unfortunately during the summer 2014 hiking season, the snow did not melt away as early as it had in previous years. This caused us to have to alter our planned hikes for several weekends, including the weekend of June 22nd. 

We had initially planed to hike the Kendal Katwalk. This hike takes its namesake from a football field- length portion of the hike where the trail was literally blasted into the side of a steep mountain. WTA notes, " the name Kendall Katwalk conjures up an image of a narrow pathway blasted out of a steeply sloped rock face, that’s part of it. But the whole package includes old-growth forest, gorgeous wildflowers, and stunning views into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness from both sides of the pass below Kendall Peak, where the Katwalk begins." Needless to say this was on our Washington hiking, bucket list. Unfortunately, by the time this hike came due on the calendar, the snow level was still too high to safely complete the catwalk, so I had to come up with plan B. Although, I'm kind of sad that we didn't get to do the Katwalk. Even though we were initially quite disappointed, it was also kind of fortuitous because it made me find a really exotic hike I may not have discovered otherwise. 

The hike I ended up planning had several very diverse sections, including the most notable, a 2 mile long underground section that followed an abandoned railroad tunnel. The final hike ended up being a 14 mile section of Washington State Park's Iron Horse Trail, a 110 mile path that follows an old railroad track from Ollalie State Park to Cle Elum in Eastern Washington. I picked a section that went from Keechelus Lake through to the Lake Annette Trailhead. As I mentioned before, this hike ended up being very diverse. Starting from the Lake Annette trailhead, the hike begins in lush forests which quickly give way to the original path of the railroad, which is now a large open gravel corridor. This section of the hike offered fantastic views of the cascades and lasted until we got to the mouth of the tunnel. 

The actual underground section of the hike took approximately 45 minutes. For the majority of this time we were in complete darkness. This combined with the temperature plummeting almost 40 degrees and sharing the tunnels with dimly lite strangers made for a slightly spooky journey which was not exactly enjoyable for some members of the hiking group. Luckily everyone made it out alive. Since Iron horse trail was originally a railroad track, it is graded much more gently than almost any other hike in the I-90 corridor, so despite clocking in at 14 miles it was a pretty easy hike. Despite being in the mountains, we only gained 400 feet of elevation, mostly because of the tunnel. 

The final section of the hike took place on the Western bank of the Keechelus Lake. The lake is an irrigation control reservoir and the beginning of the Yakima River. With a water storage capacity of 195,000,000 m³, Keechelus' brilliant blue offered stunning contrast to surrounding peaks of the cascades. This section of the hike was 6.5 miles on a flat gravel path. I forgot to mention earlier in the post that in order to make this into a 14 mile day hike and not at 28 mile overnight, we took two vehicles and broke the our party into two groups who started from opposite ends of the trail. We swapped keys when the groups converged in the middle of the hike and then met back up at the Lake Annette parking lot to regroup before heading back to Seattle.  

Overall it was a really good day and the tunnel section of the hike provided a completely new hiking experience.   Iron Horse Trial is a very bike friendly trail, and if I ever get to go back I think we will try to bike a larger section of the trail rather than hike.

Katie's Birthday Camping Trip (Rialto Beach)

Rialto Beach - June 6th, 2014
Pacific Coast - Olympic National Park
Mileage: 2 Miles (Round Trip)
Elevation Gain: Negligible
No Dogs Allowed

This post represents a bit of a departure from the traditional hiking and backpacking posts on this blog, in that our trip to Rialto Beach was most definitely car camping at its finest and most gluttonous. That being said, Allison and I both discussed whether or not we would do a post about this trip and decided that although it wasn't a hiking trip, we still wanted to share some of our pictures and document the awesome time we had for our blog readers.  

Our group of friends had done a very similar group trip to Rialto Beach in 2010, and we all enjoyed it so much that we new we wanted to go back sometime in the future. Rialto Beach was also part of the exhaustive Summer 2014 hiking schedule Allison and I put together. So, it was serendipitous when a few months before this trip, Katie and I were discussing what she wanted to do for her birthday celebration for 2014 and she mentioned that she really wanted a birthday camping trip to Rialto Beach.  She also wanted me to build her a swing on beach out of driftwood and 500 lb test paracord... More on that marvel of engineering later. So, we put our heads together, came up with a date that worked for everyone and setup an event thru the APPUM hiking group on Facebook.

We ended up having a final group of 12 people.  On Friday afternoon we loaded the cars and got on the a ferry headed to the peninsula. It might seem, on the surface, that the main focus of this trip was camping, but let me clear something up.  Other than building Katie's swing, this trip was really about gluttony. The consumption of large amounts of food and beverage being the main activity for a good 2.5 days.

Almost immediately after we got finished setting up camp, I grabbed a beer and set about collecting massive amounts of driftwood to construct Katie's birthday swing. After a few more beers, the realization that between the whole group I had access to over 400 ft of paracord stirred dreams of engineering. I awoke the next morning with a grand plan and began construction of a structure that was no longer just a swing, but a complete two story home, which included a swing, a kitchen and a second floor accessible via ladder. After about six hours of working off and on, it was fully functional. Much to my dismay, by the end of the night there were three revelers on the second floor and one swinging underneath.  Luckily my lashing training in Boy Scouts paid off and no one was crushed to death.  Click the any thumbnail to view a larger version.

 

Allison mid way through
her transformation
into a lobster-human

The weather ended up being cloudy the majority of the time which lead to less diligence from many of the group members when it came to sunscreen application.  By the time we realized we were getting burned, it was to late for some of us.  Allison was already turning into a wine poached lobster, in which form she still exists to this day.  When the sun did finally appear, we all put on our swimming stuff and took three very cold runs into the 47° ocean.  It was refreshing, if not almost heart stopping.

