Maryland Weekend

The gang met back up for a fun filled weekend of hiking and camping! I tried my hand at a breakfast recipe from Fresh of the Grid and it was a hit! The second photo is Muddy Falls in Swallow Falls State Park.

Back at work

My last day on the payroll was last Wednesday and the PCTA sent out the request for hikers to postpone his or her thru hike on Thursday night. Immediately I sent an email to my old supervisor explaining the situation and asking to come back and work for a year. I got the call Friday saying I could mark down Thursday and Friday as vacation days and come to work Monday as if I had never even left. A perfect example of why you should always leave your job on a good note.

Since I am back where I left off, I'll be able to use my 3 weeks of vacation time this year! Well, once the social distancing is over. Brad started work today as well and Raechel was able to not only get her old job back, but work remotely so she could stay at home! That means I'll still have my hiking buddies nearby. I can't believe it was just a month ago when we were all cheering each other on to quit our jobs and now it's the complete opposite. 

Just another Saturday

We would be flying out to San Diego right now if it weren't for the current state of the country. It's 8:00 pm and Kiersten and I are trying to operate a pressure cooker for the first time. A few hours ago I went through all my resupply kits and separated the food that will last until next year (dehydrated meals in vacuum sealed bags) and snacks that will expire in a few months. At least I won't have to go to Walmart to refill my snack drawer at work for a bit. And sadly, I added a year onto the countdown widget on my phone; it went from two days to 367 days.


But here are some things I am looking forward to this summer:

• white water kayaking
• the big blue swimming hole hike
• camping at coopers rock and Ohiopyle
• working another year and saving money
• Indy 500 (depending on the lockdown timing)
• biking with my mom, maybe the Gap trail!
• a trip to Pictured Rocks in Michigan
• a trip to the Smoky Mountains in Gatlinburg 
• Women Who Hike Ohio meetups

Flight Cancellation

A few things on my to-do list including cancelling my flight and deactivating my Inreach.

PCTA Closure

 After two weeks of going back and forth, the PCTA made the decision to postpone our hikes until 2021. At this point it feels like a weight is lifted off of my chest. I am sad we do not get to hike, but with everything that is going on, there is just too much uncertainty and logistical nightmares I do not have to deal with now. I will keep this blog up to date on my hikes and gear changes until then!

Making a tough call

Who could have predicted something like this would happen right as we are about to set foot on trail. The decision was made to cancel our flights this Saturday in response to the towns along trail closing town. With the pandemic going around, a six month hike alone in the woods sounds like the best place to be but the logistics aren't as easy.
On our 3 hour long conference call, the four of us landed on three options: leave this weekend, wait it out, or try again next year. We flip flopped through the ideas about 10 times. If we went as originally planned, we would need to send all resupply boxes to make up for the shortages in trail towns. Raechel and Krista were depending on the stores in town, so we came up with option two which would allow a few weeks for them to buy food and put together those boxes. But even with all the food sent out ahead, there would still barely be anyone to meet on trail and no one to give us a hitch into town. The trail towns' basically shutting down would take half the fun out of the experience. In my opinion, it would be better to wait a full year for life to go back to normal. I just hope I can get my job back if we call it a quits in the next couple weeks.

Last day

Today was my last couple hours at work! It feels very strange to be quitting in the middle of a pandemic. Thinking about adding a few more resupply drops because of the food shortage.

Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail

This weekend was the last test for gear and strength for the trail next week. We hiked 12.5 miles to the Ohiopyle shelters and walked back 5 miles the next morning. I felt strong hiking the trail and feel good about my pack weight. I stayed mostly warm in my new -10F sleeping bag, but I'm wondering if I still need to add a sleeping pad with a larger R-value (so the cold from the ground doesn't reach me). And I still haven't learned from the Loyalsock trip to bring an extra set of gloves or just buy some waterproof ones.

Around 4:00 am I woke up to the sound of someone throwing a snowball at my tent every 30 seconds. I realized the 5 inches of snow were melting from the tree branches in large chunks and falling on my tent. I put my headphones in to drown out the noise, but once a very large chunk hit the tent, I feared for the integrity of the DCF material. I got out to see about moving my tent, but the snow was falling everywhere. Because I couldn't sleep, I decided to build the fire in the lean two back up. It was at that point I had to decide between the snowballs hitting my tent or the mice scurrying above my head.

Fun weekend and a solid climb in the morning to test my ability!

Logo

New logo created by Susan Harrer!

COVID-19

Within a week, everything went from on schedule to feeling like the plans we have been making for two years were slipping through our fingers. We still have our flight to San Diego, but we will drive if air travel becomes restricted. Understandably, Scout and Frodo closed their doors until the situation is under control, but we chose a weekday when the buses are running incase they had to cancel. A lot of fear mongering has already started; people have asked "what if California closes its borders or the National Parks close." In either case, a huge majority of the trail would be cut off. I guess we could always start the Appalachian Trail even though the only experience we have with that trail is the 20+ years we have lived on the east coast. I just hope I can still hike and don't end up jobless and unable to hike come next week.

Absentee Ballot

Applying to vote in April!

California Dreamin

We begin hiking THIS MONTH! I am dreaming of California on this rainy Monday.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2Jm5qjL4t8C94Zwkj11dNJ?si=REs3vP2EStmAfqPB-AYNdQ

Leap Day

Leap Day means an extra day for training!

FAQs

Now that everyone at work knows what I'm doing, I've been getting a lot of questions about the trail. Here are the questions that have been coming up the most:

Where will you sleep?
I am carrying my tent and sleeping bag with me and I'll stop to sleep when I'm tired of walking or the weather gets bad. Hopefully a flat spot, with coverage from the wind, and not an area for water to pool.

