20240405 Pacific Crest Trail

Location: North America

Distance: 4,265km

Route:

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1ULrH9H1I47-2NfRzo3m1osepeaY4yt8&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

What is the Pacific Crest Trail?

This summer Grace and I are going to walk 2,650 miles from Campo (the border of Mexico and Southern California) to Canada's Manning Park. This is known as the Pacific Crest Trail and is made up of a series of backcountry tracks stretching through California, Oregon, and Washington. It has existed officially since the mid-20th century, but joins up historic trails through the much older national parks such as Sequoia and Yosemite. The trail crosses the San Andreas fault three times and traverses around 60 mountain passes. Around 10,000 people are known to have completed it, which is around 1,500 fewer than the maximum capacity of Luton Town's Kenilworth Road. For context, in 2023 58,015 people ran the London Marathon.

While it's impossible to know how many people start out hoping to finish the trail every year, we know that the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) have been issuing 3,000 to 5,000 thru-hiker permits a year for the last decade. For various reasons, not all complete it. Based on the permits issued and the yearly 'completions' logged by the PCTA, it would suggest that around 75-90% of those who start will not finish it. This is backed up by the unofficial survey data, which admittedly also has a bias toward those who finish the job.

Credit: HalfwayAnywhere.com

Reasons to tap out include money, health, and family. There are also environmental challenges, such as wildfires, which are sadly now a reality for much of the trail in late summer. As someone who is looking to come away from the trail with a positive experience, I have been mulling them over in depth.

Planning for the PCT

PCT hikers are, on average, slightly more likely to be male, and significantly more likely to be white, university educated, and in their late twenties or early thirties. The main demographic is therefore ME. I know this because they are widely surveyed, and while we only know what they choose to respond (and we know that those who self-select to respond to surveys at all are more likely to reflect certain biases), what is reported gives some insight into the trials I can expect. While I have priced-in some degree of discomfort from the start, and in the knowledge that 'acts of god' cannot be insured against, I do want to give myself the best shot at being in that 10-20% who make it all the way. I am less worried about Grace - she's young and her bones are still green in the middle and she will likely outlive me by a hundred years.

Budgeting

Given the abundance of survey data, and the long dark winter nights in England, I decided to make a big spreadsheet. Based on the average hiker, I set targets for daily mileage (around 18mi//day) and total days on trail (148, including 'zero' days i.e. days with no miles). With an April 28th start date this means an expected completion date of September 23rd, allowing around a month to hike through each of the five regions (Southern California, Sierra Nevada, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington).

To achieve this we will require regular resupply of food, as well the occasional hotel or equipment replacement. This is an area of intense speculation, with some people stating online that a full hike cannot be done for less than $10,000 per person, with others claiming to have done it for a few thousand dollars and change. We have pragmatically targeted $2,500 a month between the two of us.

Key metrics will be tracked every week or so to understand whether we're where we need to be. By punching in our mileage and expenditure we should be able to see any budget shortfalls ahead of time.

Above: The masterplan with 'actuals' alongside to track progress as we go. (I've populated it with some dummy data.)

Gear

The budget is for day-to-day expenses and doesn't cover the cost of things like insurance (around £500 from Big Cat), phone plan (a headache to sort out), Garmin InReach satellite subscription, or logistics to and from the trailheads at either end. These have been budgeted separately, along with gear. Gear has been the single biggest financial outlay by far in preparing for the hike. I have never before gone so deep into the niche world of reddit backpacking forums in the pursuit of the perfect tent (an imported hiking-pole Xmid from the USA), sleeping bag (another import, this time from Japan) and pack (proudly made in Cumbria!a). For more information click here.

Above: All in, this has come to around £2,500 for me. Most of this has gone toward the 'Big four' of tent, sleep set-up, and backpack. A small % comprises things which I already owned or would have bought anyway.

Resupply

Day-to-day expenses are expected to be less exciting. Main categories will include food (ideally dehydrated or with as high calorie/gram ratio as possible) plus meals, tips and transport. I have strategically decided that I am going to probably start eating meat again for the trip (Grace is persevering with vegetables and fish only).

Many hikers post boxes of supplies to themselves at key points along the trail, but this is less practical for international hikers without a home network and in-country prep time to organise things like that. We will likely send ourselves a handful of boxes to pinch-points where we know the resupply options will not be good. Typically you are around four days between natural jumping off points from the trail to a town, but there are some notorious blackspots. Survey data showed that most hikers sent on average between 8-9 boxes to themselves, with those who sent more than 9 generally wishing they had sent fewer. However, 2023 was not a representative year, with snow levels +200% of average and much more testing conditions for hikers going through mountainous areas even in late summer.

We cross referenced some of the many PCT re-supply resources and scored places on [1] access from the trail, [2] availability of the right supplies, and [3] price, with [2] 'availability' weighted as the most important of the three. The half dozen places that scored lowest will probably need some kind of mail solution. We'll cross that bridge closer to the time.

Physical preparation

From a physical preparation perspective we spent a lot of the summer of 2023 doing sections of the South West Coastal Path that stretches around Devon and Cornwall, camping along the way (Grace has now done a sizeable chunk of it). Since Autumn I have been working on mobility and strengthening joints in knees, ankles and hips. Since January I had also been doing cardio training 3-4 times a week until taking some time off to recover from some minor surgery on two of my toes in March.

This is the part I feel least prepared for, and frankly I do not know if I could walk 20+ miles a day off the bat with a fully loaded pack. All the advice is to start slow, in the region of 10 miles a day, for the fist week or so to give yourself time to adapt.

I know the going will also be slow through the High Sierra, as we have to tackle river crossings and snowy passes, so realistically we will have built up quite a mileage deficit by the time we arrive at Northern California. The idea of hiking 10-12 hours and averaging 30+ miles a day seems daunting now, but hopefully by then we will be at another level of fitness.

Mind games

Ultimately, while the planning feels good at the time, received wisdom is that most of it will likely go out the window after the first month. It is a way to feel like you are getting yourself ready, but in reality much of it is procrastination. No amount of planning is going to prepare for the mental aspect of months of horrendous walking, feeling dirty, and being on the outside of civilised society. Reading through the horror stories that HalfwayAnywhere collate every year, you would question why anyone ever starts the trail, let alone finishes it. Add to this the trepidation of being in a foreign land, with strange and dangerous natural hazards the likes of which we do not have in the UK, and the anxiety factor could quickly ratchet up.

To get ready for this I have done a few things. The first of which has been to just spend as much time outdoors as possible. I know what is more important to me (clean clothes to sleep in, flip flops to walk around in at the end of the day) and what I'm not so fussed about (three 'meals' a day, sleeping with a pillow).

I also know that the mental discomfort from the unknown, from the rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and bears, is not entirely rational. My thought process is that, as most people don't have problems with these things on their hikes, and because I am like most people, I will therefore most likely have no problem either. The key thing in my mind is to make sure I stay firmly in the statistical pool of 'most people'. That means brushing up beforehand on things to watch out for, but not focusing unduly on (admittedly scary) things which are unlikely to affect me in any way.

Then there is the wall which we will inevitably run up against. Whether that is three weeks in or three months in, there is a point where the physical and mental discomfort can no longer be written off in the spirit of adventure. I'm sure there will come a time where I just want to go home. I have largely addressed this by removing that option. We've moved out of our flat, quit our jobs, and sold most of our belongings. Even writing this blog is part of it. Backed into a corner, there's nowhere else to go but forward.