2018.10.28 - By the Numbers

Numbers are the image of reality, eh? Maybe not, at least if they are not associated to a relevant context. But they are fun and can reveal something interesting, so lets play a numbers game! I have three categories here: hike performance stats, some event based counts and expense statistics.

Hike performance statistics

All the above pie charts correlate to each other strongly. Still, some insights can be gained. One can see that North California was far the easiest section for me. After that the troubles started. Oregon should have been a breeze, and Washington not too difficult either but my numbers got worse towards the end. Northern California included the most daily elevation gain as I had the best pace there.

The chart above shows that the most common hiking distance bracket for me was 40-50 km. Just as I was able to stabilise my distances to 50-60 km, the foot issues started. Maybe I was approaching my physical limit, who knows. But I feel that the shoes were the actual reason. The zero bracket is disappointedly large.

Event statistics

A town visit meant most of the time also a resupply. Few times I had quite enough food and just enjoyed the town otherwise . It would have made sense to have the town/resupply numbers match, as the purpose of the hike was not to visit towns. Some hikers disagree with this but that is what I feel.

In hindsight, as I stated in earlier post, I would have done good to go without any resupply boxes. Now I forcefully used almost all of them at the end of the hike when I realised that I am running out of time to use them at all.

With the "beds" I am counting both the cases when I went in a hotel or a hostel, as well as when a trail angel let me stay in their house. The number is surprisingly large. 

With the "Magic" category I counted every occasion when somebody (non-hiker) gave me something (with the exception of water). Usually this was food. The large number paints a clear picture how well liked hikers are along the PCT corridor. The magic did not fade away even in the High Sierras. 

The amount of hitches closely resembles the amount of town visits. Only in few occasions it was more reasonable to utilise a paid transportation, usually a bus.

Expense statistics

The trail life is not that expensive if you do not use hotels and restaurants all the time. My numbers on trail are a bit ugly as in the Sierras I changed the quilt to a sleeping bag and in Washington the tarp to a tent. The gear category is thus a bit bloated.

North California was dirt cheap for me. Obviously, the quicker you are, the less you need to spend for food or anything else.

In the categories, "clothes" include shoes and "Food" does not include the resupply boxes.

If we forget about the extra gear that I bought along the trail, food and accommodation were the most costly categories.

In the beginning of the hike, I spent quite a lot for hotels. Later, I utilised more hostels and just wanted to sleep on trail more. In Washington the forced zeros wrecked this habit and it was expensive again.

The food costs on trail went down in the later stage of the hike. This was because of the incoming resupply boxes.

Above, there is a more accurate break down for expenses per section and the grand total for all expenses. 

Almost 11 thousand euros is quite a lot of money. A big portion of that was spent for gear that can be reused. Most certainly I could still have sliced the total amount in half and still be successful in the hike. As this was my first major hike and I did not exactly have a budget, I am not too disappointed with the finances. Next time I will make wiser and more cost effective choices.