A Song of Ice and Fire - PCT Section P Part 2 (Porcupine Lake to Etna Summit)

Pacific Crest Trail - Section P Part 2: Porcupine Lake to Etna Summit

Porcupine Lake, CA, Etna Summit, CA
Note: Stats below are totals for Section P
Distance: (One Way)  98.5 mi.
Total Elevation Gain: 17,594 ft.
Total Elevation Loss: 13,770 ft
Highest Elevation: 7,300 ft.
Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult
Difficulty: Moderate

Chris grabbed the headlamp and shined it on his backpack. Sitting on top, bold as brass, was the most enormous black rat. The rat looked at Chris with his headlamp, with an expression that seemed to say "What?! Come at me bro!"

Chris here. Allison's school work load has been quite high, so we decided I would author the rest of this post.

Back to the rat. Now you might think that the sudden explosion of light from the LEDs would be enough to frighten most wild animals. Well it wasn't. After a combination of smacking the side of the tent, the light and us shoeing it away verbally, the rat finally dismounted my backpack and disappeared into the night. The relief we felt was quite fleeting. Quick sidebar, Allison and I have the REI half dome 2 standard length tent and while it has served us well, it has always been a bit too short for yours truly. This means that at some point during the night most nights either my head or my feet end up touching the wall of the tent. Within seconds the rat traversed to the other side of the tent and I shit you not, ran straight into my head. This kind of behavior from an animal in the wild is the last thing I would have expected. At this point I was pretty sure we were both going to be eaten alive. We also decided that if this rat was brazen enough to headbutt me through the tent, it was probably not going to leave our stuff alone until it was fully satisfied that there was nothing left to eat or destroy. After coming to this conclusion I decided that we should move our packs into the tent. We ended up laying across the back of the tent and ended up attempting to sleep with our feet on top of them. Even after all of this, the rat kept moving around outside. Finally Allison's half asleep brain decided the only thing that was going to make it go away was to hiss at it like a cat. Surprisingly, this worked like a charm and the rat finally left for the rest of the night.

Doing something like the PCT is very trying, both physically and mentally. Most people, even those who aren't hikers have some understanding of this. More than a few people voiced concerns about how Allison and I would hold up, relationship wise, to the daily stressors of the trail. As most of you know, she and I have done plenty of outdoor adventuring in the past and were not really worried about relationship problems. This assumption proved true for 99+ percent of the hike. The morning after the rat incident was one of the exceptions. Our notes for this particular morning simply refer to it as fight morning. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure the fight mostly had to do with the fact that most normal human beings require a certain amount of sleep in order to get along well with other human beings and when both concerned parties don't get adequate sleep disagreements are almost inevitable. Allison, if you are reading this I just want to let you know that I'm not trying to have a fight about the fight! For most of my adult life I have, traditionally, been a morning person. I am also usually interested in breaking camp quickly and getting my hiking day started, especially when there is a certain mileage goal as was the case most days on the PCT. This was the case on fight morning except because of my lack of sleep I was also in a bad mood. This caused me to get frustrated when Allison wasn't getting ready fast enough because she wasn't feeling well. The discourse that followed lead us to both be in a bad mood as we left camp. As we got further down the trail, the argument evolved from being about breaking camp to being about how I was so interested in getting miles under our belt that it was like we were on a forced march. In our sleep deprived minds, I didn't care about taking any side trips off the trail to relax, see the sights or explore, and Allison didn't care about getting mileage in even though we had a limited amount of time in which to finish the hike. Of course, neither of these things were true, but as with many arguments, there wasn't much logic involved.

The argument was finally diffused when we ran into another hiker, “Yurt Man.” We ended up having a rather long, for us, conversation with him. During the course of the conversation we found out that he used to live blocks away from one of our old apartments in Seattle. We both actually remembered our respective residences. We also found out that he was one of the trail stewards for Washington.