In order to camp at Rialto Beach the national park requires you to hike down the beach a little further than a mile from the parking lot.  You can camp anywhere you like after this point. I would guess this rule is to dissuade large groups from bringing tons of crap to the beach and having huge multi-day parties. Let just say they underestimated the will power of our group. By the time it was all said and done we had made almost three trips back and forth to our cars carrying as much as we could carry each time. Thus, we ended up with a miniature city. When it was time to leave we did the responsible Boy Scout thing and thoroughly policed and cleaned our area. Lets just say that by the time we got all the stuff back to the car we were all wishing that we had edited the amount of stuff we decided to bring out to our beach city.

Overall this trip was probably the best birthday party I have ever been to, and we can't wait to get back together with the group and do another Rialto Beach trip sometime in the future.

PCT Planning - Initial Gear List and Potential Upgrades

One of the first things Chris and I started to look at when we made the decision to do the PCT was what gear we had, what we needed, and what we had but needed to be upgraded before the hike. The good news is we have a lot of things we need. The bad news is a lot of the gear we have, we initially bought based on price, and for 98% of hikes it's been perfectly fine.

Welcome to the other 2%.

The items that we need to upgrade with the biggest price tags are our backpacks and sleeping bags. If you don't want to read about things to consider when buying a sleeping bag skip ahead to backpacks or the full gear list link at the very bottom.

Sleeping Bags
My current sleeping bag is rated for 30 degrees, however I run cold, and anything under 40 I have to basically be wearing every stitch of clothing I own in order to be comfortable. Chris' bag is also not warm enough, but the bigger problem for him is comfort. Chris is too tall for his bag, while that's not a huge issue for a couple of days, even a week or two, after three months of sleeping in a cramped sleeping bag every night you are not going to be having good mornings.

The big contender for our sleeping bags is REI.

I am specifically looking at either the REI Women's Joule or Serrana. Now for those of you who roll your eyes when I say I want a Women's sleeping bag, stop it. Even the staunchest feminist would agree that the average woman is shaped differently than the average man. We also tend to have a lower body temperature, ladies will want to look at the EN Comfort Rating on a bag, rather than the overall temperature rating. Women's bags are cut wider at the hips than the shoulders and provide added warmth in the foot box specifically. Chris is a little bit easier, he's just looking for a bag that's got the "long" option in the temperature range he wants, so we're most likely looking at the REI Flash, Radiant or possibly the Igneo (though that's at the high end of the price range). The other reason he's also planning on going with an REI bag is because REI Women's and Men's bags zip together. I don't think I need to expound further on that.

The main considerations with the sleeping bags is temperature rating (EN rating for me), fill ratio, compressed volume (this dictates how much space it'll take up in the backpack) and weight. For me, the Joule is pricier, but it weighs less, is 700 fill down instead of 600, has a compressed volume of 6.6 L (versus Serrana's 9.9) and has a slightly better temperature rating. So provided we can make it work financially that would be my preference. Chris is a bit trickier. The Igneo and the Radiant have better temperature ratings, but the Flash and the Igneo have a better fill ratio and weigh considerably less. The Flash also has a significantly lower compressed volume (3.7 L versus 6 and 7.3). They are also both more expensive than the Radiant.

Backpacks
Both Chris and I have VERY heavy backpacks. Mine is somewhere 7 lb range and Chris' is 10-11 lbs. Now, that may not sound like much, but for extended trips your base backpack weight (before food and water are added) ought to be very small. Here's why: Chris and I will on average be carrying food for 7-12 days to minimize our stops. We'll be carrying somewhere between 2-2.5lbs of food per person per day. At the low end (7 days at 2lbs/day) that's 14 added pounds each, seems reasonable... but at the high end that's an added 30 lbs and that doesn't include water at all.. So shaving off pounds and ounces elsewhere is crucial.

A few of our friends have Osprey packs and seem to really like them. Having observed their functionality on the trail, Chris and I are pretty on board as well. The primary candidate the Osprey Aether Pack most likely the 70 L, but possibly the 60 if we can keep our volume down. There are a couple of features that we particularly like. The biggest is the external (though very much protected) reservoir sleeve. Anybody who has unpacked and repacked their pack over and over in order to refill their reservoir knows why this is important. It is a huge inconvenience, and honestly I never seem to get my stuff packed up as neatly as when I did it in the morning. The top lid is removable and can be carried as a separate pack. The last thing is pretty widely available but still important. Chris and I both currently have packs without zippered pockets on the hip belts. This is SO damn irritating. I want to be able to have snacks at easy reach. I want my Go-Girl (for stand-up peeing) in easy reach! I want hankies/tissues in easy reach!!

So that's what we're upgrading. The full gear list is below the cut. It also includes how many spare pairs we are going to have with our box mailer for replacement as needed.

Return from Holiday Madness and Big News

Hey Folks!

Hope everybody had a good holiday/Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years/Time I Over-Ate.  We took a little break since we didn't think there would be much time for people to read. But we're back. We'll be continuing to post our backlogged hikes on Monday (we are almost caught up).

However! I wanted to take this time to share some pretty awesome news. As some of you may already know, Chris and I have been mulling over the idea of hiking from Mt. Lassen to Hart's Pass in the North Cascades. It's about 1200 miles, and a pretty huge commitment in terms of time, resources, etc. As a result we had been waffling about it a bit. Over break we saw the film Wild I won't talk too much about it, since it wasn't a great movie, but it did galvanize Chris and I into for sure deciding that we're going. SO! In addition to our normal Monday posts, we will periodically (I'm hoping at least once a month, but possibly twice) post about PCT planning stuff.

We are both super excited, to the point where we sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and start planning.

Hopefully that will stop.