Not a Thru-Hiker ... Yet

I’m not a thru-hiker. Not yet, anyway. I’ve set a goal to hike the 2,660-mile Pacific Crest Trail in 2022. It's an understatement to say this is quite a lofty goal for a relatively new backpacker. So, what have I been doing to get more knowledgeable about this crazy task? I’ve been consuming all kinds of media (book and podcast list below); I've started talking to those with much more backpacking experience (enter Girl Gotta Hike's guide-extraordinaire, Melissa "Click!" Goodwin, and some of her amazing friends); and I’ve started doing more multi-day trips.

On the recent episode of Girl Gotta Hike: The Podcast, I moderated a Q&A session with veteran thru-hikers, Click! and Lauren "Woodchuck” de la Vega, as they talked about their time on trail. We had an absolute blast, mostly with me sitting in rapt attention listening to their trail stories and soaking in their advice. I was able to apply that advice very soon afterward when I solo-hiked two sections of the Arizona Trail over four days:

To give a level of safety comfort to myself and my family, I brought a Garmin inReach Mini satellite tracking/SOS device. With it, I was able to send my family messages when I started and stopped, and it pinged them my location every two hours. With the location data, they knew I was safely moving toward my pre-determined waypoints. In the event of an emergency, the inReach has an SOS button that would have connected me to a rescue team, which definitely provided an extra layer of comfort.
I read up on what to do if wildlife was encountered. Luckily, no rattlesnakes or mountain lions were spotted on this trip.
I didn’t post anything on social media about my trip until after it was done. And I didn’t tell the few people I met on trail where I was planning to camp.
I planned and prepared well in advance of my trip. Water being a scarce commodity in the desert, I knew where the probable sources were and how much water I’d need to carry between sources. And I knew where the big climbs were so I could expect my pace to slow. Both of those aspects influenced where I planned to camp.
I was lucky enough to find several flowing creeks and only had to use a cattle trough as a water source once. I filtered all water with my Sawyer Squeeze and also added Aquamira chemical drops to the trough water just to be safe. It still tasted disgusting, though. [Side note: If you listened to the podcast, you heard how truly kind “trail angels” can be. Fortunately I never ran out of water, but trail angels left gallons of water cached along the way just in case!]
A few hours into my first day, I found myself in the middle of a rain and hail storm. Cacti and shrubs aren’t great at providing cover, so I was getting pelted in the face by pieces of ice. Fast forward to the next day and I found myself in biting, cold wind all day. While miserably eating my lunch on a rock and trying to keep my tortilla from flying away, I remembered “No rain, no pain, no Maine” (or, in my case, no Roosevelt Lake) and found new resolve. Mental toughness: I’m going to keep working at building it but now I know I’ve already got some.

My goal for this trip was to apply what I’ve learned/read/heard and figure out how I like to do things myself. After four days of only seeing a handful of people, I figured out that I really like the physical aspects of hiking by myself. It allows me to set the pace based on how I’m feeling and lets my mind go. But I also realized that the act of walking for miles is only part of a hike; sharing the experience with friends, new or old, is what makes it memorable. So, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on the next Girl Gotta Hike outing!