We have a sponsor!

KEEN Footwear will be sponsoring our upcoming PCT adventure.

The sponsorship comes in the form of socks…which is perfect because that was one of the few pieces of gear that we were still up in the air about.

A box of KEEN’s Olympus socks arrived in the mail a few days ago. We each got 2 pairs of ultralight low-cut socks (which will most likely be in constant rotation as we hike) and 1 pair of medium weight crew socks (which will most likely be used for sleeping). It’s nice to have one pair of socks that you only use for sleeping. After all the trials and tribulations that your feet endure, they can at least count on a dry pair of socks to snuggle up in at the end of the day.

KEEN will supply us with new socks throughout the Trail as needed, though it might not need to be very often because the fibers in the socks are apparently 15 times stronger than steel. We’re not sure how that level of strength is measured, but it seems pretty impressive. If these socks are stronger than steel, does that mean our feet will become stronger than Superman’s? We are excited to find out.

Katherine’s favorite part about the socks so far is the fact that they are designed for either the right or left foot, and labeled as such! It’s the little things in life…

How To Upload Photos…When You’re In The Middle Of Nowhere

This might be a no-brainer to some, but Katherine honestly had no idea how to transfer photos from the Fancy Camera to the Cell Phone for the purposes of uploading to blog whilst on the Trail. She thought we might have to invest, as many do, in a $117 AirStash, but did not like the idea…mainly due to the invest part of it.

Luckily, Paul came to the rescue. See, Android smartphones come with a little baby SD card (also called a micro SD card). Apparently, there isn’t one in an iPhone, which is why many people end up having to buy an AirStash. Therefore, as Android users, we just needed to buy a $29 Micro SD card that would fit into the Canon T2i –we ended up purchasing this one — and it turned out we already had an old Motorola Micro SD lying around too…the more the merrier! Now, we can use the SD cards to shuttle our photos from Camera to Phone to Blog.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1. Put Micro SD card into Camera.

Step 2. Take photo of pretty blossoming tree juxtaposed by an old ghetto shack.

Step 3. Take Micro SD card out of Camera. (Yes, that’s the same picture as Step 1)

Step 4. Put Micro SD card into the back of the smartphone.

Step 5. Search in phone Photo Gallery to find the picture.

Step 6. Upload photo to blog from phone. Boom. Who knew it could be so easy? Thanks, Paul!

Hudson River Hike

One of the great things about training for the Pacific Crest Trail prior to leaving New York is that it gives us an excuse to explore roads and neighborhoods we’ve never been to before (like Roosevelt Island a few weeks ago). On this particular hike, we had the chance to explore the tippity top of Manhattan.We started out in the neighborhood of Inwood, the northern-most point of the island, right across the Harlem River from the Bronx. There was a lovely wooded park full of hills (aptly named Inwood Hill Park), and views of the Henry Hudson Bridge.

Our journey took us south into Fort Tyron Park, which is home to The Cloisters: a replica of medieval European abbeys. Bricks from 5 different French cloistered abbeys were shipped to New York in the 1930’s and used to build The Cloisters! Very beautiful building, gardens, and views. Sadly, spring is taking its sweet time getting to the East Coast, so the trees and gardens were bleak. Paul and I had been to The Cloisters’ gardens once a few years ago when the flowers were in full bloom and it was gorgeous!

After we made it through those two beautiful parks in the woods, we ended up on the peaceful Hudson River Greenway, which is a paved trail along the Hudson River stretching all the way down the length of Manhattan. Once you hit midtown and head south, it gets pretty packed with joggers and cyclists. However, up where we were hiking, it was like being in the quiet countryside.

Not so sure we’d want to eat those fish!

At one point we walked by the section of parkway where we used to reside in Washington Heights. Katherine had memories of coming out here to watch the Fleet Week ships float up the river. Living in Washington Heights was wild….a true “inner city” experience. It is known for having some of the most affordable housing in Manhattan. Though they are rather rundown, the apartments are still lavish and huge for the price. Back in the day, we made friends with the drug dealers on our stoop so that they would keep an eye on our truck parked on the street and make sure nothing bad happened to it! It was a crazy, adventurous time, and we’re glad to have experienced it.  Plus, we were within walking distance to the Yankees games in the Bronx!

