The PCT Diet

In a culture where every woman feels pressured to be on a weight-loss diet, I find myself somewhat unintentionally going against the grain.

For about a week (before we got busy with the move), I was walking everywhere carrying a 25 to 35-pound backpack. I took a couple seven- or eight-mile walks this way, but mostly I was just going about my routines, walking a couple miles each day. On my first day I weighed myself to figure out how heavy my pack was. Three days later I weighed myself again to check my pack weight, and discovered that I had lost a solid five or six pounds. 

I recommend the 2014 Extra Virgin for
pairing with dehydrated potato meals.

Most women, with this revelation, would be jumping for joy. I was just unnerved. If I could lose five pounds and three days simply from walking a couple miles with a backpack and eating as usual, how much weight will I lose when I’m on the PCT? Even if we consume as many calories as we can carry (olive oil shots, anyone?), how will I keep from wasting away? I’m not the skinniest lady in the world, but I only have about 30 spare pounds of fat before my body will start eating my muscles.

Since that day, I have been wolfing down food without reservation, and even tempted to eat more junk food in hopes of packing on a few pounds of easily-burnable fat before we hit the trail. This is probably a bad strategy— and, who knows, I might be one of the rare people who gains or maintains weight on the trail— but in the meantime, I’m finding an odd kind of happiness in trying to keep weight on my body. I’ll be lean and skinny and have muscly legs in a couple months. Until then, I can just focus on eating healthy, and eating a lot.

~~~

Me When I Realize We're Leaving for California in Three Weeks

Thoughts from Four Weeks Away

Adventures like the PCT don’t happen in a vacuum. Zachary and I have a support team of people who are helping us out. This became very noticeable two days ago, when we moved about 90% of our stuff into various people’s houses and basements. Between my parents and two other families, the majority of our furniture and household goods are safely stored away until we get home— which will save us several hundred dollars that a storage unit would have cost. From buying us gear to sending us encouraging cards, people have shown their support in many different ways.

I’m very grateful for everyone who has supported my travels. I recognize that I could never have traveled as much as I did without the kindness and generosity of my parents, my family, my friends, my WWOOFing and HelpX and Couchsurfing hosts, and countless strangers I met along the way. 

As I draw near (four weeks!) to the longest and most difficult trip of my life, I’m nervous, but I’m also really excited. Not just for Yosemite and desert stargazing and Crater Lake and bird-watching and Mount Whitney and ridiculously scenic views, but for sweating and rattlesnake-avoiding and leg cramps and trail detours and the huge challenge of hiking almost a marathon every day for 150 days. I’m not expecting it to be very fun. But I am expecting it to be incredible. 

Last night Zachary and I were talking, and he said that he had resigned himself to giving up his long-distance hiking dreams when we started dating. “And then,” he said, giving me a teasing glare, “somebody said, ‘Hey, let’s hike the PCT together!” I had forgotten that I was the one who revived his dream, who let him know that I was going to try to be up for the challenge. And so here we are, giving up our house and our income and our stability for a crazy adventure that has, on average, a 50% success rate. 

And none of it would be possible without our support team, who have always been there for me, and who have now been there for both of us in a big way. Thank you to all of you. I hope that we can return with an adventure worth telling.

~~~

On Packing a Backpack

I’ve written about packing light before. But backpacking takes this art to a whole new level. Zachary and I are in the process of finalizing our list of everything we need to survive comfortably for the next five months— and then figuring out how to fit it into two 65-liter backpacks.

We’ll be sending ourselves frequent resupply boxes, filled with dehydrated food and candy bars and gatorade powder and shoes and toothpaste, and buying things along the way, like toilet paper and potato chips and pancakes the size of hubcaps. But everything else— shelter, bed, media, clothing— will be on our backs.

This means I will be at least five months (probably more) without makeup, accessories, any sort of dress, skirt, scarf, or dressy piece of clothing. No haircuts or shaving at all. Seven or eight showers tops. And I sit and ponder: do I need a t-shirt, a button-up shirt, a polyester jacket and a rain jacket? Is one of them superfluous? Do I need more than two pairs of underwear? Do I really need a piece of foam for a pillow, or could I just get by with a lumpy stuff sack? How many pairs of socks do I actually need? 