Up until this point we had run into very few hikers going either direction. Thus, it is worth mentioning that, including Yurt Man, we ran into four other hikers in the span of about 20 minutes. One of the other gentlemen actually startled us. He was taking a break off the trail in the shade of a tree. We must have gotten within 10 feet of him before we noticed and tried to save face. He was a quite old, heavyset man who told us that he was not only planning to do the PCT, but also the CDT, and a trail neither of us had heard of, the Pacific Northwest Trail, which runs from Olympic national park to Glacier national park. Doing any one of these trails, much less all three back to back, is ambitious even for someone in peak physical condition. I think we both immediately had thoughts like, “man, is he going to make it without dying?” Shortly after this encounter we reached the highest point we would hike through in Northern California. It sat at approximately 7500'. This was also where we ran into our first snow of the trip. Allison and I decided to take a break before the first snow field to see if we had cellphone reception. While we were trying to figure this out, the older gentlemen passed us and started to traverse the snow fields. It was immediately evident that he was having a lot of trouble. It seemed that every few feet he would lose his balance and almost fall. It was painful and nerve-racking to watch. We were both thinking that at any moment, we might have to go into rescue mode. Luckily he made it across the first 200' long snow field successfully, but the journey took him approximately 20 minutes. When we finally got completely ahead of him a few minutes later we had a conversation about how we hoped he'd make it safely threw the trail going forward. We asked several Northbound hikers who passed us later in the trail about him, but no one had any information. We hope he is alright!

As the day wore on we passed Deadfall lakes and the Parks Creek trailhead.  We decided that this would be a great place to camp with friends or family sometime when we weren't through hiking.  Due to the the close proximity to several roads of we saw quite a few more hikers than usual on this day, including several couples who passed us while we were trying to eat cold rehydrated dehydrated mixed vegetables. Allison had been having some pretty big issues with her appetite throughout the beginning of the hike. We had been discussing what might be the culprit for a while at this point. We had almost certainly narrowed it down to the dehydrated vegetable mixture that we had spent so much time making. Initially we had planned to add some of this mixture to everyone of our dinners. On this day we decided that we would try to re-hydrate the vegetable mixture and eat it on its own to determine if Allison would have a better appetite for just the dinner on its own sans veges. It was immediately clear that cold re-hydrated veggies were terrible. We choked down as much as we could and then decided we would start trying to use them only in meals where they were less obtrusive like the beefy noodle bowl. Shortly after this, Allison's appetite got better much to our combined relief.

At 12.5 miles we were both done for the day and decided to stop when we reached this really cool rock prominence called Cement Bluff.  After eating a dinner while trying to keep ants out of or meal, we hit the sack.  In the morning I woke up to the sound of a huge animal that was obviously running in our general direction.  Oh god, it must be a bear.  Since we slept without the rain fly that night, I immediately popped my head up to see the upper part of a jogger bolt past us about 50 ft. from camp.  How one skinny jogger could make that much noise, I'll never know, but then again it could just have been my mind making me think every little sound a bear.  Later in the trip we actually would have a bear encounter in our camp.

After the bear/jogger, we walked out to the edge of the bluff to eat our breakfast with a huge 360 degree view.  After that we started making tracks for the morning.  While we were packing up, Allison had noticed that our liquid soap had leaked all over the hip strap support (near your butt) on the back of her bag.  Without a large amount of water at our disposal we just had to pack up and find the first water source where we could finally try to get rid of some of the soap.  Let me stop here for a quick trail etiquette lesson.  Even if your soap is biodegradable you should never wash anything with soap directly in any water source, as even biodegradable soap can get people and animals down stream sick. Anyway, a few miles later we got to the water source.  By this time the soap had irritated Allison's sweaty back and gotten all over her shirt and shorts.  Time for one of many couples bonding moments that you might only experience if you do through hiking and even then only when your soap gets rubbed into your back for a few hours.  Allison stripped off her pants and shirt in the middle of the trail, you lose all modesty a few days in, threw on her sweater (maybe not all modesty) and started washing her clothes and herself, but couldn't quite reach without getting her sweater all wet. I proceeded to do my manly duty which involved retrieving multiple 32 oz buckets from the stream, bringing them to Allison who was a safe distance away, and trying to wash the soap off her butt.

That evening we camped at edge of the meadow which had a dry spring.  This wasn't a problem because we had planned accordingly and carried extra water from a source several miles before camp.   At this camp we finished the first book of the trail..  The next morning Allison realized that we might be short on food because had been going a bit slower than planned.  No matter how well you plan, food shortages are a fact of life on the trail.  We learned pretty quickly that the faster you go, the less food you have to carry.  The food shortage ended up not being a big problem.  I think we skipped one meal and rationed out the rest of the food and snacks so we weren't miserable for the rest of the section.