Our day hike continued at a quick pace along the shimmery shore, but the sky grew stormy as the day wore on, and Katherine’s feet really started to ache. Luckily no blisters (only one blister total so far in training!), but just a general achy pain that kept shooting down her legs to her feet. The Greenway started to merge with the highway where it was noisy and polluted. The beautiful tree-filled hike was quickly turning into a painful, annoying slog. Just as Katherine was on the verge of giving up, we made it to midtown: our stopping point.

Paul and the many Trump Towers

We stepped into the historic Landmark Tavern on 11th ave for a bite to eat. Literally every eye in the room stared at us in our gear when we walked though the door. Again more questions about out trekking poles…no one out east knows what trekking poles are! Once our stuff was safely tucked under the table, we ate a hearty meal (burgers, fish and chips, Caesar salad). We left feeling completely rejuvenated, almost as if we could walk another eleven miles!

Katherine’s favorite street in Hell’s Kitchen: It’s called Restaurant Row! Gotta love the people in the neighborhood….

But since it was near 6pm, we opted to just walk to Times Square and take pictures. Paul is one of the few New York residents who actually loves Times Square. He takes joy in people-watching and photo-bombing.

Let The Sunshine In

The Galaxy SII will be an integral part of our Trail adventure. We’ll use it for navigation, nature apps, backup camera, calling friends and family, and of course, updating the blog! Technology hasn’t figured out how to recharge our phone by plugging it into a tree (yet!), but we DO have a way to plug our phone into the sun!

Here’s how we’ve rigged up our solar charger to ensure that our phone has power on the Trail:

Step 1. Drill hole into corners of Suntastics sCharger-5

Step 2. Loop string (we used a shoe lace) through the holes and through loops in backpack lid.

Step 3.  Connect phone to charger with USB cable and stow in backpack pocket (while keeping phone protected against the elements in the E-Case!)

Step 4. Take a walk in the sun!

Voila! Charged.

We Have Too Much Gear

There’s just too much of it. Much as we’ve tried to be like the cool ultra-light team, the allure of gear continues to tempt us…Or should we say, it continues to tempt Paul. The ongoing struggle between Katherine and Paul is weight vs gear. It’s a hard argument to make when we’re not really out there in the wilderness experiencing what our actual needs are…all this planning is for hypothetical experiences that have yet to take place. Ultimately, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to be slightly over-prepared than under-prepared, and we’ll just get rid of any gear we don’t use by way of mailing it home or dropping it in hiker boxes. (Hiker boxes are boxes located in most Resupply Towns and are used to contain and exchange discarded food and gear from people like us who packed too much.)

All of the gear in the images below is also listed on our Gear page with links to where we got it all (Amazon.com is our best bud). Some of this gear and clothing may change by the time we start and/or finish the trail, so our Gear page will have the most up-to-date list of what we end up using.

We ended up with a Kelty tent because the price was right, and it wasn’t too heavy. It also got great Amazon.com reviews. The sleeping pad is the ever-popular Thermarest Z-Lite. Paul is annoyed with its bulk and refuses to put it on his pack when we hike through the city, but he loves how it feels to lay on. You can double-up some of the sections to create just the right amount of support under your back. Many PCT hikers apparently cut some sections off to save weight. We aren’t doing that…yet. We are using Katherine’s old cheap right-zip High Peak Extreme Pak 0° bag (o° is an advertising lie), zipped up to Paul’s new expensive left-zip Marmot Sawtooth 15° bag.** Tragedy struck when Paul’s bag arrived in the mail and we discovered that the zippers’ teeth of the two different bags didn’t match up! So Paul had to break his new bag’s zipper and force them to merge (I can’t remember why we didn’t break Katherine’s old bag’s zipper instead). Moral of the story: try to get bags that are the same brand to ensure that the zippers will be compatible. It was sad, but at least we’ll be warm and cozy together– even more so with the Sea to Summit Silk Liner.

Above is our little kitchen set-up. We’re excited to use our Sawyer 3-way filters for the water, but we are bringing back-up water treatment tablets just in case the filters malfunction. Katherine didn’t think it was necessary to bring camp towels but Paul insisted. Oh, Paul also wants a coffee mug. We’re still debating that one.

