Pacific Crest Trail
You're probably asking yourself: WHY???
The answer: I'm training for the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). It's a trail that runs from Campo, California to Manning Park, Canada. The entire trail is 2,659 miles long! I will be attempting to thru-hike the PCT. For reference: thru-hiking means, "hiking a long-distance trail end-to-end within one hiking season" (thanks google). So basically, I have been preparing to hike 2,659 miles. A little crazy, right? Well, I'm doing it! I will be leaving the southern terminus around the middle of May and I'm hoping to finish sometime in September! I anticipate being on the trail for around 4 months or a little bit more! I will be doing additional posts on this topic, like what gear I'm bringing, and what my resupply strategies are in the future!
If you're a bit confused still (which you probably are-unless you hike a lot), here's a link to the website for additional information! https://www.pcta.org/ I've found it to be very informational and helpful!
So backtracking to the little training session my dad and I did on Sunday... I learned a lot! It's nice that we live in Arizona and "winter hiking" is actually really nice hiking. However, when we first started it was pouring rain! Of course we're in a drought all winter and the one day we go hiking for 22 miles, it's raining! But luckily the rain didn't last for that long. It turned out being good though because I got to test out my Patagonia rain jacket! It's definitely waterproof! It wasn't cold enough to try out my nano puff down jacket but that's okay! I'm sure I'll get to test it out eventually, and I may take it back to Denver to test it! I'm going back January 9th and I'm sure there will be snow (ugh). I'm really not a snow person, unless I'm skiing. I'm excited to get my last semester over though! Also.. side note, if anyone is looking to sublease my room in my apartment it's available from May to September!
When we left the house we were fully intending on doing 20 miles. 22 miles ended up just happening... which I will touch on in a little bit. We started off really strong. We had done a 4 mile test hike when I was home for Thanksgiving and had established our pace was around 3 miles an hour without packs, just water. On this test hike we had small camelbacks with water, and snacks so it probably only weighed 4 or 5 pounds (max). We started hiking Northeast towards the Pointe (aka Arizona Grand Golf Course). We went for about 2 hours and stopped to take a very brief break. It had stopped raining and the rain jackets needed to come off. We had walked a little over 6 miles, and really hadn't seen any other hikers. We were seeing a ton of mountain bikers but that's about it. We took off again and stopped for another short break once we reached 9 miles. My dad kept insisting that we were going West. I was 100% convinced we were going towards Arizona Grand which was Northeast. The argument was put to rest when a mountain biker was entering the trail and said he was approaching from the South (which made me right).
The trail hooked up with National Trail which is the same trail I ran when I did cross country freshman year. We had to run the trail and only got to turn around when we saw the fastest runners coming back in our direction. Hiking this part was a lot nicer than running it. The trail itself was a gradual climb which quickly turned into hiking up to the tops of the "mountains". I say mountains but people in Colorado would literally die laughing if they saw our mountains. The trail was pretty fun and it was so interesting seeing the landscape change in just a few miles.
I really started to feel the burn around mile 14 or 15. We had been going uphill for a very long time and I was really wishing for some flat trail. We got to another trail head (the name escapes me now) but we had to go down the mountain. Usually I love going downhill, but this was incredibly difficult because of the plants and rocks. My dad compared it to mountain goats navigating down a mountain. It was safe to say we were not mountain goats, and it felt like it took a long time! The amazing thing I couldn't get over was that mountain bikers were going up the same trail! Absolutely insane. I've never been a biker, and I barely managed 23 miles in San Francisco. I couldn't wrap my head around them biking up the mountain I was having a hard time coming down from!
So this was a very enjoyable hike up until mile 18 or 19. We hadn't gotten lost all day, but then proceeded to go the wrong way twice. I was pissed. This definitely taught me that I should be in charge of the directions and maps (sorry dad!). When you're hiking this far, going in the wrong direction for a few miles or even a mile can really shit on your morale parade. It sucks. Not only does it take extra time and energy, it just completely sucks. The first time we went in the wrong direction, it wasn't a big deal because we had only gone about 100m. I will say, the longest mile I walked all day was around mile 19 and it just seemed to drag on forever. The second time we were going in the wrong direction, I was the one who realized. We had been hiking uphill for a long time and frankly I was over it. I stopped and re-evaluated my surroundings and told my dad we were going in the wrong direction. It took some convincing but he finally agreed that we needed to go back in the direction that we came. We finally made it home, but had gone many miles out of the way.
Take away: I'm navigating. I have some confidence in my navigation skills so when I'm by myself, I really am not that worried. My dad will be hiking the first 110 miles with me in May and while I will absolutely love his company, I am excited to be doing this journey mainly by myself. I'm sure I will meet people along the trail but I am so excited to be tackling this monster, solo.
Side note: I only got 1 blister, which I think I will solve by wearing my Darn Tough socks in addition to Injinji toe sock liners! The picture I included are of my new trail runners! My color scheme for the trail is teal (fashion is important, right?).
The next post will be about why I'm deciding to hike the PCT (let's get personal)!
-GraceMarie
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