It is now 36 days since I finished the PCT of the 2018 season. About a time to actually wrap up the damned thing by trying to make some written sense out of the ordeal.
It has taken me this long to do this because I just finished a long (3771 mile ~ 6034 km) road trip with Mikko. We briefly visited some of the most famous national parks on west side of United States. We had great fun.
Even though you run the risk of getting nostalgic if you do not write about the experience right after, I think it is also good to get some distance before analysing. So finally, here I go. I will break down my writing in three parts. In this post, I characterise generally the experience and list things that went right and what went wrong. In another posting, I will go through the hike with a numbers game. The third post will be about the gear, how did it fare and what was the overall cost of the adventure.
In the end, hiking the PCT successfully is not hard. Sure, it requires determination to walk entire days from 3 to 6 months, but the terrain is not hard. You do not need to train months in an advance. The weather is pleasant most of the time, if you do the thing during the recommended time frame. As the hike is very popular, you meet people all the time and could easily get help if getting into trouble. It is not the wilderness experience you might expect. On the contrary, if you like solitude and wild nature, you should tread another trail entirely.
The biggest obstacle, as with many things, is that you need to dedicate time and spend a fair amount of money to hike PCT. Many younger hikers that I met were forced to end their hike early as they ran out of money. These were mostly Americans that started their journey with too little money to begin with and had the attitude that they need not to finish their hike on one go. And most western people are trapped in their rigid career and consumerism centric life styles, without enough mustard to break free even for a half a year.
My original guesstimate plan said that it would take 150 days to finish the hike and arrive to Canada on the first week of October. I ended up using 128 days and finish on 15th of September. Without the feet trouble I could have finished it easily by late August. You always have trouble so I am not too disappointed by this.
The feet started to be a question mark towards the end, so I am happy that the hike was not any longer. I still feel that they are stiff and much less agile than before the hike.
On the last days of the hike the weather started to get worse. And since that, it has gotten even more cold and rainy, so I was able to get my journey done just in the nick of time.
There never really was a time when I would have seriously considered ending the hike prematurely. The days never felt too long and when you had a simple goal of going forward, everything else fit the bill nicely.
Before the hike, I was worried that the monotony of walking would get into me at some point. The surroundings were varied enough to keep the boredom at bay. The physical challenge and my eagerness to keep up a numbers game kept my going as well. Basically, the 4 months and few days went quickly. I am already starting to wonder if it happened at all.
I was lucky with the weather. The hike started with a cold front in the desert, and the low snow year meant that the High Sierras were easy with the absent of both snow and high flowing crossings.
Take away the last two weeks of the hike and it only rained once and you almost never got cold. I only once experienced high winds that made the hiking difficult. It was handful of times that it went below the freezing point during the nights and my gear easily managed that.
Nowadays the PCT is a huge thing on the west coast of United States. Along the hiking corridor and in the trail towns, most of the people know about the trail and are unbelievably friendly and eager to help. I am still at awe because of this. Restores your believe in human kindness.
I have never hitched before this trip and probably got entirely wrong picture how it generally is. During the hike, you had no trouble getting a ride. America is flooded with cars and you were ensured to get a ride if there was any traffic. Only once I had trouble and that was because the road was so lightly trafficked.
I need to be happy about my gear. Almost everything was new and untested when I started the hike. With that starting point, I got away with the risky approach surprisingly well. Nothing failed me straight out. Changing the quilt to a sleeping bag was a correct move. Testing out a new tent in the final stretch of the hike was a risky move but turned out to be a rational and good thing to do. I was not in any kind of danger or need or greater discomfort because of my gear, with the exception of the shoes.
Shoes are maybe the single most important piece of gear that you have on a hike. You need to get it right. I made 3 basic major mistakes with them. First I started with sturdy gore tex shoes that I had not broken in, especially in hot desert conditions. Then, after hiking over 1000 miles almost trouble free I changed the proven shoe type to a totally different kind of shoe. From zero-drop, low cushioned model to one with high padding and some drop. The 3rd mistake was kind of repeating the 2nd, with the exception that I had used successfully the shoe type before. The problem was that I had gotten used to the shoe I used at that point. And they were different enough to each other. It is a very delicate balance. No wonder some long distance hikers buy as many pairs of the exact same shoe to their stock. Small differences can play a big role when the miles accumulate.