As we started our uphill approach to highway 3 it started to get really hot.  This heat would change to thunderstorms and hail in a matter of hours, but more on that later.  As we continued to ascend, we ran into a notable phenomenon that neither of us had seen before, tons of frogs along the trail at 7200'.  The only thing I can guess is that we just walked through at the perfect time and during the fall-spring months it is probably much too cold at that elevation for them to survive.  During the beginning of summer most of the snow has melted so there is both fresh water and milder temperatures.  

After the frogs, we landed one of my favorite yet scariest campsites of the whole trip.  It was a semi exposed ridge with only a few trees and a great view of Shasta.  After setting up camp we found a spot out of the wind to cook and then ate dinner looking at the view in the top image of this post.  It was a pretty cool place to be.  As we sat eating our improvised "Taco Bell in a Bag" meal and enjoying the view with few clouds and blue skies, we had absolutely no idea what weather was in store for us in a few hours.

The beginning of our night was relaxing.  Then as night fell it began to rain.  Then the rain turned into a full on thunderstorm.  We were on the top of an exposed ridge and the thunder and lightning was getting closer and closer.  I was sure any second we were going to get fried like a mountain frog.  Allison and I held onto each other and counted the intervals between lightning and thunder to determine the distance of the storm.  According to one of our measurements, there was one lightning strike within a mile of our location.  Just when we thought it couldn't get any more interesting, it started to hail.  It was small at first but soon got larger.  Luckily it had been so windy up on the ridge when we were setting up camp that we decided to use eight `2"x`8" pieces of wood to stake down the tent and it held fast.  When we awoke in the morning much of the hail was still there.  We even found a few patches down the trail at 10 a.m. that were still the size of small marbles.

It got really cold that afternoon and started raining.  There were also tons of fallen trees over the trail which we had to navigate.  Multitudes of downed trees ended up being one of the banes of our existence in multiple sections of the hike.  The toll this exercise takes on your speed and morale is enormous.  As the day got increasingly nastier, we decided to call it a day and bushcamp for a short 11 mile day.

The next morning the weather seemed to be clearing, but there was still lots of fog.  The days hike contained lots of uphill through forests that had been completely obliterated by fire several years ago. These types of areas really look like another planet and remind you how powerful nature is.  Later in the day we ran into three north bound hikers, Magic Man, Bigfoot and Tin Tin.  They were coming from the Mexican border and thus already in good shape.  At the time they passed us they were doing 20-25 miles a day.  They wouldn't have been notable except that we were destined to run into all three of them in separate places later in our journey.

We were supposed to do 15 miles but only ended up doing 13.  We were wiped out and both my knee and foot were yelling at me to stop.  We found a nice flat campsite close to a stream and setup camp.  Earlier in the trip we had been having some trouble with our rain fly leaking.  Our solution was to put our emergency blanket between the tent and the rain fly.  While this sort of worked for rain, it was also really loud.  So, between being kept up a lot of the night and my knee and foot being injured, we decided to take a zero day.  Allison read almost all day as it was too cold to do anything outside of the tent.

In the morning it was partly cloudy but trying to clear up. For the last few weeks I had been having problems being to cold at night and this morning I finally gave in and determined I needed a warmer sleeping bag.   I can't say enough about REI's service.  This is why we almost exclusively buy our big ticket items from them.  Allison called REI from the top of the hill. The REI lady was really nice considering their system was crashing and shipped us a warmer sleeping bag to our next stop, fully refunded my used/stinky bag, honors our 20% percent discount and a gave Allison free shipping on a fathers day gift.  It costs you a little more to shop at REI, but they really treat you like their #1 customer everytime.  Later in the day we crossed over the road that leads to the town of Etna.  From here you can hitch a ride to resupply, but we decided we were going to be ok despite the food shortage.  The summit of the actual mountain is very pretty.  So pretty, in fact that we didn't notice that there was a 12.5 mile dry stretch, luckily we made it through just fine.

The Wettening - PCT Section O (Burney Falls to Castella)

Pacific Crest Trail Section O - May 18th - 25th. 2015

Burney Falls St. Park. to Castle Crags/Castella, CA

Distance: (One Way)  82.2 mi.

Total Elevation Gain: 17,969 ft.

Total Elevation Loss: 18,764 ft

Highest Elevation: 5,050 ft.

Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult 

Difficulty: Easy-Moderate

As we ran away from the creepy guy asking us about badgers we felt amazing. We'd made it the first three days without injury, without even feeling terribly sore. We'd taken a nice break and were definitely prepared for the remaining 5 or so miles till we got to camp. The days were long, so even though it was early evening there seemed to be plenty of light left. We crossed a beautiful dam, and did a fair amount of easy-moderate uphill. My stomach was not happy about going uphill almost immediately after our break and I was pretty nauseous for the next hour. Despite this we still did it and morale wasn't terrible even with it being the first real uphill (later we would define uphill differently) of the trip.

Lake Britton near Burney Falls

We hiked in the dusk, trying not to step on multiple small brown and black snakes that were sluggish with the onset of evening. I damn near stepped on one, and it freaked out and I leaped clear of it. I honestly am not sure what kind of snakes they were. I'm just glad it was cool enough that they mostly weren't interested in us. 

Shortly after this we ran into another person for the first time. He was a mountain biker. Now, mountain bikes (or any other kind of wheeled device) are not allowed on the PCT. In fact it was a point of pride in the Yogi guide book that whenever she ran into a mountain biker she planted her feet firmly in the middle of the trail and refused to budge, forcing the biker to dismount and move for her. Chris and I aren't quite so rigid, but we understand why they really aren't allowed. They tend to erode the trail, and coming around blind corners (often with little room for others to pass) is dangerous, particularly if one of you is hurtling around the corner on a bike. This man however was the picture of politeness, he practically flew off his bike, apologizing profusely about how he hadn't expected anybody to be out it was so early in the season, he'd just been trying to get some alone time while visiting family, and so on. He was really nice, and we chose not to lecture him, since he obviously knew he technically shouldn't be out there. Honestly we were just impressed that he was able to bike in this area, since it seemed to us to be pretty perilous for mountain biking. 

Dam at Lake Britton

We kept along, but we started to get really tired. By this time the light was starting to fade fast. We were close to camp, but as I've mentioned, time is funny. The first 3.5 miles after Burney Falls had flown by, but the last 1.5 miles seemed to take forever. We crossed a bridge with a series of waterfalls, which is apparently one of the best places to swim on the trail, but it was too dark and we were too tired to really want to swim. After the bridge there's a short uphill and we made our final push into the trees where there was supposed to be a place to camp. As we made it to the treeline it started to drizzle. Under the trees it was no longer dusk, but night. We looked around for a place to set up camp, if there were established campsites we didn't see them, but pine needles are warm and we settled on a nice flat space is a shallow draw. By this time it was genuinely raining.

We were not really feeling up to cooking in the rain and the dark, so we hung our bear bag and got in the tent. Our sleep clothes were still damp from washing, but we put them on anyway and hung out outside of our sleeping bags while they finished drying. It had been a long day, but we'd gone 48 miles in 3 days, which was better than expected, so we went to sleep happy.

Our happiness faded as soon as we woke up though... Our blisters had taken vengeance on us and were pretty bad. But worst of all, in our flight from the creepy dude at the park Chris had not really paid much attention to what he was packing and had left his only pair of long pants and his only long shirt lying on a rock drying. He was really bummed when he figured it out as we packed up camp that morning. We decided the best course of action would be to call the park as soon as we got signal. He walked up to the top of a nearby hill to see if we could manage it before we started hiking for the day, but no luck. So we struck camp and headed on hoping we'd find a place with signal.

After a little while we got to an open space and Chris could see a cell tower in the distance. Sure enough we had signal. Chris called the park and got the sweetest park docent ever. Her name was Gloria. If you are ever at Burney Falls and meet a woman named Gloria, hug her (non-creepily, please), tell her how wonderful she is. This is how Chris' conversation with Gloria went:

Shastina

Chris: Hi, um, I'm a PCT hiker and I was drying some clothes at the picnic shelter yesterday and I'm pretty sure I left them there.

Gloria (with a slight southern accent): Oh darlin' that's too bad! Let me go check if they're still there.

[pause] They're still here, but they're soaking wet from the rain last night. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go ahead and throw them in the dryer here at the park and then I'll send them to you!

Chris: Oh that would be great, let me give you my credit card number so I can pay for the shipping.

Gloria: Oh no hon, it'll be my treat.

When we got to Castella/Castle Crags Chris' clothes were there, along with some granola bars, and OHMYGOD those clothes smelled so good. For days I would just smell them, and it was not weird, not weird at all.

