My PCT Plan - Or How To Move The Mountain

-

When I started researching about the hike I learned from the Pacific Crest Trail Associations website that most people spend between six and eight months planning and training. This seemed completely outrageous to me. How can it possibly take that long to plan a hike? Surly this can be done much quicker? Moving to a different country has taken me less time than that. You probably gathered by now that I am not a natural planner.

Wikipedia's PCT map (adapted from the official USFS map)

The more I got into it, the more I understood that there is really a lot of work to do. In addition to the hike itself, I also needed to to store my belongings and rent out my home. I will also have to leave my work and that necessitates a good deal of financial planning. And on and on it goes. It quickly looked like an almost unsurmountable mountain of work. And why do it at all? My life is quite alright the way it is. I have a cozy home, great friends, a secure although stressful job. No need to add a whole new bunch of stressors, risk and additional work.

Why indeed... Believe me, I have been asking this question myself a few times. Maybe this quote by Osho is the best summary of an answer I could find:

Osho: What does it mean to live dangerously?

DANGEROUSLY? To live dangerously means to live. If you don’t live dangerously, you don’t live. Living flowers only in danger. Living never flowers in security; it flowers only in insecurity. If you start getting secure, you become a stagnant pool. Then your energy is no more moving. Then you are afraid, because one never knows how to go into the unknown.
And why take the risk? The known is more secure. Then you get obsessed with the familiar. You go on getting fed up with it, you are bored with it, you feel miserable in it, but still it seems familiar and comfortable. At least it is known. Unknown creates a trembling in you. The very idea of the unknown and you start feeling unsafe.
There are only two types of people in the world. People who want to live comfortably — they are seeking death. They want a comfortable grave. And people who want to live — they choose to live dangerously, because life thrives only when there is risk. Have you ever gone climbing the mountains? The higher the climb, the fresher you feel, the younger you feel.
…
Spectacle Lake, PCT Section J, Washington

So, how did I go about getting started? First I broke this project down the into manageable categories:

- Timing and Permits
- Gear
- Food
- Re-Supply Strategy
- Work and Financials
- Home Rental and Management

Then I created a timing plan for each category and got to work. The detailed plan is a bit too big to show here, but this overview is capturing the main points:
PCT Timeline Overview

I am now three and a half months into planning this adventure and I have a bit more than three months to go before my start date on April 25. While I feel confident that this is enough time, I will definitely need it. Of course all my planning takes place while working a full time (and demanding) job and also trying to enjoy life along the way.

I'll share more details about the plan in my next posts.

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Finally Made A Bucket List

-
Image
 It actually turned out to be exactly five buckets, 20 gallon each. I hope I'm doing this right... Planning the types and quantity of food was relatively easy as I could draw from my experiences preparing for and completing the Pacific Crest Trail and the Arizona Trail. I estimate the Hayduke to take about two months. Unlike for the much longer PCT, I decided not to do any cooking and dehydrating and will rely on commercially available foods only. The Buckets And The Stuff That Goes Into Them My breakfasts will be based on overnight oats, just like during my previous thru-hikes. I add chia seeds, different kinds of nuts as well as dried cranberries or raisins to create variety. The mix goes into individual ziplock bags that I will also use for overnight soaking. The moistened mix is a favorite for rodents, so the bag goes into my cooking pot during the night and will be firmly secured with a metal lid. I eat directly out of the ziplock bag, eliminating the need for cleaning any dis...
Read more

Hello, Hayduke!

-
Image
 Today I received a long awaited email from a backcountry ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. "Hello Michael, I drew up a permit for you...". That was the moment my next thru-hiking adventure started to feel real. It's been two and a half years since my last long hike, the Arizona Trail. Back then, I had added roughly 100 miles through southern Utah, more out of convenience than anything else. By starting my hike in Bryce Canyon instead of the Arizona border I could just take a bus from Las Vegas instead of scrambling to find transportation to the official terminus. I ended up liking this part of the hike more than most sections of the official trail and started looking into hiking the complete route. Overlooking Grand Gulch in Capitol Reef National Park At first, it sounded too daunting. The Hayduke is an 800–850-mile, mostly off-trail route linking Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks across the Colorado Plateau. All my...
Read more

The Route

-
Image
One of the skills I had to improve on while preparing for the Hayduke was making routes on maps. While the route exists on CalTopo and AllTrails, updates and alternates are missing. Many underlying maps are pretty old and do not reflect developments in recent years or even decades. I found, for example, that a rockslide closed part of the Zion route and I had to look into detour options. I’m sure I will discover more changes as I continue my preparations and also along the hike.  I started looking into my preferred route last year already, but worked out most details in the last few weeks. While the process of working on those maps can be pretty tedious, I enjoy imagining hiking the routes I created. Current State Of My Route With Some Alternates I learned the hard way during the hike in 2023 that marked water sources like springs can be really unreliable. Luckily I found a spreadsheet online that showed known water sources along the route, but the last updates were from 2022. I su...
Read more