My First Inch of the PCT

This year has been a year of self discovery. And sharing about this adventure is LONG overdue. It all began with a “Why not?” And an unexpected friendship after such a long time searching for a friend that would do the things I’d been dreaming of but hadn’t done yet. I had the mentality that I was strong, thank you Spartan Race, but still had a defeated mentality in other aspects of my life.

I found out I was pregnant six months after I graduated high school. I became a mom at 19 years old. Sure, there are women who became moms younger than me, and they’ve reached for their dreams and made them happen. We are all different though, and we all come to realizations at different times, that’s the beauty of being human. When I was eight months pregnant with my son, my name came up on the waiting list for the beauty school program I was hoping to get into. Needless to say, going into my first term a week after having my son wasn’t realistic, and I passed up my spot. I thought I was placed back on the waiting list, but never heard from them again. I settled with being a waitress from then on, as it is difficult leaving a job that guarantees cash in your hand every day. (Still is tough, but I’m getting there.) That’s one of the reasons I decided I wanted to do the JMT. I needed to get out of my normal, do something to help me find the drive to push for something new. Something bigger for myself, something to help me find MY identity. Yes, I am a mom, yes, I love fitness, but I was struggling to find my happiness outside of those things. While I believe exercise is going to be an everlasting part of my life, my baby bears are going to move out some day and then what?

Getting into backpacking this year was a huge game changer. I had never been backpacking until I jumped on the JMT 2018 bandwagon. The John Muir Trail (JMT) is 220 miles of trail that starts at Yosemite and ends at Mt. Whitney in California. There are ten major mountain passes, and a few more that aren’t major but feel like it. The fastest trip through the JMT was finished by Darcy Piceu, it took her 3 days, 7 hours, and 57 minutes.  Of course, that’s not the average. I ended up taking 21 days to complete the hike with my friend. Where am I going with all of this? Well, I had to be ready. Getting ready means training, trial and error, and deciding whether I’m really ready or not. Trial and error started on my first inch of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail).

My new backpacking buddy, Natalia, lives in California, and I live in Washington so we decided if we wanted to train together, we had to meet in the middle. I drove down to Ashland, Oregon to begin the adventure. Have I ever mentioned I hate driving in the car? Nothing a little radio karaoke couldn’t help with though. After we met up, we drove my car to the trailhead and worked on getting our packs ready to go.

At the trailhead we had to divide up all the food we brought and made sure we had everything we would need for the JMT. We wanted to know with all certainty that we could hang carrying everything we were planning to bring on our big trip. After what seemed like hours, we were finally ready to get hiking.

What equipment was in our packs?

• Tent
• Sleeping bag
• Sleeping pad, blow up pillow
  
• Rain coat & pants
• Poofy coat
• Beanie & gloves
• Long johns
• 2 pairs of pants, shirts, socks
• First aid kit
• Toiletries
• 6 days of food
• 2 L of water each
• Water Bottle
• Water filter
• Jetboil & propane
• Camp dishes
• Bear canister
• Journal
• Battery pack
• Solar panel
  
• GPS
• Maps
• Cell phone
• Camera
• I’m sure I’m forgetting 5 other things…

Even with sharing a few items, my pack ended up weighing 46 lbs!!!

Where to?

We decided to hike a piece of the PCT, the part that goes by Pilot Rock. Natalia found it on the AllTrails app, which has proven to be one of my favorite ways to find new places to hike. You can download the maps to your phone so you can still use them even when you don’t have cell phone service. This particular trail is 8.8 miles out and back. I don’t think we hiked that many miles because we didn’t actually hike up to the top of Pilot Rock since the weather was too crazy.

Friday

The day started out pretty nice. Blue skies and all! It sure was beautiful out despite the threat of rain. Even with the map showing the elevation changes, I wasn’t quite ready for all the uphill. Squats are one thing, but carrying 46 pounds for miles, and at an incline, is completely different. Did I mention our workout the day before was leg day? We had the GPS and the maps on our phones. They had a few water sources along the way so we were confident that we would have easy access to water before camp. We started to get a little nervous because all of the places that were supposed to have water along the way were bone dry! We ended up trying to conserve our water as much as we could to make sure we’d have enough water to cook our dehydrated foods for the day, and then tomorrow we’d scout for more water. In May, we went on a weekend backpacking trip with my family and a few of our friends. There was an abundance of water and the hike itself wasn’t nearly as difficult because our packs were so much lighter. This current trip was definitely more of the training we needed to prepare for the JMT.

We ended up meeting a couple along the way that was hiking the PCT in sections, which means they only do a section of the trail at a time instead of the whole thing all at once. After talking about how much our packs weighed and how little theirs weighed, we asked for their opinions. They agreed that we were likely carrying too much food. Just because the REI guide sheet says you need 6,000 calories a day doesn’t mean that you will actually need that much food. I definitely recommend getting out on a weekend trip to help you gauge how hungry you will be. The couple also told us about a couple of neat apps that would be helpful for when we do the JMT in August. We ended up getting to camp at a reasonable time and enjoyed a warm soup for dinner. We had a nice view of Pilot Rock and had planned to hike to the top the next morning.

Saturday

Since we didn’t find a water source along the way to camp, we debated on whether we should hike further up the PCT to a possible water source that was listed on the new app we were told about, or to hike back to the car where we knew we had more water. We had some breakfast and decided to opt for going back to the car because we had a guaranteed source there.  We were hiking for probably 15 minutes when it started to snow, and then it started hailing like crazy! I of course brought rain pants but didn’t wear them, so I ended up soaked from the waist down. Then as we continued hiking along, minding our own business, we came around a corner and there was a BEAR right in the middle of the trail! He was of course probably as scared of us as I was of him and ran off. But wow, that freaked me out. We ended up hiking back a little ways to catch our breath. We eventually decided to continue back towards the car, after mentally preparing ourselves, pocket knives and pepper sprays out of course. We decided after this experience that we were going to educate ourselves on bear safety the moment we got back home.

We made it to the car soaked and ready for a break. Along the way we saw there was a parking lot just off the trail and decided to drive my car to the closer spot so we could dry our clothes a little bit and warm up. Natalia found a puddle and filtered some water for us, while I took advantage of the bathroom. Once we got warmed up, we grabbed the water we already had in the car and ventured back to our tent.

Sunday

Saturday night got cold. The night before we had put all of our bowls out to collect rainwater. We woke up to the water being frozen inside of those bowls. It sure was pretty with everything frosted over and sparkling in the sunlight.The sun was up and it definitely helped to cheer us up after the crazy day before. Even as hectic as it was, it made me want to stay out there longer. You’d think that snow and hail in June would make me hesitant about hiking more mountain passes, but it just fueled the fire even more. Seemed like everything in nature was more cheerful that day. I saw a deer walk through our camp, and the birds were chirping.

We ended up having breakfast and tearing down camp. I should mention that trying out different backpacking meals was an important part of our trial and error. We learned that some of the foods were delicious and worth eating again, some not so much. We wrote in our journals to help us remember the things we needed to eliminate so that we wouldn’t have so much weight and we’d be more prepared for the upcoming trip.

My takeaways..

Less is more when you are backpacking. Knowing where there is a guaranteed water source is a must, and then a backup source, just in case. Too much food is not a good thing. And even though there are bears in the woods, losing sleep over them is not a good idea! Rest is important for the next day.

Have you ever been on a trip that didn’t turn out as planned, but it worked out and you had a good time anyway? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!