The PCT is a long distance hiking trail that snakes up the West coast of America from Mexico to Canada. Around 90% of the hopeful thru-hikers start at the Mexican border heading northbound through California, Oregon and Washington. I was one of those hopeful north-bound thru-hikers, flying over solo from Australia to walk the 2650 mile (4265 km) trail.

A thru-hike involves a lot of planning and preparation. Modern ultralight backpacking was essentially conceived and pioneered on the PCT. The idea is get your base weight (all of your gear excluding food and water) down to around 5-8 kgs. As you’ll be spending up to 6 months on trail, investing in good quality, lightweight equipment is a good idea. You can either mail yourself food in boxes or you can, like most, hitch-hike into towns and resupply at markets along the way. I chose to hitch-hike and resupply as I went, familiarising myself with American products and experimenting with my diet. By the time I reached Oregon (mile 1660) I had a fairly good understanding of what my body needed and what I was/wasn’t getting sick of eating. I would recommend not boxing up food initially, it’s very hard to envisage the types of food you’ll be wanting three months down the track. Most hikers are not able to eat another pop tart after the first month. There’s plenty of resources on gear and food on the web. Yogi’s Handbook is a good starting point (http://www.yogisbooks.com/pacific-crest-trail/pct-yogis-pacific-crest-trail-handbook). The most important thing is to not get overwhelmed when you’re planning a long distance hike. Like almost everything, you learn as you go, and so long as your able to adapt and be flexible you’ll be fine. For example I started the hike with a hammock, learnt day three that that wasn’t working for me, and I had subbed it out for a tent on day 7.

Most hikers begin in April from the Southern Terminus, near a small town called Campo, East of San Diego. 2016 was the first year that the PCTA implemented a permit system, capping the number of hikers per day at 50. There are two major weather windows to consider. Firstly, the Sierra Nevada range cannot usually be passed through safely until the second week of June, once the snow starts to melt. So starting too early means that you may reach the Sierras (mile 700) and have to wait for the snow to subside. After that, you are essentially trying to outrun winter up in Washington. Most plan to finish the hike before October. Snow has closed the PCT as early as mid September in the past. I started on the 23rd of April and I seemed to be in the middle of the pack.

The Californian section of the hike is the longest (1660 miles). The first 700 miles winds through the high desert of the Mojave and the first 20 miles is a waterless stretch; you learn quickly that water management is going to be a daily challenge. It’s important to go at your own pace, many people injure themselves in the beginning because they don’t listen to their bodies. The desert was gruelling but gorgeous; dodging rattlesnakes, managing blisters, missing home and learning how to hike. You earn the views. After you leave the desert and enter into the Sierra’s a lot of hikers have already pulled out. The Sierra’s was the most epic mountain range I’ve ever hiked through. I felt like I was in another world. You carry micro-spikes and an ice axe to tackle the high mountain passes. By this time you’ve made extremely close friends and the trail community feels like a family. I actually hiked the entire trail with a dude I met on the first day of the hike.

By the time you reach Oregon almost half of the hikers have pulled out. It’s sad seeing your friends hurt and crushed by the type of commitment the hike demands. The Oregon section is a lot less undulating than California and so we started averaging 25-30 miles a day. The volcanic landscape of the Cascade’s breathes new life into the trail. Most of the time I felt like I was in Narnia. The wildflowers start blossoming and huckleberries line the trail. If California was mostly a physical battle, Oregon was a test of mental stamina. You’ve hiked for three months and you’ve still got over 1000 miles to the Canadian border. For the first time I felt the grind of the trail. You have to keep moving in order to finish before winter. It’s different when you have to wake up and hike if you want to complete what you started. Though, by this stage, we’re all pretty good at walking. Mile mania sets in and we all become crazed by the thought of reaching Canada.

The ‘Bridge Of The Gods’ connects Oregon and Washington. It’s a huge bridge that hangs over the Columbia River. Walking over it was a proud moment. Washington claims the final 500 miles of the trail and it’s almost unanimous that it also boasts the most beautiful scenery on the PCT. However, the weather starts to change. It’s an eerie feeling when you wake up in the middle of the Northern Cascades and the mist covers everything. You get up onto a ridge line and you can barely see thirty feet in front of you. Eventually the weather clears and you get a proper dose of Washington in fall. The leaves are changing colour to a burnt orange and you can hear the strange calls of elk at night. Like the leaves, the rain starts to fall. It rained for 30 hours at one point. I had to stop and hunker down on the top of a mountain in my tent that quickly filled with water. Everything was soaking wet. I rolled the last of my tobacco and waited. I was 140 miles from the Canadian border and I was in my element. I was freezing, tired, sore and completely content. I was at home. I felt alive. The colours, the birds, the rain, the rivers, the peaks, the snow; we got it all in Washington.

I reached the border at 5:30pm on the 23rd of September, 5 months after I began. I said to myself that I’d probably never attempt another thru-hike. I doubted I could commit myself to a hike like that again. That sentiment lasted a couple of days, then I missed the trail like nothing I’d ever missed before. What an epic adventure. So, it’s only natural to start planing another one! (next year I’m planning to thru-hike the Te Araroa in New Zealand).

For those considering thru-hiking the PCT, the following are some good sources of inspiration and information.

“Do More With Less” - Documentary - http://domorewithlessfilm.com
PCT annual survey - http://www.halfwayanywhere.com/trails/pacific-crest-trail/pacific-crest-trail-thru-hiker-survey-2016/

by Mathew Bate

2016

driftwoodandtheappletree.com