Author: Anthony Ottati

 

 

 

 

 

My parents drove me to the trailhead and dropped me off, it was weird to finally see the monument in person after seeing so many pictures and videos of it posted online. As I was starting an elated southbounder emerged from the trail and hugged the monument. She had gotten off trail for hip replacement in October and she had just come back to finish the last few hundred miles of the trail. I didn’t want to sit around too long, I had 2650 miles of trail in front of me and only 102 days to hike it, so after saying good bye to my mom and dad, I started walking north. I’m not going to write a full blog post about this trip as that would take a whole book. Instead I will post my favorite pictures from each section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1: Gear

For a while I have been working on lightening my gear and I see the PCT as a culmination of a long effort. I have always thought of lightening your base weight as a spiral, the lighter your pack is, the quicker you hike. Hiking quicker necessitates less food as you can cover more ground each day, thus your pack becomes lighter and the cycle continues.

I started the trail with slightly more things then I ended it with. The PCT is a great place to learn about ultralight backpacking as there are so many people to learn from. I will share my gearlist from the end of the trail, however most of the changes from the beginning are quite minor, getting rid of a stuff sack or a bandanna for example. There were however two major changes I made: getting rid of my stove and lightening my camera.

Both of these changes stemmed from broken gear. I wasn’t using my stove much but after a year of use it finally gave out on me in my first week on trail. So, I decided to go stove less and in doing so saved weight but more importantly time. It is very nice to end a long day of hiking without having to cook anything. Unfortunately my Sony a6300 camera stopped working around Mt. Shasta. Thus I send it home and bought an rx100. I was curious to try this lighter camera and it performed quite well, but of course it cannot hold a candle to the lowlight performance on a bigger sensor.

Below is my lighterpack:

https://lighterpack.com/e/1jq9a8

Part 2: Planning

As a full time student I did not have much time for planning. Some people plan extensively and pack boxes but I would not recommend this especially on a first thru-hike. It is impossible to know how many calories you will be eating daily and what kind of food you will enjoy. Many people who sent boxes became so sick of their food they eventually just hiker boxed most of it. I completed the trail only sending myself food twice. In Cascade Locks Oregon I mailed myself food to White Pass and to Steven’s Pass. I could have gone the whole trail without mailing food but I mailed these two boxes to save time.

In general since I had not done much research on the trail I mostly looked 2-300 miles ahead on Guthooks to plan out where I was going to resupply and also talked to other hikers. My parents sent me my bear can to Kennedy Meadows South as well which was incredibly helpful.

Part 3: physical and mental preparation

In addition to all of the backpacking trips mentioned on my blog I also ran Cross-country and Track in high-school which helped load a good “base” of miles onto my legs. Mentally having been on multi-week trips before such as the Sierra High Route or my trip hitchhiking to Alaska helped immensely.

The weather was good and Matt, John and I planned to head up Mt Whitney’s Mountaineers route. We drove 7 hours through the night and slept one mile down road of the portal because the road was closed. This trip was pretty rushed to do in a weekend from the Bay Area, but it was well worth it.

Matt’s trip report can be found here.