Just Starting Out

imported
#1

I am brand new to thru hiking and am planing to hike the Oregon section of the PCT this June. I am starting from scratch as far as gear goes and am completely lost as far as a basic gear list, I would like to try and keep my base weight down to under 20 pounds. Any ideas would be awesome.

Thanks for all your help.

Joe

Joe

#2

Hi Joe,

  1. Keep your pack as light as possible. Resupply as often as you can. 2) Train befor you go. Find a multi-story building and climb up and down the stairs with your full pack weight for a month before your trip. 3)Start off slow. 5 miles on day 1, 10 miles on day 2, 15 miles on day 3, etc. until you get to your max daily mileage. 4) Vary what you eat. Don’t try to go your whole hike eating nothing but granola. 5) June might be a little early for Oregon depending on this year’s snow pack. I hiked Oregon in July 2011. There was still considerable snow on Diamond Peak and the Jefferson Park area. 6) Be flexible.

bowlegs

#3

Hi Joe - also make sure to do your research before you go, especially to your resupply spots. There are a lot of lake resorts throughout Oregon that you can use to resupply, helping to save pack weight. Check out Yogi’s PCT Handbook and/or Erik the Black’s PCT Atlas. They have a lot of info about gear, towns and resupply, water sources, hiking tips… Ditto everything Bowlegs said, especially about June possibly being early. Keep an eye on this years snowpack. Also, if you’re able to allow more time than you think it will take to complete the hike. It’s always nice to have that peace of mind just in case you get delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. Have fun and happy hiking!

Garrett

#4

If you can go later, go later. June will still have some significant snow, and some VERY significant mosquitos.

You’ll get lots of idea on gear, but i’d advise to pay close attention to your water carries. If you can keep tabs on the PCT water reports online, and have a system in place for gauging exactly how much water you really need, being willing to walk 2-5 miles without water to get to your next SURE water source, you can save yourself a couple lbs. worth of weight just by carrying the right amount of water.

have a blast!

markv

#5
  1. Mail drop resupply. If there is a choice between General Delivery at the P.O. or “Care of” at a commercial establishment, use the commercial ones. Unlike the P.O. they’ll be open Sat and Sun and have longer hours open.

bowlegs

#6

Thank you everyone for all of your advice, I will be ordering Yogi’s book for sure. It’s great to read thorough the different trail journals of all the thru hikers that have done it.

It has given me a big light at the end of the tunnel to look forward too. It’s funny, I didn’t even know that thru hiking existed until a few weeks ago, now all I want to do is just get out there and hit the trail. Kinda feel like a kid again.

Joe

Joe

#7

Hey Joe-

Oregon can a very beautiful place on the PCT during the summer.

My wife and I tried to do from Ashland to the Columbia River in July of 2004. Info and advice given on this forum painted a very rosy picture. The first three or four days were fine. Plenty of water and the views in the Sky Lakes Wilderness were unique and special. Then we took a memorable turn to the west and headed across our first northern exposure. Once we managed to get up on top of the 5 METER THICK snow pack I suddenly realized that we were were going to have a very slow time of it. We were outside of our experience and equipmentlevel. For me it was an unexpected adventure. To my wife, with little hiking experience, it was terror. Frequently there were exposed traverses with long run outs into the rocks below. We spent a memorable night on the saddle between Devil’s Peak and Lucifer. Wind howling over our tarp and loving life. Real adventure for a couple of Floridians! Getting down the snow covered escarpment the next morning
was no longer backpacking but alpinism. Way beyond our level, we tried anyway. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say my wife wasn’t about to hike through any more snow after we reached Crater Lake!
So we hitched around the snow we heard about plowing through the snow we didn’t. In the end we reached Bridge of the Gods having actually walked 230 miles.

What I am saying is that before August there can be HUGE
amounts of snow in the high country. We’re from Florida and we were out of our element. That’s a fact. I advise that if you don’t have extensive experience with deeply snow covered trail think again about your start date. In June I can almost promise that you’ll have sections with miles of trail totally obscured by snow. It takes a hell of a long time to make headway. Figuring out where to go takes real powers of deduction. The area around Diamond Peak and the Three Sisters will have serious snow on them in all probability.

I’ve made this mistake myself before.

Again, if you feel real comfortable in deep snow on exposed mountain trail then you will probably enjoy it.

In any event, enjoy the mountains!

Razor

#8

joe- I have hiked oregon 3 different times and would suggest a start date no earlier than the first week of july . If all you are doing is oregon, if possible go in aug to avoid the skeeters too

floater