we made it to the west coast.

Tom and I arrived in Seattle late last Wednesday night, and are now all settled in. We did a gear run to REI today to take advantage of their huge sale for our last minute items, but immediately regretted it because there were far too many people there.

The last few days have been really productive in trail planning and purchasing as well. I read all of Yogi's Planning Guide, and feel like I am about to burst with knowledge and tips. Tom and I have also started the incredible undertaking of putting together our resupply boxes. Most PCT hikers buy their food in towns along the trail, but because Tom and I have such restricting diets, we would be living on peanut butter and...toothpicks, if we tried this method. So, instead, we have to buy all of the food we are going to want for the next 5 months, box it up in priority mailboxes, and enlist Tom's wonderful mother to ship these to us along the way.

This is incredibly overwhelming, though. Not only is this everything we are going to eat for the next 5 months, but we will also be consuming 5000+ calories a day- each. This is a ton of food. Today I almost had a breakdown sitting in the middle of piles and piles of non-perishable food, and trying to figure out what we could eat everyday to equal enough calories. 5000+ calories is an unfathomable amount of food for me right now.

So far we have gone to PCC (a local coop) and Sams Club (where we dropped over $400), but we still havent made a dent in our shopping. It is a fun experiencing tossing tons of each item into the basket, and just being able to grocery shop in excess (but not have to feel bad about it, because it necessary).

We are also continuously reevaluating our itinerary. (Now Tom is writing. Jenna is working on the itinerary as I type).

Back to the topic of a 5,000 calorie day. Though I pride myself on being a powerful and intimidating eater (I often wish that there was such a thing as a vegan competitive eater, but unfortunately, most eating contests seem to revolve around meat/cheese foods and not delicious things like cauliflower or indian dhals), I don't think I can possibly eat all 5,000 calories. Just thinking about it makes my jaw hurt. I read about somebody in Yogi's book that started at about 180 lbs (which is a few pounds lighter than I am), and went down to ~150 by halfway through through the trail. Despite all our efforts on getting as many calories as possible, I think it is highly likely that I will come back from the hike as a pile of skin and bones.

On the food we currently have bought/dehydrated:
I would guess that we have approximately 1/5 of our total food purchased. We have half our breakfasts (six boxes of 55-count instant oatmeal), 3 huge boxes of minute rice, tons of cliff bars/granola bars/other energy bars, lots of vitamin-I(buprofen), drink powders, ingredients for gorp, and lots, lots more. We even brought back about 10 pounds of granola bars from the east coast (it was a luggage packing nightmare, but we got a great deal on them!)

Jenna and I are also busy dehydrating. Currently, the dehydrator is humming with zucchini chips and (formerly frozen) corn. The zucchini chips are great! We are excited to munch them with some fantastic foods hummus for lunch. The first batch we dusted with garlic salt, which in retrospect was a mistake. It, for some reason, made the zucchini taste like fish. Gross. The unflavored zucchini chips however are awesome! They taste great and have a great crunch.

We are off (to steal packets of honey from Starbucks). Sorry for the discombobulated post, but we have a lot on our minds.