The hike went through some amazingly pretty places. Quite many times I felt that I had not enough time for all the beauty around me. Having a schedule and being one-track minded caused me to rush through many sections. If you want to really explore and appreciate the surroundings where the PCT goes, you should not do it as a thru hike. I am okay with the fact that I did not have enough time for any specific place as I did it partly because of the physical and mental challenge, not just for the pretty places and nature. But on the other hand, it is a wasteful approach. Section hiking makes you aware of the surroundings in a more profound manner.
Reading about resupplying before the hike made me to prepare 11 resupply boxes filled with food. People wrote that some places do not contain anything edible. Maybe times have changed or people are just picky, but I think basically all resupply locations had decent enough options. Unless you have really strict diet. Me turning into vegetarian from veganism meant that I did not have any trouble.
If doing it again, I would not prepare any resupply boxes. Dealing with the deliveries, poorly functioning US mail system, and restricting you to a certain diet and being at locations at specific times does not make it worthwhile. Also, if you would end up quitting the trail, you would have boxed trail food to deal with. In addition, it is quite hard to guess how much food you need. It is frustrating to approach a resupply town when your pack still full of food, knowing that you need to get a full resupply from an incoming box. Obviously you can just give the food away or resend it, but it is still too much of a hassle compared to the alternative where you buy as you go, what you actually want and need.
I only rarely succeeded in eating healthily or in moderation when in trail towns. Like everything else when in civilisation, the amount of food and choices was overwhelming. You fantasised about meals before arriving in to a town and ended up gorging yourself. Because of this, I usually slept very poorly and continuing the hike was hard. I felt physically sick. Especially as the daily hiking had leaned my figure and capacity to overeat. It is a much better strategy to stick to your strict diet, and not to skip any trail meals when nearing a town. In the future, I will not allow myself a "eat all you can" attitude in such situations. It will bite your arse sooner than you realise and make you pay attention to things that should not be priority to begin with.
Even as my writing is far from high literature, I ended up spending too much time for managing the blog. I failed on my goal to write an entry each day. This was mostly due to laziness. After a full day of hiking and setting up a camp, I just chose to chill out. Which is fine, but not optimal if you want to write something.
This made me to use all the time I had in towns to catch up with the blog. Socialising and enjoying what the towns had to offer suffered greatly. I am not too sad about the town time otherwise, but hanging out more with other hikers would have been nice. Also, not writing about the day right away made the memories and feelings fade.
My technical setup for writing was not the best one either. You should be able to write the whole blog entry, with pictures and everything, from within one offline program. Now I first wrote notes to my physical notepad, then wrote those as a text in my phones notepad. From there, I transferred the text to online Blogger. Then I needed to transfer pictures from my camera to my phone, and from there to Blogger. Then I needed to copy and paste the hyperlink from my Garmin stats to Blogger. The final formatting in Blogger was the last step. All this was clumsy and very time consuming. I could have easily scripted a fluent pipe line before embarking for the hike. Next time, I say, next time.
I do think that my next great adventure is not going to be in United States. Many PCT hikers tackle the Continental Divide Trail after their PCT hike (and usually have hiked the Appalachian Trail before). I think I have seen enough of the United States for the time being. There is a whole world to be explored. And in this time of overt consumerism and cheap, fast and polluting travelling, what better way to do it than by foot and minimal gear? I know, I am naive and a false saint here, but sometimes being like that can be a beginning to something great. Let's keep putting those feet in front of the other, folks!
It has taken me this long to do this because I just finished a long (3771 mile ~ 6034 km) road trip with Mikko. We briefly visited some of the most famous national parks on west side of United States. We had great fun.
Even though you run the risk of getting nostalgic if you do not write about the experience right after, I think it is also good to get some distance before analysing. So finally, here I go. I will break down my writing in three parts. In this post, I characterise generally the experience and list things that went right and what went wrong. In another posting, I will go through the hike with a numbers game. The third post will be about the gear, how did it fare and what was the overall cost of the adventure.
General feelings
There is no use to downplay or falsely sugarcoat it. The hike was an awesome adventure. Even though I ended up complaining a lot in my blog, I enjoyed the trip. As a Finn, being negative is my second nature. PCT was like nothing else I've experienced before. Being constantly on the road for weeks to an end and going through spectacular nature environments is something that I've visioned for ages but not executed upon the thought. As a semi-domesticated city dweller, I am just plain happy that I took on the undertaking. It was an added bonus that I was able to finish all of it. Not that I would have accepted anything less. You start something, you should strive to finish it. Or wreck some body parts while trying.In the end, hiking the PCT successfully is not hard. Sure, it requires determination to walk entire days from 3 to 6 months, but the terrain is not hard. You do not need to train months in an advance. The weather is pleasant most of the time, if you do the thing during the recommended time frame. As the hike is very popular, you meet people all the time and could easily get help if getting into trouble. It is not the wilderness experience you might expect. On the contrary, if you like solitude and wild nature, you should tread another trail entirely.