After speaking with Gloria, and making a quick call to my Mom we started again. About an hour later my foot started hurting really bad. Chris' ankle was also hurting him. Both of us are stubborn and independent though, so neither of us mentioned it. A couple of hours later it turned out they both hurt a lot. I gasped that I needed a break, and promptly started crying, convinced that I was injured and I was ruining the trip. As far as we can figure I had strained a muscle in the arch of my foot, it continued to hurt for the next few days, but the first day was the worst. I took some medication, waited 20 minutes and we started again, but within an hour I had to stop for the day since my foot was so bad I could barely walk and every few minutes streaks of intense pain would flare through my foot.

Early view of Shasta

We camped in a nice little grove off the trail that had a fire pit. We were both completely drenched since the on and off showers during the day and the rain from the night before had soaked all the foliage, which was overgrown and had, in turn, soaked us. So we tried to dry off, but eventually gave up and made dinner. Chris had decided to eat dinner on his sleeping pad, and Murphy's law being as powerful as it is, he spilled food all over it. We cleaned it off at one end of camp, and then Chris hung the bear bag in the opposite direction on the other side of camp. Miraculously we were not consumed by bears.

Chris had his first (but not his last) cold night. It was bare ground and Chris had decided on a 30-degree bag, since he typically runs hot. This was a mistake. Whether it was his metabolism gone haywire from all the exercise or if his body had just decided to stop producing heat Chris was very cold.

The next morning we both felt better, except I had inexplicably developed a rash, which looked like poison oak, in my armpits and inner thighs, despite the fact that I had been wearing long sleeves and pants. I decided my body was revolting against our forced march, but I was not about to let it dictate my future! No matter how broken it got!

So despite our aches, pains, blisters and rashes we started hiking. We had now been soaking wet for three consecutive days, and our clothes which we had washed were still damp and in no hope of drying out. It continued to rain periodically through the day. We kept seeing animal poop, I was convinced it was bear poop and Chris was sure it was horse poop. I was correct. 

We also crossed a section of trail on a steep embankment, that was narrow and eroded. It was probably one of the more treacherous parts of the trail, particularly so given the rain, but we made it across. We rounded a corner and came face to face with a guy who was just starting out as well, and planning on heading south to Kennedy Meadows. We chatted for a moment, it turned out he had seen a number of black bear over the previous couple days (hence my being correct). We parted, at this point there was a lot of bear poop around, so we started to listen to music, partly because it helped take my mind off my hurt foot, and partly because it announced our presence to the bears.

Then the thunder started. Far away at first, but definitely moving closer. We still had a few miles to cover so we tried to speed up a bit, but it was definitely catching up to us. We came to a wide open field just as the storm caught up to us in earnest. We almost sprinted across it, both chanting a litany of pleasedon'tstrikeusdeadpleasedon'tstrikeusdead. We got across safely, but by now I was grinding my teeth just to deal with the pain in my foot. 

We were about half a mile from camp when the storm kicked us in the teeth. It started sleeting, there was small hail and in between, the rain poured down in big, fat, furious drops. We missed the turn off for our campsite (which was on a spur trail) and had to backtrack. Eventually we made it to camp, and tried to keep everything as dry as possible while we set up. I was freezing and Chris ended up cooking and hanging the bear bag himself. He could barely light the stove for dinner, which we ate huddled under a tree.

Chris

As we settled in for the night we noticed something, disconcerting to say the least... The rainfly was leaking. The rain wasn't pouring in on us, but there were half a dozen spots where there was a periodic, but steady, drip. Fuck. We were concerned about what would happen if our sleeping bags got wet, so we decided to put our emergency blanket over us, thinking that the water would run off it and not get on our bags. This was a terrible idea.

Allison

If we had really stopped to think about it, we would have realized that there was bound to be condensation on the inside of the blanket. But we didn't. Luckily I got up to pee before falling asleep and noticed that instead of keeping us dry, the tops of our sleeping bags were completely wet. However, it had not soaked through and the insides of our bags both stayed dry all night. We ditched the emergency blanket and finally got some sleep. We decided that next time it would have to go between the tent and the rain fly, and there was definitely a "next time".

The next morning we spent trying to dry out our gear, but we eventually gave up. I was a big grumpy pants that morning between being damp and my foot hurting right off the bat. But we got started, and after a couple of hours the sun started to peek out. We ran into our second hiker "Mushroom Man" who was really nice, and actually knew about Gualala, CA. Not long after that the sun came out in earnest. We immediately stopped and spread out all our things to dry. We got our first real views of Shasta over the next few hours.

