PCT Planning - Resources for Planning Your Hike

The elevation / distance graph and map of our planned PCT hike

I realize I maybe skipped some steps and neglected to post information about actually getting started planning. Of course, these are just the resources Chris and I used, and certainly not an exhaustive list. In fact, I'm only covering two things: Yogi's Guide Book and Craig's PCT Planner. That being said, I honestly think if you have those things, you can get everything else pretty well figured out.

Yogi's PCT Handbook

We had decided to do the PCT, but were a little unsure where to go from there. If you've googled anything about the PCT you've run into people mentioning Yogi's book. There's a good reason for that.

It's fucking ah-mazing.

Jackie McDonnell (a Triple Crown Hiker) aka Yogi wrote this guide book that basically details everything you need to know about the PCT. She covers gear, additional resources, water, dealing with the snow, food, etc., it's fairly exhaustive. It also incorporates information from about half a dozen other PCT hikers. Which means you get a pretty well-rounded look at what people think, the gear they bring etc.

It breaks the whole trail down into sections which include maps of the towns (including where to have your hiker boxes shipped to and how to label them), a breakdown of where water sources are, good campsites etc.  Each section is perforated, so they can be torn out of the book and included in your hiker box. She also sells these handy-dandy laminated cards which have similar information about the towns in a condensed form.

Yogi also partners with Half-Mile maps (they are available for free) she will print very nice copies of the maps for you and they include all the water and camp information that is in the book. Chris and I are going to have ours laminated, particularly for the Northwest.

So far I have to say it's been invaluable to us. Things that have really stuck out to me reading this are the things that we thought about, but her suggestions just make a ton more sense. Here are a few examples:

1. Buy running shorts with built in liners. No added weight from carrying underwear, also, hiking underwear is expensive as hell so being able to cut that out of the list is awesome.

2. What goes in your First Aid Kit. This is one of those things that I probably wouldn't have thought about till I was on the trail. I'm not saying I wouldn't have a first aid kid, but I probably wouldn't have altered it much. However, the stuff you need for a thru-hike is different. I would have brought duct-tape, but I wouldn't ever have thought about bringing desitin for chafe.

3. Get trail runners that are breathable and not waterproof. Consider getting them 1/2-1 full size larger than your feet. This was more for me than for Chris who had already made the switch to trail runners. Your feet will be wet no matter what and are likely to swell on the trail. The last thing you want is a stiff boot that is going to be holding all the moisture in.

I can't even stress enough how amazingly helpful this book has been. I think you could probably get away with just this. I say this mostly, because Craig's PCT planner is in the list of resources.

Link to Yogi's Website

Craig's PCT Planner

This is a free service that Chris and I are ABSOLUTELY going to be donating money to. The PCT planner lets you put in your start date, your estimated mph, and how many hours of hiking you're planning to do each day. Once you put in your start and end point it spits out how long it's going to take to get there. This all on it's own would be pretty handy.

The next part is so awesome it almost made Chris and I cry. And it saved us a TON of time. Based on your start point, rate of travel and end point it provides a list of places to stop and refuel. It auto-selects the most popular, but you can add or subtract as desired. It tells you the mileage between each stop and your estimated date of arrival. It also tells you how far off the trail the town/campground c-store/whatever is. Figuring out you want to bypass a town because it requires a 32 mile hitch is a good thing to know. You have the option to add zero days or notes about the location if you want as well.

It also spits out a small graph of your elevation changes for that section which is incredibly cool. This becomes especially helpful when you're trying to break things up. If you have a 12 day stretch where you won't be getting a box you are going to be carrying a ton of extra weight. If that section starts off with a big uphill battle, you might consider refueling elsewhere.

I seriously love this site. I can share my schedule with relevant people and it makes things much easier for me to have everything already organized for me.

Link to Craig's PCT Planner