A successful long
hike starts months before you even step foot.
I think of it as lining up a string of domino’s, not knocking any over
before you’re ready but getting them set to swiftly and easily fall. I haven’t been updating the blog that often
the last few months but preparations are steadily making progress. Here’s a breakdown of how I’ve been doing it:
Make an
Itinerary
The Spreadsheet
The first step
for me is to get a handle on where I’m going and when I should get there. That means timing my steps to arrive during
decent weather. As a hiker, we’re limited
to the gear we carry on our backs and have to select locations with weather and
trail conditions that roughly match our skills and gear. Adding some snow specific gear like an ice axe
or microspikes isn’t too complicated but switching from 3 season to 4 season
camping would mean a huge overhaul in gear, skills and methods of travel – from
walking to skiing for instance and the many skills required to assess and avoid
avalanche risks.
I started out
with the CDT as the sort of centerpiece of my plan with the TA and AZT as gratuitous
extra’s. Originally for a September
start, the AZT made the most sense with a winter spent in New Zealand. A knee injury forced me to delay, find a new
apartment but keep saving money at my unsatisfying but well-paying job. Now the CDT is still the focus and I’m using
the Arizona and Grand Enchantment trails as “approach trails”, cutting off the
lower 180 miles of the CDT that don’t look all that appetizing anyway.
Timing for
weather means hiking in the desert in spring and getting to Colorado as the
weather warms enough to prevent significant fresh snow fall. Fresh snow leads to avalanche danger and
extra slow hiking/post holing.
Consolidated spring snow generally doesn’t avalanche and ices over in
the mornings and at night for faster travel.
Snow storms can still hit in June but the chances are much lower than in
May. I could start earlier in Arizona,
but that would mean hitting Colorado in May.
Now that I have
an idea of when I need to get to difference spots on the trail, I can come up
with a rough schedule to make sure I’m not planning too many or too few miles
to time the weather correctly. I started
with someone else’s CDT google spreadsheet and manipulated it to fit my hiking
plan:
The first step
is to pick where on the trail you want to resupply. Early on I plan on moving slow to allow my
body to adapt to hiking every day, so I’m basically resupplying at every
possible location. Later, I can pick and
choose a bit to make it more convenient to pick up packages.
At the very top
of the spreadsheet is my start date and all the dates at each town are linked
to it. That allows me to estimate where
I’ll be based on different start dates.
I’m actually a little concerned I’ll hike too fast and arrive in CO too
early, so I’m open to side trips to different areas to kill time. On the very left hand column is the resupply
box number I plan on sending and the far right is the address. Another column estimates hiking days to give
me an idea of how much food to send and I add notes if I’ll need extra to cover
time spent in a town without any restaurants.
Taking Care of Life
Now that I have
a start date and a rough idea of how much food I need to prepare ahead of the trip,
I can start assembling food. I can also
figure out when I need to put “normal” life on hold. That involves subletting my apartment, moving
all my stuff to storage, arranging health insurance, cancelling my car
insurance and quitting my job.
I just found a
subletter starting March but haven’t given my job notice yet. I still need to figure out the health
insurance thing and move everything I own from my place in Boston to storage in
my parents’ house in Maryland. I don’t
really own much furniture, so I’m selling my bed and dresser to the subletter
and trimming down other possessions to fit into my Honda Civic.
The last piece
is parting with friends. I won’t be back
for quite a while, 6 months at least – that is if I even return to southern New
England. The hardest part has been
feeling like I’m avoiding making new friends because I know I’ll be leaving
soon – a state of mind I’ve been in since last spring when the trip planning
first got started, then delayed. I still
do make new friends but often feel like I hold them and my old friends at arm’s
length. This leads to a sort of pre-trip
anxiety and feeds into “what-if” type thinking which isn’t helpful. I often have to refocus on why I’m doing the
trip, what I experienced on the PCT and that people and places will be there. I don’t want people to feel like I’m
abandoning them, but in a way I am, for quite a while.
Gathering Trail Stuff
The 3,700 miles
I have planned (not including the TA) is going to mean I have to know where I’m
walking to and how I’m getting my resupply.
The itinerary helps with the big picture but maps and databooks are
needed for the day to day. I have to
print out a mix of about 400 double sided 8.5x11 and 11x17 paper maps (some of
those made by me!), plus the GPS tracks loaded into my iPhone for backup
navigation. I really like the Gaia app
and Guthook gave me his CDT and Colorado
Trail apps to boot. I’d rather rely
on map and compass and use the phone as backup, so if I do take an external
battery it’ll be only 4,000 mAh rather than the 8,000 to 12,000 mAh monsters
you see the more “wired” hikers using.
Other than
maps, I’ll also need replacement shoes and clothing, snow gear for
Colorado. I’ll be assembling all of that
at my parents’ house to be send with resupply boxes as needed. I also need the guidebook for the Grand
Enchantment Trail since a lot of it is off trail or on unmaintained trail and
is extremely remote. There are sections
of the route that have burned and not yet been repaired where reroutes may be
necessary.
Training
I lost a lot of
fitness due to my knee injury over the summer.
I’ve gained a lot of the aerobic fitness back this past fall and winter
but haven’t been able to get my volume up.
I can’t really replicate hiking in the desert while living in Boston in
January and February. The mountains here
are too steep and the snow is too soft to simulate the long days repetitive foot
pounding and sun exposure. I could go
for long “hikes” wandering around the city on pavement but there isn’t enough
elevation gain and that’s pretty boring.
Instead, I have fun in the White Mountains with winter hiking, go
mountain biking, do yoga and stay active during the weeknights. I’ve been running a lot more too and I’m
hoping that helps build foot strength.
Recently I ran a mile in 6:45 so my fitness isn’t doing too bad.
Gear
Notice I’ve
barely said anything about gear and this huge post is almost done? Ironically
if you research backpacking or thru-hiking especially most of the information and
questions people ask on forums will be on gear.
Many people obsess over it far more than what I think is necessary. This is totally evident when you’re out in the
backcountry and stumble across someone with a Coleman tent or other giant
outdated gear who’s having the time of their life. On the PCT I met people
hiking with almost every reasonable combination of gear possible and most of
them finished or did thousands of miles of hiking.
At a certain
point you have to put your foot down and say enough is enough. I could buy every single thing on my back
over again and be only marginally more happy but significantly poorer in money
and time. At some point you have to ask if
you gear will keep you safe, warm and reasonably comfortable. If the answer is yes to all three then you
probably don’t need to worry about it. I
did a gear post for Appalachian
Trials here although I think the audience doesn’t really understand what I
was talking about.