How do you get food?
I will carry around 4-6 days worth of food with me and cook dinner using my BRS stove with a fuel canister attached. I will only carry a bear canister in the Sierra's where it's mandatory and everywhere else I have a bear bag hanging kit. When we get to a town (which which mainly involves hitch hiking), I will either have a prepacked box I'll have my mom shipped or go to the largest grocery store and fill up for the next section. I have chosen towns to send boxes to based on previous years' hikers.

Are you carrying a gun?
No

How cold will it get?
At night it can get as low as 20F.

How will you get water?
There is an app called Guthook that documents all the water sources along the trail. People can comment on the app with the most up to date information. The longest stretch between water sources will be about 30 miles, in which we'll have to "camel up." A water source can be anything from a stream to a water cache someone donated.

Showers?
I'll shower when I can! I guess on average that will be once a week. I know, gross.

Quitting Work

I handed in my letter of resignation and there is no turning back now! 32 days to go!

Here is a photo of my training hike at Ohiopyle yesterday.

Female Hygiene Post

I talked with my gynecologist last year about my period and I've been working up to having no period while on the trail. She changed my birth control prescription so I would have enough pills to skip the placebo week. I've had issues with spotting after about a couple months so I may have to plan to have it halfway through, but it's still not as bad as every 4 weeks.

This year I talked with her about my stomach pains and she said it was normal to get what pregnant women call "morning sickness" from sensitivity to the pill. To combat the nausea, I've been experimenting with the timing of taking my pill; if I take the pill around 3:00pm, I would be asleep for any nausea. I've been on this schedule for 3 weeks now and so far it has proved very successful!

Birthday Hike!

I stayed home from work today because my pink eye is still contagious, but I can still hang out in the woods! I filled my pack up with 20 lbs of old gear and 6 cans of cream soda to get ready for long days on the trail.

My neighbors must think I'm nuts

My sleeping bag came in! I tried it out this past Friday because it was the coldest it's been all winter. Here I am in the backyard in 14F temperature with mild winds. I was very warm and I even had to delayer! I am very relieved to sleep comfortable on the trail even if it means an extra pound on my back.

Sleeping Bag

Even though I was sure I wanted the Western Mountaineering Lynx MF -10F sleeping bag, it was much harder to spend a months rent on a piece of gear than I thought. I'm looking forward to getting to test it out in a few days! Other purchases I made today were the Waymark fanny pack, which I hope is a better shape than the LiteAF fanny pack, and tent patches and dry bags from Zpacks.

Extreme Bar Hopping

I just realized we are basically just hiking from bar to bar. Calling it extreme bar hopping.

February

I'm so excited to say we start hiking NEXT MONTH! I am sick this weekend so mom and I spent the day drinking tea and watching Mari Johnson's PCT videos!

Savings Checkpoint

Two months out and I have officially saved up to my target amount. I'll still have 1.5 more paychecks to buy what I still need like tires for my car and insurance on the trail. I'm getting so excited to leave!

Winter Overnighter

A couple weekends ago, the four of us hiked on the Loyalsock Trail in eastern PA. We intended to hike the whole 25 mile loop, but after a 22F night we decided to go back to the cars. We figured we learned enough with one night and there was no reason to suffer another. The biggest issue was my sleep system still not keeping me warm. I'll have to give in eventually and go back to a mummy bag. The other big issue was how wet my feet were after hiking in 6 inches of snow. Even though our feet stayed mostly warm from the hiking, Brad and I wore plastic bags the second day to try and keep our feet dry. Will have to work on a more permanent solution in the future. I'm thankful for Raechel's fire that night to keep us toasty while eating dinner, and their three person tent to snuggle into when I was not warm enough.

Canadian Application

The final piece to the puzzle is in my hands! I was accepted to walk into Canada through the PCT and catch a plane home from there. Brad is still waiting on getting his passport in the mail and Raechel has to reapply since she used her phone instead of a scanner to add pictures of her passport and license. But I have high hopes of walking with everyone into Manning Park this September!

Permit News

Even though our permits were accepted, it wasn't until after the second round of permit applications were released that we could officially print our permits! Funny thing though that the ETA for when the permits would be released was erroneously labeled for 2021 for a bit. I won't be printing mine until March because I would lose it before then anyway.

Entry into Canada through the PCT

Pending all things go right, I will complete my thru hike at the northern boarder of the US. But the journey does not end there, because the trail ends in the middle of the woods. The two options to make my way back to town, and eventually an airport, are to walk 8.8 miles into Manning Park in Canada or backtrack 30 miles to Harts Pass in the US. Of course I hope to walk the shorter distance (and to see what's in Canada!) but it requires a permit to legally enter the US on foot. The application reviewers turn away anyone who has a misdemeanor in the past 10 years (don't worry mom I don't have one). If I get accepted, I'll have my mom ship the permit in my last resupply box before the boarder and keep it and my passport on my person in case of random hiker checks. Oh and to fly home eventually... maybe after a trip to Banff, who knows!

Scout and Frodo

Booking our flights was the final requirement needed to sign up to stay with Scout and Frodo the night before our start date. Scout and Frodo are two trail angels near the southern terminus who have kindly volunteered their home and time to hikers starting the PCT at Campo, California. We received our verification email that all four of us have successfully signed up to be hosted by them. Thank you Scout and Frodo!

California Campfire Permit

It's the first of the year which means it's time to apply for the California fire permit. Even if we aren't allowed fires in the backcountry, we still need the permit for portable camp stoves.

PCT 2020

Happy New Year! It's officially the year we thru hike the PCT! So it's pretty obvious that my New Year's resolution is to hike from Mexico to Canada. 😄