Below are the electronics we’ll be bringing with us. Yes, it’s ironic that we’re taking all these gadgets when we’re going into the wilderness (isn’t that one of the reasons to go into the woods –to get away from all these wires and batteries?), but…well so it is. Blogging, navigation, picture-taking…yadda yadda yadda. And the ever-important solar-charger…That thing is pretty nifty.  And the twinkle LED lights that Paul can’t live without.

And below we have some of the most fun parts of the gear to buy (in Katherine’s opinion) — the outer gear. Favorite items so far include the Loki 3-in-1 hat (so fun and multifunctional!), the Chrome Dome umbrella (very sturdy-feeling and light) and our down vest and parka.  Not pictured here is our Marmot and Helly Hansen rain gear. One of the biggest dilemnas we faced at first was the microspike situation: we already had the Yak Trax Extremes before we read reviews about how much more superior the Katoola’s Microspikes are. Quite a big deal because the microspikes will provide us the much-needed grip into the Sierra snow..We don’t want a piece of gear causing a broken ankle or worse.

At night, we’ll be wearing Uniqlo Heattech long underwear and tee-shirts to stay warm. Right now we’ve got a couple pairs of fancy hiker socks, but we may opt for wearing cheap nylon “church” socks, mailing ourselves more along the trail as they wear out. Because, let’s face it, nothing feels better than a new pair of socks. We’ll keep the fancy socks as our sleeping socks. In terms of our regular hiking pants, we like the convertible kind –it will be nice to turn our shorts into long pants when the mosquitoes decide to attack….Though Katherine has been considering wearing jogging shorts in non-mosquito territory (does that territory even exist on the trail?). The shirts are ones we’ve had since before PCT planning…we’ll see how they work out in the long run.

** We ended up bagging (ha! pun) the idea of zipping together our two separate bags, and instead bought a Big Agnes Saddle Mountain Doublewide bag. It. Is. Amazing. At the end of the day, the incompatible zippers of our previous two bags were more hassle than they were worth, not to mention heavy. They were also a bit drafty with the zipper right between us as is the case when you zip two bags together. The doublewide is perfect. It cuts out nearly 3 pounds of weight (that’s serious!), it’s easy to get in and out of, and it’s really cozy. We are really glad we made the switch!

The Strategy Of Resupply

We’ll be hiking for approximately 5 months. Much as we’d like, we can’t graze on the fruits and grasses of the land like the bears and deer do. To get all the food we need — not to mention an occasional soft bed and warm shower — we will need to stop at towns along the Trail to resupply.

But how do we know which towns to resupply at, and how often? Will we buy all our food on the trail or will we buy it all in advance and mail it?

To find out these answers, we utilized 2 main resources:

Craig’s PCT Planner – A free online program that allows you to enter in your starting/finishing points and hiking speed. It calculates the number of days and miles there are between each town. Thanks to Craig’s planner, we know how many days worth of food to buy/mail for each section of our hike. Really awesome tool!

Yogi’s Guide Books – These are the only guide books we bought, so we can’t compare them to others out there. However, we won’t be using any other books because these ones seem to have all the information we will need. Yogi compiles not only her own experiences, but also the opinions and adventures of other seasoned thru-hikers. She includes details of all the possible resupply towns, which is how we decided which ones to stop at and which ones to skip.

We also read the resupply lists of these helpful blogs: Nate and Jenna, Wandering the Wild, and The Hungry Honeymoon

The kitten, of course, had a plethora of informative tidbits when it came to food resupply strategy.

After all was said and done, we are going to do what most thru-hikers do: a mix of buying and mailing.

Our goals are to stay relatively close to the Trail during resupply, while balancing the costs of buying bulk before we go vs the cost of shipping food vs the costs of small town grocery stores. We also don’t mind stopping fairly often if it means keeping our pack weights down. The towns in which we’ll be buying are, for the most part, a short walk or hitch from the trail and offer large-ish grocery stores to load up in. Some towns might only have small expensive convenience stores, or even nothing at all! In those cases, we will be relying on boxes that Paul’s mom will be mailing to us.

You can view our list of Resupply Towns here.

Now that we’ve got this painstaking bit of research out of the way, the next step is to plan for the food itself!

It’s Not All Fun And Games…

When we thought of planning for the PCT, we envisioned shopping for gear and food, bragging to our friends, and reading all kinds of PCT books and blogs.

We did not envision doing paperwork.

