Some people ask what we are doing to
prepare for the PCT, so let me tell you: YOU CAN'T PREPARE! As much
as I want to say we are going to be fully prepared to do it by the
time we hit Campo (the southern terminus on the Mexican border where
the northbound trail starts) the truth is I know we won't be. No
matter how hard we plan, no matter how many hikes and backpacking
trips we go on, nothing could possibly prepare us for hiking 2,650
miles in 4 months – and that's ok.
But, since we don't want to be in the
60% of people who start and fail to finish the trail, we are trying
to be as “prepared” as possible. So shy of watching an occasional
YouTube video and documentary about the trail we are trying to
sharpen some of our backpacking skills.
We went on an overnight backpacking
trip up Mount Bradley on Douglas Island. Even though we had packed
enough water (super easy to do on an overnight trip) we chose to
practice treating and drinking water from outside. Chris had some water treatment tablets in
his first-aid kit so we put them to use. After dumping
out a Nalgene of perfect water from our kitchen sink, we refilled the
bottle with cold water from a tarn (small mountain lake) and then
treated it with iodine tablets. And drank it. It sure didn't taste as good as our kitchen
sink water, but neither of us got sick and that is always a plus! We
aren't certain which water treatment/filtration method we want to use on the PCT
– there are a lot of different ones out on the market – but we
have been doing research to help us figure it out. Though we may not
end up using the tablets as our main method of water treatment, it
was still a good feeling to practice treating our own water. After
all, once we hit the trail we will be relying on our water filtration
skills for survival in life or death situations. (Maybe that's a
little dramatic, but this
really is a critical and important thing to know).
Another topic that we have been
discussing a lot is whether or not we want to go stoveless. While
they do make lightweight backpacking stoves – we even own one that
we love – it is even “lighterweight” to not bring one. Bringing
a stove takes up space and weight with not just the stove itself but
also fuel, extra water, cooking utensils, etc. Cooking with a
stove also takes more time. And when you are thru-hiking for four
months straight small amounts of weight and time really add up.
Though a hot meal here and there would be nice we are leaning towards
the thought that it's not worth it. A lot of people don't part with
their stoves because they can't part with their coffee, since we
don't drink coffee we shouldn't have a problem doing it. On that same
backpacking trip up Mount Bradley we experimented with one of my
stoveless meal ideas. For all you Pinterest-ers out there you will
remember that overnight oats were all the rage a few months back, and
I tweaked this idea to make it a perfect backpacking breakfast. It's
basically just oatmeal and add whatever you want (we added brown
sugar, some sea salt, and dried apples because that's what we had in
our cupboard), then before you go to bed pour in some water, shake it
up, and let it soak overnight. In the morning breakfast is there
waiting for you! We love the idea of overnight oats because you can
really mix it up with different add-ins and oatmeal is a great
stick-to-your-belly-give-you-energy meal for hiking (plus it's light
to carry). Bonus: it tastes really good too.
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