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!

   On this trip we used a Hubba Hubba HP, the 2 person version of the Hubba.  The tent performed flawlessly, one I’d have no trouble recommending if you are hunting with a partner.  The only major observation, which I don’t know that you’d encounter during hunting seasons too often, was that when we reached the higher tempatures of the desert floor, the reduction of netting on the HP model made the tent a lot warmer.  There wasn’t enough ventilation to take advantage of the slight breeze, so we roasted.  My wife is one of those that won’t allow the tent to remain open for more than a few seconds (spider phobia), so I couldn’t leave the tent doors open to take advantage of the evening air conditioning.  Trying to sleep in 80+ degree heat in the middle of the night is not my idea of fun. 

   Despite the blisters, Kyri already wants to go back.  There is something so simple about life on the trail—I think most backcountry bowhunters would understand that one.