Granted, there’s really not THAT much paperwork. It’s less paperwork than…say…WORK. But there’s enough that it requires a fair amount of printing, scanning, signing, and mailing. Postage starts to add up even before resupply boxes are in the mail.

1. First things first: PCT thru-hike permit. This one is really simple and doesn’t require that much personal information or even money (thought they do accept donations). Bonus: you can email them the permit request. But you still need to print, sign, and scan it before emailing it. Our request looked a bit wonky because we are planning to start Northbound from Tehachapi in June, then flip back and head Southbound in October. A day or two after emailing our request, the nice PCTA folks actually called Paul to clarify our itinerary. They were really cool and joked about it…already feeling the good PCT vibes!

2. This one was a bit more of a hassle: APPLICATION FOR ENTRY TO CANADA VIA THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL. It took a while, because the application requires all sorts of decentralized information: our addresses over the last 5 years, our passport numbers, Driver’s License Numbers, and addresses of our Emergency Contacts. Then they need scanned copies of said passports and Driver’s Licenses. And it has to be snail mailed in, so there was the research and guesswork of what postage would cost, then the scrounging up stamps. (It being Sunday, the Post Office was closed. Besides, we try to avoid NYC post offices like the plague.)

3. A really easy permit: California Campfire Permit. A short 4 question quiz is all that is needed before being directed to a PDF permit which you can print out and sign to keep with you on the Trail. The quiz created the happy side-effect of us reminiscing about campfires and roasting s’mores…

4. Last but not least (so far)…BearVault Canister Purchase Program. Originally intending on renting the Bearikade Weekender, Katherine got frustrated trying to figure out the website to enroll in the rental process. She started to consider the BearVault. We like the BearVault because the design is see-through, it’s more cost-efficient, and we’ll be able to keep the canisters after the hike instead of having to return them.  We filled out and printed off a form, found an old blank check (neither of us has a checkbook since the act of writing checks is so rare in this electronic day and age), and snail mailed the forms and check. A few days later, we received an email confirmation that our BearVaults would be waiting for us at Kennedy Meadows when we get there. Yay!

It’s nice to have this little bit of “leg-work” behind us so that the real leg-work can begin!

A Short “Hike” Through Queens

We went for a hike so short today, one might call it a Saturday-afternoon stroll. But we carried our packs and trekking polls, so we’re calling it a hike.

The trail took us northbound over the Pulaski Bridge into Long Island City. Great views of midtown while crossing the bridge.

2 years ago, after living in Washington Heights in Manhattan, we briefly considered moving to Long Island City. We ended up going to Greenpoint since it was closer to Paul’s work, but it is still very fun to visit LIC. A beautiful park and boardwalk stretches the length of the town along the East River. There might be plans in the works to build the park so that it connects to Greenpoint and runs all the way down to Brooklyn Bridge Park. That would be such a gorgeous trail, especially in the summer!

LIC has changed so much since we initially considered living here — it has been under constant construction for the past several years, and many new residential skyscrapers have popped up like daisies. The neighborhood is now an interesting combination of small pre-war railroad apartments, new glassy highrises, old abandoned warehouses, and construction sites.  Streets are lined with Irish dive pubs next to swanky boutiques and restaurants — and some fun iconic signage!

Katherine got to test out her new MontBell Ultralight Down Parka — it was in the low 30’s today — and she loved it! (Though she did wish there was a breast pocket to stow her phone in, since her backpack belt covered up the handwarmer pockets.) The jacket is as light as a piece of paper, and it was very effective at shielding against the wind and chill. The technology in gear nowadays is really something!

We will soon have our gear list all put together to post here.

Our long distance permits have been applied for.

Slowly but surely we are checking things off on our PCT-Prep To-Do list!

We Are Hiking The Pacific Crest Trail In 2013

Welcome to our first blog post!

Paul and I are knee-deep in the planning stages for the PCT. Most of our gear has been acquired. We’ll be testing it out this weekend during a Brooklyn-style hike, post-blizzard.

A lot of our free time has been well-spent reading fellow hikers’ blogs. It’s been extremely helpful to read various gear and resupply lists. The day-to-day accounts of life on the trail have been a source of inspiration and excitement. Two blogs that are particularly thorough and helpful are Wandering the Wild and Walking with Wired.

Next up on the to-do list:

• Apply for permits.
• Lock down our resupply towns.