The biggest obstacle, as with many things, is that you need to dedicate time and spend a fair amount of money to hike PCT. Many younger hikers that I met were forced to end their hike early as they ran out of money. These were mostly Americans that started their journey with too little money to begin with and had the attitude that they need not to finish their hike on one go. And most western people are trapped in their rigid career and consumerism centric life styles, without enough mustard to break free even for a half a year.
What went right
1. I was able to finish the damned thing
 |
| At the start and at the finish, 128 days later. Different amount of hair but the exact same amount of weight. |
My original guesstimate plan said that it would take 150 days to finish the hike and arrive to Canada on the first week of October. I ended up using 128 days and finish on 15th of September. Without the feet trouble I could have finished it easily by late August. You always have trouble so I am not too disappointed by this.
The feet started to be a question mark towards the end, so I am happy that the hike was not any longer. I still feel that they are stiff and much less agile than before the hike.
On the last days of the hike the weather started to get worse. And since that, it has gotten even more cold and rainy, so I was able to get my journey done just in the nick of time.
2. The motivation
 |
| When the goal is nailed down and specific, you can just set your mind on achieving it. |
There never really was a time when I would have seriously considered ending the hike prematurely. The days never felt too long and when you had a simple goal of going forward, everything else fit the bill nicely.
Before the hike, I was worried that the monotony of walking would get into me at some point. The surroundings were varied enough to keep the boredom at bay. The physical challenge and my eagerness to keep up a numbers game kept my going as well. Basically, the 4 months and few days went quickly. I am already starting to wonder if it happened at all.
3. The weather
 |
| Only in the very end the weather was starting to be challenging for an ultra-light hiking setup. This was to be expected, but happened few weeks before I envisioned. |
I was lucky with the weather. The hike started with a cold front in the desert, and the low snow year meant that the High Sierras were easy with the absent of both snow and high flowing crossings.
Take away the last two weeks of the hike and it only rained once and you almost never got cold. I only once experienced high winds that made the hiking difficult. It was handful of times that it went below the freezing point during the nights and my gear easily managed that.
4. Trail angels
 |
| They came in all sizes and colours, with cars, on foot and on bicycles. The trail angels were everywhere and amazing. |
Nowadays the PCT is a huge thing on the west coast of United States. Along the hiking corridor and in the trail towns, most of the people know about the trail and are unbelievably friendly and eager to help. I am still at awe because of this. Restores your believe in human kindness.
I have never hitched before this trip and probably got entirely wrong picture how it generally is. During the hike, you had no trouble getting a ride. America is flooded with cars and you were ensured to get a ride if there was any traffic. Only once I had trouble and that was because the road was so lightly trafficked.
5. Gear in general
 |
| The stuff I had did the job. In all environments. |
I need to be happy about my gear. Almost everything was new and untested when I started the hike. With that starting point, I got away with the risky approach surprisingly well. Nothing failed me straight out. Changing the quilt to a sleeping bag was a correct move. Testing out a new tent in the final stretch of the hike was a risky move but turned out to be a rational and good thing to do. I was not in any kind of danger or need or greater discomfort because of my gear, with the exception of the shoes.
What went wrong
1. Hassle with the shoes
 |
| Do not underestimate the impact of even minor inconveniences with your shoes when the main thing you do is walking. The trouble will accumulate in no time. |
Shoes are maybe the single most important piece of gear that you have on a hike. You need to get it right. I made 3 basic major mistakes with them. First I started with sturdy gore tex shoes that I had not broken in, especially in hot desert conditions. Then, after hiking over 1000 miles almost trouble free I changed the proven shoe type to a totally different kind of shoe. From zero-drop, low cushioned model to one with high padding and some drop. The 3rd mistake was kind of repeating the 2nd, with the exception that I had used successfully the shoe type before. The problem was that I had gotten used to the shoe I used at that point. And they were different enough to each other. It is a very delicate balance. No wonder some long distance hikers buy as many pairs of the exact same shoe to their stock. Small differences can play a big role when the miles accumulate.
