Day -2:

Date: Monday, March 30
Location: ~2464 mi ENE of the start of the PCT

Much of my packing and planning has been filled with agonizing over the number of ounces of each item that I could potentially carry. Ultralight backpacking includes making sacrifices and using creative solutions to bring the weight of your backpack down as much as possible. This morning I took a hacksaw to the toothbrush I'll be carrying on the trail! Toothbrush handles really aren't essential to function.

Hacksawing away exactly 0.64 oz!

Today I packaged up the last of my food. I'm now ready to load up the USPS flat rate shipping boxes that are down in my basement so they're ready to be sealed and shipped by my parents one at a time. I just finished creating baggies with 4/3 cup of granola, 1/3 cup powdered milk, and 1/4 cup of freeze dried blueberries/blackberries/raspberries/strawberries. These will be my just add water breakfasts on the trail.

53 trail breakfasts ready to go!

Day -3:

Date: Sunday, March 29
Location: ~2430 mi ENE of the start of PCT

I'm currently on the train on my way home from the city for the last time before heading off to the trail for good. The numerous goodbyes over the last week have been bittersweet. I will truly miss the love and support that I have received from so many sides over the past several months and years in my time as a student (and my time more recently as a non-student). That love will carry me through the heat of the desert and over the mountains of the high Sierra and Oregon.

It's hard to say goodbye to people who are such an important part of your life, knowing you won't see them for 135 days. My hope is that one of the things that I will get out of my hike is an enhanced appreciation for how lucky I am to be surrounded by intelligent, beautiful, and caring individuals at Columbia and at home.

The most important function of this blog is to give the people that care about me a window into my distance hiking life, which is otherwise so separate from theirs. The thru-hiking world is fully insulated from real life. I'm aware that over the course of my hike, I'll change. I'm also aware that back home, life will continue on for everyone else, mostly independent of me and my backpacking adventure. I realized that it's really important to me to create that window through which the people who care about me can look. 135 days is way too long to fall completely out of touch, and since I can't text and email all the time, this my alternative.

Day -7:

Date: Wednesday, March 25
Location: ~2464 mi ENE of the PCT start

I had a bit of a stressful morning getting my first two resupply boxes packaged up, labeled, and to the post office. There are so many small things that are essential that I could still easily forget. I should have given myself more time to figure out these details, but as a chronic procrastinator, I left a bunch of work to this morning. My Warner Springs, CA resupply really should have been in the mail two days ago! The moment when I realized that I'd almost forgotten to include contact lenses was a scary one, because it made me wonder if I could be forgetting something else just as important.

About 4 days of food, not including cheese.

Edit, 3/27: Just realized that the thing that I forgot to add was the cheese blocks! Damn. They're still in the fridge. I'll just add them to my next package.

Day -10:

Date: Sunday, March 22

Location: 2464 mi ENE of the PCT

To me, the most intimidating part of the planning process for my trip has been the food. There are a lot of bases to cover. How to I acquire food when I'm hundreds of miles into my hike? How much food do I need? What food will taste good during and after a long day of hiking? Will I get sick of it (almost definitely)?

Just the beginning...

These are the steps I took to figure out my resupply plan outlined very generally:

     1.  Where am I resupplying? This could mean picking up a mail drop box or stopping in a town and buying food at a grocery store. I made these choices with the help of Yogi's PCT guidebook and it's excellent town guides. The criteria was generally how easy it would be to get there from the PCT. Is the post office right on the trail or do I have to hitchhike 18 miles to get to it?

     2.  Decide where I am going to send myself a food box and where I am going to purchase food on the trail. I had to make these decisions based on what I expect to find for grocery options and also how expensive or inexpensive the food stores are in each trail town. Is there only a gas station and a grocery store in the town? Or is there a full grocery store where I can get fresh vegetables, hummus, and other delicious perishables (that I can't send to myself)?

     3.  Look at the milage in between each resupply stop and make a (very, very approximate) estimation about how many days of food I will need to make it to the next one. This is the tough one. Estimate too little and you'll end up hungry and hiking without enough fuel in your body. Estimate too much and you'll be slowing yourself down with the extra weight of unneeded food, or eventually end up tossing the extra food, wasting it.

Yesterday, with the help my fearless friends Lizzy and Sam, I went to BJ's (like Costco) and picked out breakfast and lunches for approximately 64 days on the trail. Today, Lizzy and I made little piles of food on the floor of my basement that each correspond to a resupply box and a section of the trail. 

Day -17:

Date: Sunday, March 15

Location: 2464 mi ENE of the PCT

Set up my tent for the first time! Here's my home for the next few months. I'm very excited.