Once we figure out what packing actually looks like, I’ll probably post a full list of what we’re bringing. In the meantime, I will probably spend more time packing my backpack than I have in packing up my house.

~~~

On Wearing a Backpack

The past week or so, most every time I take a walk, I wear my big backpack, weighed down with 25-35 pounds. It’s quite bulky at that weight, bulging with a blanket and sugar bags stuffed inside, with huge water bottles hanging on the outside. And as a result of its noticeable nature, I’ve gotten some interesting reactions.

"Hi! I'm here to kidnap your children."

Most people, especially those in the tourist district where I often walk, just stare curiously. I think some of them are trying to figure out if I’m a European or something. I suppose some people are good at concealing their stares, but the ones I notice are the ones who seem to believe that nobody can see them. It would be at least less obvious if they closed their mouths before craning their necks to try to figure me out.

When I’m not in the tourist area, just walking around town, I am met with decidedly greater suspicion. People avoid eye contact and don’t smile at me. A few days ago, Zachary and I walked to the library. It was a hot day so I was a bit sweaty by the time we entered the building. I headed over to the water fountain, and inadvertently stepped between a mother and her young son. 

She immediately tensed up. I could feel her eyes boring a hole in my neck as I quickly stepped to the side so I wasn’t in the way of her son anymore. Her son drank from one water fountain, and I from the other— and the mother stared at me the whole time with clear anxiety. When her son returned to her, she bustled him away quickly.

I don’t claim for an instant that I understand what it’s like to be truly looked down upon because of social class. However, I feel like I’ve gotten a tiny glimpse into what it’s like to face the world as a homeless person. The suspicion, the stares, the fear, the pity. People eager to observe you but not interact with you. 

In four weeks I’m going to be a dirty, smelly backpacking bum myself, but it’s by choice rather than necessity. In the meantime, wearing a backpack around my upper-middle-class suburban hometown has made me a bit more thoughtful about the way I interact with people, especially people who appear to be homeless. 

~~~

"That Mood" (or, Moving Is Hard)

Blogging is difficult for me when I’m in this mood. You know the mood— the feeling of paralysis in the face of a million things to do (I can’t do everything, so I will do nothing), the listlessness despite having a list, the loneliness overruled by a desire to not interact with anyone— it’s not a good place to be. I don’t know quite how I landed in this mood, although I suspect is it a combination of poor diet along with the stress of getting ready to move. I really, really don’t like moving. It’s not just the packing or the logistic-working (which I also hate), it’s the change. I don’t like change. I especially do not like changing houses. The moves my family made when I was a teenager were always for negative reasons (they’re bulldozing our neighborhood; our landlord was foreclosed; we can’t afford the rent), and I never had a positive move until I ended up here, in this townhouse on Nathan Street. 

Here I moved with Zachary when we got married. We slowly collected furniture, unpacked boxes, tried to make the house into a home. Here we kept our first Christmas tree, which stayed green until literally the week before Easter even though I didn’t water it after January. Here I learned what it means to be a newlywed housewife: how to keep track of the contents of a refrigerator, how to keep the bathroom from spawning mold, how to find the balance between getting the dishes done and just relaxing. Here we spent a glorious year and five months of marriage, watching the seasons change, watching our friendship grow. Listening to the neighbor girls who climbed onto our back porch and sang karaoke with a fake microphone. Swapping food and conversation with our neighbor Linda. Holing up in the sunlit bedroom during the winter, camping out in the “refrigerator room” in summer. Watching neighbor kids play with sharp broken pieces of kitchen chairs and chase around the mangy six-toed cats that roam the neighborhood. Feeling transported back to the 70’s every time I saw my matching avocado-colored refrigerator and oven. Watching a woodchuck nibble on clover in our backyard. Hosting our gypsy friends, our sister, our brothers, sometimes for weeks at a time. Living life as a couple, as one person.

