Ahoy

Hi all!  It’s been a while since we posted.  We have been busy trying to train and prepare and finish up our last semester of school.  Between homework, reading gear reviews, looking at maps…and apps, and trying to work out the logistics of being on the trail for 5 months, we have not had a lot of spare time to post.  Here is a brief list of what we have been doing to prepare:

Gear

We still have a few things to get and a few things to work out as far as gear goes.  Most of the larger items (tent, sleeping bag, backpacks) we have already.  We recently both got iphone 4S’s and we are in the process of downloading all of the apps that might help us on the trail.  One of the apps that we have found with the help of the PCT community is the PCTHYOH (pacific crest trail-hike your own hike) app.  It puts all of the pertinent information (halfmiles maps, fire and water reports, trail closures, GPS reading, compass, etc) all in one app.  For the past few weekends we have been trying on as many trail running shoes that we can find but have yet to decide which shoes we will wear.  Other than shoes, most of the gear we need is just random small items like stuff sacks, cooking pot, etc.  We are waiting until we have everything to post gear lists so that we can get a better idea of our base weight. We hope to be done with buying gear by early March.

Food

We have most of our meals decided on and now it is a matter of purchasing all of the ingredients, making things, and getting the meals ready for the trail.  Once we get all our food bought, dried, made, etc… we will package it all and put them into our boxes that will be shipped off later.  For Nate, breakfast items will include granola, oatmeal, and dried fruits, and the occasional instant coffee.   Jenna’s breakfasts will mostly consist of instant breakfasts, granola, and an occasional cereal. For lunches we will both likely be eating humus, crackers, tuna, jerkey, peanut butter and a plethora of other snack items, big and small. Oh yeah, and candy bars, lots of candy bars.  Dinners for both of us will include rice/curry, noodles with some kind of sauce, cous cous, potatoes, beans, and other things yet to be decided.  We’ll keep you updated on our food status.  Thank you to everyone who has already offered to give us food and let us stay at their residence.

Training – Physical & Mental

This has been somewhat of a challenge for us due to school and work taking up most of our time.  Mentally we are as prepared as we can get. We have been for awhile and we are very excited to leave.  Physically we have been biking, running, doing strength circuits, and doing practice hikes as much as possible.  Most free time we have (which isn’t much) is invested in training of some sort. For example, if we feel like buying something we generally walk there with our packs on. 

We will try to post more in the next month and posts will really increase starting in May.

Cheers

p.s. We will be adding a thank you page soon! Thank you to everyone who has helped us already!