2. Not smelling the roses
 |
| It was all about landscapes and not paying that much attention to detail. |
The hike went through some amazingly pretty places. Quite many times I felt that I had not enough time for all the beauty around me. Having a schedule and being one-track minded caused me to rush through many sections. If you want to really explore and appreciate the surroundings where the PCT goes, you should not do it as a thru hike. I am okay with the fact that I did not have enough time for any specific place as I did it partly because of the physical and mental challenge, not just for the pretty places and nature. But on the other hand, it is a wasteful approach. Section hiking makes you aware of the surroundings in a more profound manner.
3. Resupply boxes
 |
| The way-less-than-perfectly functioning US Post Service had its part to play in a less-than-perfect resupply strategy. |
Reading about resupplying before the hike made me to prepare 11 resupply boxes filled with food. People wrote that some places do not contain anything edible. Maybe times have changed or people are just picky, but I think basically all resupply locations had decent enough options. Unless you have really strict diet. Me turning into vegetarian from veganism meant that I did not have any trouble.
If doing it again, I would not prepare any resupply boxes. Dealing with the deliveries, poorly functioning US mail system, and restricting you to a certain diet and being at locations at specific times does not make it worthwhile. Also, if you would end up quitting the trail, you would have boxed trail food to deal with. In addition, it is quite hard to guess how much food you need. It is frustrating to approach a resupply town when your pack still full of food, knowing that you need to get a full resupply from an incoming box. Obviously you can just give the food away or resend it, but it is still too much of a hassle compared to the alternative where you buy as you go, what you actually want and need.
4. Eating in towns
 |
| ... did not eat as healthily and well often enough as here. Usually it was just quantity, snacks and sugar. |
I only rarely succeeded in eating healthily or in moderation when in trail towns. Like everything else when in civilisation, the amount of food and choices was overwhelming. You fantasised about meals before arriving in to a town and ended up gorging yourself. Because of this, I usually slept very poorly and continuing the hike was hard. I felt physically sick. Especially as the daily hiking had leaned my figure and capacity to overeat. It is a much better strategy to stick to your strict diet, and not to skip any trail meals when nearing a town. In the future, I will not allow myself a "eat all you can" attitude in such situations. It will bite your arse sooner than you realise and make you pay attention to things that should not be priority to begin with.
5. Routine for writing the blog
 |
| I ended up requiring a setup like this for writing the blog: being inside, having a table, access to electricity and food. You spoiled little brat. |
Even as my writing is far from high literature, I ended up spending too much time for managing the blog. I failed on my goal to write an entry each day. This was mostly due to laziness. After a full day of hiking and setting up a camp, I just chose to chill out. Which is fine, but not optimal if you want to write something.
This made me to use all the time I had in towns to catch up with the blog. Socialising and enjoying what the towns had to offer suffered greatly. I am not too sad about the town time otherwise, but hanging out more with other hikers would have been nice. Also, not writing about the day right away made the memories and feelings fade.
My technical setup for writing was not the best one either. You should be able to write the whole blog entry, with pictures and everything, from within one offline program. Now I first wrote notes to my physical notepad, then wrote those as a text in my phones notepad. From there, I transferred the text to online Blogger. Then I needed to transfer pictures from my camera to my phone, and from there to Blogger. Then I needed to copy and paste the hyperlink from my Garmin stats to Blogger. The final formatting in Blogger was the last step. All this was clumsy and very time consuming. I could have easily scripted a fluent pipe line before embarking for the hike. Next time, I say, next time.
The next steps
PCT was my first longer hiking trip. I am quite confident that it will not be the last. I am eager to use the gained experience as a spring board to do future hikes in a more fluent and successful manner. This is not to say that I consider my hike to be a failure. Far from it. It proved me that I can do such things and enjoy myself, and there is an abundance of other people that do similar things and share a mind set. That is a huge thing even if your main motivation for hiking is not social. It is beneficial that you can share your experiences and have a sense of belonging.I do think that my next great adventure is not going to be in United States. Many PCT hikers tackle the Continental Divide Trail after their PCT hike (and usually have hiked the Appalachian Trail before). I think I have seen enough of the United States for the time being. There is a whole world to be explored. And in this time of overt consumerism and cheap, fast and polluting travelling, what better way to do it than by foot and minimal gear? I know, I am naive and a false saint here, but sometimes being like that can be a beginning to something great. Let's keep putting those feet in front of the other, folks!
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