And always, hanging over our heads, the knowledge that we were going to leave. 

I knew this day was coming. I knew it would be very exciting. I knew that I would be so eager to get on the trail I could hardly stand it. And I also knew it would be very hard. And so it is. So when I feel in “that mood,” when things seem overwhelming and I feel the weight of change and evanescence weighing down my shoulders, I just remind myself that this is part of the plan. I knew that, if we succeeded in setting out for the Pacific Crest Trail, I would have to give up the comfort and security of this beautiful little townhouse.

And now I am. This is the last week we will live here. A lot of our stuff is already in boxes, and now I don’t know what to pack next. We’re moving into my parents’ house for about three weeks until we leave for the trail.

It’s hard to think about these things, and even harder to write about them. But it’s therapeutic, somehow. Writing these things down makes me remember that everyone has been through something like this before. Everyone feels in “that mood” sometimes. Life goes on. The seasons change. A house is not home— a city is not home— this earth is not home. 

Or, as Tolkien would say:

Tree and flower and leaf and grass,

Let them pass! Let them pass!

Hill and water under sky,

Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,

Let them go! Let them go!

Sand and stone and pool and dell,

Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.

Then world behind and home ahead,

We'll wander back to home and bed.

Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,

Away shall fade! Away shall fade!

Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,

And then to bed! And then to bed!

~~~

Six Misconceptions about the Pacific Crest Trail

The more I learn about backpacking, the more I realize how different it is from car-camping. I’ve posted some FAQ about the PCT here and here, but I thought it might also be useful to mention some misconceptions that I’ve heard (or thought myself). Be sure to let me know if I miss any!

What we won't be doing

1. We’ll be sitting around a campfire every night. I love campfires. The crackling sound, the toasting of various junk food items, the awkward renditions of Kum-ba-ya in which no one can remember the verses… honestly, this is the stuff of dreams. Sadly, however, there are multiple problems with campfires when you’re backpacking. First of all, California has this annoying habit of catching on fire. Especially since this is a dry year, we’ll be lucky if we are allowed to even light our camp-stove anywhere along the trail. Second, campfires require wood, and since we can’t carry our own firewood, we’d have to scavenge from the local forest (if we’re in one), thus robbing the ecosystem of rotting logs and/or live branches. If too many people do this, eventually all the trees will get stripped and the forest will be ruined. So alas, we probably won’t make a campfire until we hit Oregon, and maybe not even then.

2. We’ll wear heavy-duty hiking boots. Until pretty recently, heavy hiking boots were considered a must for backpacking. However, the majority of people who do long-distance hikes now wear trail runners (a sturdy athletic shoe with good tread). That’s what we’ll be doing.

Some of Zach's shoes

3. We’ll hang our food in a tree to keep it safe from grizzly bears. First of all, there are no grizzly bears on the PCT (this fact was a huge relief to me when I discovered it a couple months ago!). While hanging your food is standard procedure in most places, in Yosemite Valley, where we’ll be hiking, it is discouraged because the black bears often hurt themselves attempting to get the food. Instead, we’ll be using bear canisters— sturdy plastic containers that you leave on the ground in plain view a few hundred feet away from your tent. The bear will find it, attempt to open it, give up, and (hopefully) leave you alone.

4. We won’t bring toilet paper. We will bring toilet paper. I’m not that hardcore.

5. Cell phones are useful in case of emergency. We’ll be bringing a cell phone for its GPS capabilities (and for the Internet when we have Wi-Fi in town), but a phone is basically worthless as an emergency tool when you’re in the backcountry. We won’t have reception 90% of the time, so it’s unwise to rely on it. 

6. We’ll hike with a group for safety’s sake. Many people have asked me if we’re going to stick together with a group, but we’re not planning to. I’m sure we’ll run into a bunch of people, but honestly, the solitude is part of the experience. We don’t have to worry about grizzlies or bull moose, and have minimal worries about mountain lions (don’t worry, they always pounce for the neck, and our backpacks cover our necks). We have no fear of crime— we’ll be out in the middle of nowhere where it’s not worth it for a criminal to make the trek. We’ll keep an eye out for rattlesnakes and black bears, but mostly we just have to worry about blisters and sprains, scrapes and twisted ankles. In short, I’m not afraid of facing anything on the trail with just the two of us. I’m confident that we’ll be fine.