California Kendall Katwalk

Statistically this had been our hardest day so far, and we absolutely killed it! With hurt feet! ...which was probably stupid. Behind us we could see a mountain in the distance that we had been equal with! This became one of our favorite ways of measuring accomplishments. We eventually started taking pictures of the mountains ahead of us, while we stood on a mountain, and then photographed that mountain from the one we had originally photographed. We are huge geeks.

We got to what we call the California Kendall Catwalk, and it was glorious.

Afterward, we had to cross some fallen high voltage power lines, which made us nervous. For the next half hour we wondered if we were in Jurassic Park. We were not. Also, if you don't understand that reference, go watch Jurassic Park like 20 times. We got to this awesome campsite at Deer Creek. Between the campsite and the views earlier in the day we both felt totally happy and rejuvenated (being dry also probably contributed). 

The next morning Chris' foot was hurting really bad and mine was weirdly better. I wondered if I was transferring my ailments to Chris, and then decided that would have been a great plot for Are You Afraid of the Dark? We decided to take our first zero day here, we spent all day in our sleeping bags and I read out loud to Chris the WHOLE time. 

The next day we just cruised downhill and the miles went by quickly. We got to Ash Camp, after passing a really creepy old truck in the middle of the woods, and were very, very thankful we hadn't planned to stay there as it was FULL of people. We planned to stay at Fitzhugh gulch creek, but when we got there we both felt really good and there were mosquitoes so we decided we could go further.

Further ended up meaning one of our bigger uphill climbs in California.

We could hear bears (though possibly a mountain lion) huffing in the distance... then closer. When we were got to our campsite we could hear two of them, one on either side of us. The campsite itself, was pretty crappy (it is in an abandoned road bed) and there were TONS of mosquitoes, so we just dove into the tent and skipped dinner. Chris was awake almost the whole night, worrying about being attacked by mountain lions, I slept like a baby. This became a theme for the rest of the hike.

The next morning we got started and almost immediately ran into 3 unattended teenagers, who didn't know what direction north was. They were separated from their adults, we found out later that this was because it took them three hours to strike camp and their (grand)parents finally got completely fed up and left. This is excellent parenting (not sarcastic). When we met the adults, they were super nice and gave us a good tip about a swimming hole a few miles away. I decided that if this was an episode of Supernatural, they would be pagan gods about to eat those kids.

We had lunch at the swimming hole at Squaw Valley Creek, but the water was very cold and the best I could do was just dunk myself. The uphill began immediately after and it was a serious struggle for me. It took about a week before I decided that I can't eat before uphill.

Our campsite was at the top of the hill. We set up camp, it looked like a nice place. IT IS NOT A NICE PLACE. 

Welcome to Plague Camp. 

Allison @ Squaw Valley Creek

Literally within minutes of us setting up the tent we noticed that the whole place, including all of our gear, was swarming with ants. I don't mean like a couple dozen. I mean hundreds. We figured we must have put our stuff on an ant hill, so we moved everything to a campsite on the other side of the trail. It didn't help. The ants just seemed to get more enraged. Everything was covered with ants, and they decided we were their sworn enemy. They were climbing all over us and biting us. 

Then the mosquitoes arrived.

We ate dinner pacing back and forth. I was so sick with exhaustion and barely being able to eat (I had not managed to eat more than a half of my share of our dinner since the beginning of the hike). The next morning there were still tons of ants on our gear, and some mosquitoes. We spent about 20 minutes killing them and/or brushing them off. We didn't even try to eat breakfast, we just ran.

Castle Crags

We ended up making breakfast (peanut butter wraps) sitting on a forest road a few miles away. My mom had bought us this "honey" powder (lies) and while it was okay, we thought it might be good if we mixed it with water to get a more honey-like consistency. This was a huge mistake. It turned into this horrible, gelatinous sweet, but tasteless, honey-ish pudding. My stomach had been on the fritz for days now, and it was having NOTHING to do with this atrocity. 

We packed up and started the descent to Castle Crags. It started to rain, and at first just seemed like a summer shower. Warm, brief and refreshing. I was happy, it felt so nice and the area we were walking through looked so much like home (Sea Ranch) I just felt great. The rain stopped for a bit.

