Pacific Crest Trail : Review

Enjoying myself in southern California.

So, it has now been a few months since I finished the PCT, and the blog has been quiet - for most of that time I didn't do anything very exciting, some time back in England visiting friends and family, a few weeks R and R in Tenerife, then back to the UK for Christmas, all good fun and that rest and relaxation was very much needed.  But there will be more adventure, and more blogging about it, before that though I really need to do a review of the Pacific Crest Trail, here that is then.  I guess I've been putting off doing it in the hopes of getting my thoughts in order regarding what was truly an amazing journey, and also to be honest because whenever I thought of writing a review I knew it wasn't going to be entirely positive, still, it is what it is.

Even the snow was fun at first.

What an adventure then, truly an utterly insane experience, way beyond anything I imagined.  It ran the gamut of emotions, excitement, wonder, the sheer good fun of a long walk in beautiful surroundings, but also misery, stark terror, and the mounting frustration of dealing with the bizarrely tyrannical federal bureaucracy that reigns over the United States.  Strange to recall that I thought it would just be a long walk, and indeed that during the first few days in the desert, I was thinking it would if anything not be much of a challenge.  Those days, and indeed the whole desert section, up to Kennedy Meadows, were great, a fine, carefree walk.

Not so much fun now.

Of course the Sierras brought the whole thing crashing down, trying to get through the snow at a sufficient pace, both to avoid running out of food and to get to Oregon in time for the eclipse, became more and more unpleasant as time went by.  Not merely the constant hard physical work, but more the continual worry that I would run out of food, or injure myself or worse - and lets not mistake this, people did get injured, several people died this year in fact, and it could have been me.  Yes I made it through, but after that I was playing catch up pretty much all the way to Detroit, and while it wasn't too bad once I left the snow behind, the days were always just a bit too long.  The eclipse itself was pretty awesome and I'm glad I was there for it, and yes, after that there was some good walking and I was able to slow down, has to be said that the fat ranger and his ticket still leave a nasty taste in the mouth though.

Seriously, look how thin I am here.

The rangers and other uniformed types weren't the only annoyances either, another issue was just how expensive America is.  It became increasingly wearing that not only could I not really afford to stay in motels, I couldn't even afford to stay in campsites - to be sure, in large part because nowhere in the country seems to be set up for a single hiker with a tent on his back, this did not however make me feel better.  At least after I worked out how to order food from Walmart I was able to eat reasonably cheaply.  One more complaint, and I hate to say this but it is true, some of the people I was sharing the trail with - which was a lot of people - were simply kind of annoying.  Specifically the young Americans tended to be loud, immature, and were treating the whole thing as a some sort of extended party - I mean, great for them I am sure.  But as I was struggling along with my pack weighed down by a heavy tent and seven days of food, I really did not need a bunch of kids passing me, with their tiny packs, almost weightless and hugely expensive gear, yelling to each other about what they did in the last town they hitched to, or how they were 'crushing' the miles, or where the next package from their mother was going to be waiting for them.

I did at least get to see a total eclipse, and it was pretty cool.

So yeah, I did enjoy a lot of the trip, the scenery was often breathtaking and for sure I have to feel proud of the achievement.  But given I was looking forward to doing this for years, perhaps it was not quite as awesome as I'd hoped, there were just too many bad things that still stick in the memory.  I don't exactly regret doing it, but honestly if I could go back in time and advise myself, I think I would say, do something different.  While there may not be a chance to see an eclipse as part of a PCT through hike again in my lifetime, nonetheless, maybe waiting for a year with less snow would have been the thing to do.  And for this year, maybe one of the other American long trails, though honestly America is simply not very nice in many ways, so perhaps somewhere else in the world.  Frankly, having done two 'official' long distance trails, I am wondering if a better idea would not be to come up with my own route, as I have of course done for shorter trips.  It would make for a less crowded trail, but also both the long trails I've done have suffered seriously from an insistence on keeping to 'wilderness'.  Unimproved forest is all well and good, but I'm not sure about walking through it for thousands of miles, honestly I prefer to walk a moor, or a grazed meadow or hilltop, with grass underfoot and a view unencumbered by trees.  Perhaps I simply want to stick to the old world rather than the new?

St. Johns, Canada - civilisation!

I can at least say that while this was a bad year to do the PCT, or perhaps it just wasn't the trail for me after all, I did at least do a good job of it, I kept walking, and the organisational side held up pretty well too.  My gear, in particular boots, held up well - Decathlon, I love you so much.  I guess I really should have sorted out the Canada permit before flying to LA but there is always something.  As it turns out I was very glad to have managed to get that done by the end of the walk, not because I needed it, of course nobody so much as looked at it, but because otherwise I would have changed plans and gone to Seattle - which might be nice I guess, but certainly Vancouver was a lovely place, well worth a visit, as was St. Johns on the other side of the country, which I spent a day at on the way back to London.  So, there was that at least, maybe not worth the trials of the massive walk but a point in favour of the whole thing.  But anyway - I got through it all somehow, in one piece even, and now, as has been said, for something completely different.

Photos from my time in Canada can be found here