BowCast Blog

We survived another 102 miles on the PCT.  A couple of the highlights; we covered about 50 miles through the desert—the other 50 through the mountains and snuck through about 30 miles of trail that was closed due to a recent fire.  By the second day, Kyri had 6 blisters, 3 matching ones on each foot.  I started off loading weight out of her pack, then carried the whole thing on the 4th day.  The last day we started out at 8,800 feet with snow on the ground and temps in the low 40’s and descended to the desert floor north of Palm Springs, where we were greeted by 105 degree temps.  My water filter gave out on us the second day.  The filter needed to be replaced prior to the trip.  In my infinite optimism (stupidity), I figured we could squeak one more trip out of it.  That left me drinking out of the most suspect water source we encountered on the entire trip on the second day.  On day 3 we detoured by a restaurant where I borrowed a couple of ounces of bleach.  2 drops per liter of water and it will render even the nastiest water safe to drink after 5 minutes.  Unfortunately, I seemed to have contracted a case of giardia from that one untreated water source.  I spared my wife and let her have the balance of the filtered water we had when we came on the stagnant stream I got the water out of.  She cast me one of those sideways glances when I stated we were going to need to get water out of it—never mind the tad poles and slime.  When you are in the desert, there aren’t a whole lot of options for water, sometimes you have to take what you can get.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the new filter from MSR to test out before we left.  But it is good to know that giardia isn’t a totally disabling experience, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend you go out and contract it to see how your body responds to it. 

   Another thing I found interesting was how much our appetites decreased.  Last year we dumped about 8-10 lbs of food halfway through the trip when I realized we had brought way more than we were eating.  Remembering that from last year, we reduced the contents of our daily food bags, but still ended up with too much.  It seems the heat really reduced our interest in eating and hiking for a week hadn’t quite got our bodies to recognize the increased metabolism and thus need for more calories.  On the last day, we ran across another hiker that was lamenting a 3 day food shortage.  He was going to have to make a 9 mile round trip detour in town to be able to re-supply to make it to his next food shipment (he was a through hiker).   We dumped our large food cache off on him.  It was like seeing a kid on Christmas morning, especially when he discovered the elk jerky.  I was happy to be relieved of the weight and help out a fellow hiker.  Later that day we ran into a European kid that he had shared some of the jerky with and he was thanking us as if we had been handing out pockets full of gold.  Good stuff, that jerky is!

After a week of scrambling after work to organize gear and food bags, my wife and I are finally on the plane to San Diego. A year before we got married she suggested that we hike the Pacific Crest Trail for our honeymoon. For those of you who aren’t aquainted, the PCT goes from the border of Mexico just east of San Diego, all of the way up to the Canadian border. The trail is routed to follow the major mountain ranges to provide the hiker with the some of the most spectacular scenery as it traverses the Sierras, the Trinity Alps and the Cascade range. Elevations top 13,000 ft through the Sierra Nevadas. Through hikers are able to make the 2,650 mile trek in about 5 months. Because we both have careers and 3 kids between us, we wouldn’t be able to through hike it, but would take a week a year until we had completed the whole trail. We started last year, knocking out 112 miles in 6 ½ days with our packs fully loaded. Because the southern end goes through the desert, water is of utmost concern. My pack started, with 1 ½ gallons of water, at about 70 pounds, while my wife’s was just over 40. I’ve got to hand it to her, she is one tough woman. The first day we covered 17 miles, despite getting a late start in the morning.