At this point we also made the serious error of not taking the frontage road into Castella, but continuing on the trail into Castle Crags State Park. DO NOT DO THIS. The frontage road may be ugly, but it is flat. The trail is not, you basically have to climb up a bunch of hills and then descend again, on a fire road, just to get back down to the campground and Ammirati's (re-supply location). About 10 minutes after we realized our mistake, and about 5 minutes after we realized it didn't make sense to go back, the rain returned with a vengeance. It was accompanied by its muscle: Thunder. Big thunder. RIGHT ON FUCKING TOP OF US. 

There were also some serious mileage problems with Yogi's books. Her town maps are pretty much a joke, and while it may seem like the frontage road and the trail are equidistant they are not. We ended up doing a 17 mile day on a day that we had planned on being short.

I was done. I was exhausted, my foot was hurt, I hadn't eaten breakfast or dinner the night before, all of my clothes were completely soaked through and I was starting to get cold. This was bad. I basically had a trail meltdown, it was completely selfish. I realized moments afterward that Chris was probably having as hard a time as I was, and I had added to that by being a mess. I apologized, sucked it up and we eventually hobbled into camp. I could barely walk for the rest of the day, but at least we had arrived.

PCT Planning - Tonight we dine in hell.

So as I hinted at in previous posts, Chris and I are making all of our own food. My Mom has offered to throw a couple things into later boxes, but primarily we are doing all of it ourselves. As things get closer we are starting to get some of the food stuff,
or are dehydrating and vacuum sealing at home. So it seemed like a good time to try out our recipes and make any last minute adjustments.

In a previous post on food I wrote a little bit about making sure you had enough calories and enough variety. Chris and I have planned few dinners and we may throw in one luxury dinner per box (instant Indian/Thai food etc. for some variety).

Also, Chris and I are soaking our dehydrated veggies during the day as we hike, if you use dehydrated veggies and are planning on soaking them make sure to use the water you soaked them in, that way you don't lose any nutrients. We also are dyhdrating our chicken and tuna, if you do this you need to add the tuna/chicken at the same time as the starch and with a little extra water.

Recipes under the cut.  Click the link below.

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

Training for the PCT

Sorry these haven't come up more frequently. This semester is kicking my ass. Between now and May Chris and I will be doing exclusively PCT planning posts, and then once May rolls around we'll back on hikes/trail reviews. They will NOT be PCT updates (though we'll try and do those as we hit WiFi areas) rather they'll be guest posts and backlogged hikes.

Let the madness begin!

There are two camps on training for long distance thru-hikes. The camp that trains and the camp that doesn't. The latter think that the trail will beat your ass into shape and anything you do before hand is not going to matter because the stuff that long distance hiking does to your body can't be replicated by training.

I personally find this explanation to be completely ridiculous. Sure firing a gun in combat is way different than being at a gun range, but you wouldn't want to be dropped into a combat zone not having fired a gun before. I think I've actually had that nightmare before...

Chris' Mom on one of our training hikes

So obviously, Chris and I decided that while training can't completely prepare us, some preparation is going to be better than none.

We've been getting up at godawful o'clock every morning (something I am less than thrilled to do) and walking for an hour with our packs on. We built training packs, which are basically our old backpacking packs (we'll switch to the new ones when we get them next week) loaded up with milk jugs full of water wrapped in blankets. I'm training with about 30 lbs of weight and Chris with about 35. This is about 5-10 lbs less than what we're going to be carrying on the hike.

At the Base of the "N"

We try to walk on uneven ground as much as possible since walking on asphalt doesn't allow for support muscle strengthening. We're lucky enough to have some nice opportunities for some elevation near by as well. We hike up to the above "N" in Reno (which means nothing to those of you outside the area). Every week we do a 4.5 mile hike with about 700 feet of elevation gain and once a month we're doing a 12-16 mile hike. In a few weeks we'll also do a practice run with full packs for approximately 30 miles over 2 nights.

Aside from the early mornings, I've actually been enjoying the daily exercise. I think it's definitely making me a little less crazy. Although I have to put up with Chris singing made up songs to me at a ridiculously early hour of the morning. Jaxx is also benefiting since one of our routes takes us through a dog park, so he is getting some extra ball time.

The views aren't much, but the pay off physically is great. When Chris and I recently visited and hiked around Arkansas (posts forthcoming) we felt like super heroes! Between the training and being significantly closer to sea level we basically ran up hills.

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.

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.