~~~

Dehydrating and Disney Songs

It’s been a stressful couple of weeks for many reasons. Zach and I are moving in about two weeks and I haven’t packed up the house. We’ve been trying to find people to store our stuff (although that’s coming along pretty well now). We’ve been figuring out all the things we have left to do and buy before the trail. We need about 75 more breakfast meals, but only two more dinners. I need four pairs of shoes. We need to figure out our stove system. Which camera should we bring? Do we have enough gear? Do we have too much gear?

Today Zachary and I were feverishly working on our backpacking food before he had to leave for work. While he vacuum-sealed packets of dehydrated chicken and beef into week-sized portions, I poured boiling water over canned chicken to try to remove as much fat as possible before putting in a new dehydrator load. As I worked, I began half-singing, half-humming, as I often do. I was hum-singing “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen. Zach hasn’t seen the movie yet, but he’s heard me sing it plenty of times.

A minute later, from the adjacent room, Zach sang loudly: “The chicken never bothered me anyway…”

To which I quickly chimed in,

It’s funny how dehydration

Makes all the beef seem small

And the chicken that once controlled me

Can’t get to me at all!

That was as far as I got before I was laughing too hard to continue. It’s been a crazy few weeks, and things are probably going to get a bit crazier before we actually hit the trail. But I think, I really think, that everything is going to be okay.

~~~

Schuylkill River, Pennsylvania

View from The Pinnacle, Pennsylvania

Also, Happy Birthday to my brother Christian!

Eight Weeks, or, Why You Shouldn't Plan a Trip Too Far in Advance

As of yesterday, there are eight weeks until we hit the Pacific Crest Trail. As of today, it’s seven weeks until we take off for California. And as of this moment, I have a sharp realization of why I never planned my trips more than a couple months in advance. Here are just eight reasons:

1. When you spend two years planning a trip, the anticipation is excruciating to the point of apathy. It’s hard to be painfully excited about something for more than a couple months. Then the excitement just starts making you cranky. Then you stop feeling excited and just want to get the thing out of the way.

2. You have nothing to do at first, and then suddenly it all needs to be done at once. At first: “Yay, we bought our backpacking food, and a tent! Okay, I guess we can buy another thing. Or something. But it’s really too early to be planning for this…” Then suddenly: “Oh my gosh we are leaving in seven weeks and we don’t have eight million things we need that cost a million dollars and oh my gosh what the heck are we going to do?!”

3. You start to feel silly when people keep asking you about the trip. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me, “So you have done your backpacking thing yet?” I can only reply heavily, “No…”

4. The chances of something going wrong increase exponentially. I am still amazed that neither Zachary nor I has broken a leg yet. Of course, we still have seven weeks, and given my track record of awful things happening right before I go on a trip, I haven’t let my guard down yet.

5. More time to wait means more time to worry. See point #4.

6. It cuts a huge dividing line in your life, making you caught in limbo. So many of Zach’s and my life plans are on hold because of this trip, and we haven’t been able to truly settle down. 

7. A distant trip feels really abstract. My mind has no category for a five-month backpacking trip to begin with, and after two years, it hasn’t gotten any better. The trip for most that time has felt like something so far away that it shouldn’t require my attention.

8. Patience is hard. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Now, all of a sudden, the trip is within my grasp. It looks like it’s actually going to happen, even. And maybe, if I take a big breath and concentrate really hard, I can pretend that I am just now starting to plan for this trip, and that I haven’t been waiting years for this to come to fruition. One way or the other, the PCT is quickly becoming cold, sharp, exciting reality.

~~~