<3 Tom and Jenna

Our Itinerary

SECTION	MILES/ DAY	FEET/ DAY	DISTANCE (mi)	ELEVATION GAIN (ft)	DAYS	ARRIVAL
Manning Park, BC, Canada						6-13
Manning Park to Stehekin, WA	10.6	1255	88.8	10523	8.4	6-22
Stehekin to Skykomish	12.3	2410	97.8	19180	8.0	7-01
Skykomish to Snoqualmie	17.2	2867	74.5	12390	4.3	7-06
Snoqualmie to White Pass	18.1	1908	98.6	10400	5.5	7-12
White Pass to Trout Lake	17.8	2162	65.2	7901	3.7	7-15
Trout Lake to Cascade Locks, OR	18.1	1914	82.9	8771	4.6	7-21
Cascade Locks to BLYC	21.6	2733	155.7	19715	7.2	7-28
BLYC to Sisters	20.8	3327	11.4	1820	0.5	7-30
Sisters to Crater Lake Post Office	22.4	2069	156.7	14466	7.0	8-06
Crater Lake Post Office to Ashland	22.9	1662	105.4	7644	4.6	8-11
Ashland to Seiad Valley, CA	22.0	2429	64.5	7133	2.9	8-15
Seiad Valley to Castella	22.2	2276	156.6	16088	7.1	8-23
Castella to Old Station	18.3	1692	128.8	11907	7.0	8-30
Old Station to Belden	22.5	2031	88.4	7995	3.9	9-04
Belden to Sierra City	21.2	3075	91.7	13326	4.3	9-09
Sierra City to Soda Springs	17.6	2379	41.4	5590	2.3	9-12
Soda Springs to Echo Lake Resort	17.7	2293	60.7	7860	3.4	9-15
Echo Lake Resort to Sonora Pass	17.7	2288	76.2	9841	4.3	9-20
Sonora Pass to Tuolumne Meadows	17.4	2562	76.4	11225	4.4	9-26
Tuolumne Meadows to Vermillion Valley Resort	21.6	2753	65.5	8365	3.0	9-30
Vermillion Valley Resort to Lone Pine	16.9	3100	132.3	24266	7.8	10-08
Lone Pine to Onyx	18.2	1844	91.2	9261	5.0	10-13
Onyx to Tehachapi	18.4	1579	92.7	7946	5.0	10-18
Tehachapi to Agua Dulce	18.2	1783	100.2	9807	5.5	10-25
Agua Dulce to Wrightwood	16.9	3071	89.0	16148	5.3	10-31
Wrightwood to Big Bear City	18.5	1468	89.6	7100	4.8	11-05
Big Bear City to Idylwild	17.6	2407	96.1	13147	5.5	11-11
Idylwild to Warner Springs	18.6	1378	69.6	5151	3.7	11-15
Warner Springs to Campo	26.8	2145	110.6	8860	4.1	11-19

planning mode!

Posted by Jenna.

Tom and I are in final planning mode, and today we finalized our itinerary, and our resupply points. We are going to start out at a (hopefully) reasonable pace, and then increase our mileage as we get in better shape. We dont want to start out too cavalier, tough, or ambitious. This morning I also finished another great PCT book: The Pacific Crest Trail, A Hiker's Companion, by Karen Berger and Daniel R. Smith. It outlines the entire trail, and I have spent the past month "translating" it into a southbound version to take with us on our hike. She said something great, that I have really been thinking a lot about lately,

"The only way to get ready to hike a long trail is to hike a long trail." 

So, while all of our running and training and whatnot will hopefully help, the first few weeks are going to be difficult.

It's coming!

Posted by Jenna

I have been PCT shopping focused lately- trying to pick up the last few things needed for the trip. Today I got very excited about a great sale on granola bars, haha.

I saw our countdown the other day and kind of freaked out- only about 30 days left! My mind is consumed with planning- thinking about caloric intake, trail food, and resupplies. The other day I got a fantastic card from my mom's good friend Joanne, who graciously made a donation to the "Help Jenna Not Starve on the PCT" fund. Then my best friend Lindy bought Tom and I a great supply of individually packaged jam, which absolutely rocks. Things are looking up on the food front!

On Thursday I am heading up to Vermont to spend a few days with Tom before he graduates on Saturday. We are heading back to Massachusetts on Sunday, and then we fly out to Seattle on Wednesday. Oh my!

My parents left this morning for a two week teaching tour down south, so I said goodbye to them (don't worry mom- I will survive!) I still haven't quite come to terms with the fact that this is really happening...

great pct map

Yup, thats the trail. I came across this map and thought it was a great representation of what we will be doing (although it makes it looks pretty small).

low snow year- great sobo season

Posted by Jenna.

I have just spent the past hour trying to pull up some information about weather conditions. Yea, pretty dull. But what I have found is that it has been a low snow year in Washington (I just hope that doesn't mean the same thing to them as "sunny day"). This is great news for southbound hikers (like ourselves) because it will allow us to start earlier in the season without being stuck in snow for weeks. Also, the creeks are high in southern California, so it looks like we wont have much trouble finding water in the fall.

I have also been finalizing my packing list, but its really hard to know what kind of weather we will be encountering. There is a bunch of literature on the northbound PCT hike, and what those folks will be finding along the way. But no one can really tell me what temperatures we will be hitting or other weather patterns for the areas we will be in.

I did find a few people who are also doing southbound hikes this season. Actually, quite a bunch. I think its going to be an unusually high sobo season because of the optimal weather.