Below is my current gear list for the trail with everything in my pack measured with a baking scale for accuracy. This is actually copied over from an even more detailed spreadsheet I created, so hopefully I got it all down correctly. A little OCD? Nah...

My base pack weight, which is considered what is in your pack not including consumables like food, water, and fuel, is right at 15 pounds. I also included links to the product's website, Amazon, and REI to help readers get a range of information and reviews. That being said, I shopped around and found quite a number of discounts from the likes of GearTrade, Backcountry.com, eBay, and Sierra Trading Post. Thus, the prices listed at those sites will likely not match my "purchased cost" for each item.

Despite having quite a plethora of gear already, unfortunately most of it is meant for activities like mountaineering and snow camping. Not exactly lightweight. So, I bit the bullet and bought new, ultralight versions of a shelter, sleeping bag/pad, and pack for a rather hefty cost of $995. Yet, by buying those four items instead of using what I already owned, I reduced my base pack weight by over five pounds. Considering the time and distance, I felt that was a worthwhile investment. After the big four, my next four largest purchases were a JetBoil Sol Titanium stove, a solar charger, and my hiking shirt and pants.

JetBoil Sol Titanium. While it seems the hip/cool ultralight PCT backpacker uses an alcohol stove, I simply could not get excited about using one. I know that when I cook while backpacking, I am usually about one evolutionary leap away from caveman and want my food now. Also did not like having to concern myself with alcohol measuring, the lack of simmering, and instability. This new JetBoil boils 2 cups of water in about a minute, which is the perfect amount of water for most of my dinners, while a fuel cannister should last around two weeks. Doubt I will regret this decision.

Solar Charger. We are in the age of technology. Our smartphones are camera, GPS, web browser, app platform, and phone all in one. The sCharger-5 Solar Charger is hopefully going to help me keep my iPhone powered. It was highly recommended by a few PCT hikers last year and my initial tests have shown it to be quite the little power delivery device when there is full sun.

Hiking Shirt and Bottom. I am not sure where I initially heard about RailRiders, but the more I read the more it looked like their clothes would be ideal for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Lightweight, ventilated, quick drying, and long lasting. One of my more blind faith gear choices, but sometimes you need to rely on a good feeling and hope it turns out to be right.

Everything else is reasonably standard or self explanatory. I am sure with more money , research, and sacrificing of comfort, I could reduce my base weight another 3 pounds and perhaps even have found cheaper items. But, for now I am reasonably content with my choices. We shall see how foolish I truly am once on the trail.

As I sit here munching on peanut M&Ms that are meant for my first few days on the trail, I think I will finally buckle down and answer the most commonly asked questions when I mention my Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike attempt. Beats organizing that pile of important documents into my filing bin.

What is the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)?

In short, it is a 2,650 mile backpacking trail stretching from the California/Mexico border all the way to Canada through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. It usually takes a bit under 5 months to complete with most people going north and starting in late April. The Smithsonian Magazine just published a well written article about it the other day. You can also look at the Pacific Crest Trail Association's website for more details.

When are you starting?

April 22nd. We fly down to San Diego on the afternoon of the 21st and start early the next morning at the Mexican border near Campo, CA. [map]

Where's a good map of the trail?

Halfmile's Maps are the best collection of topographical maps and cover the entirety of the trail. If you want a nice, simple overview map, I suggest this two page color map. I will be posting irregular updates of my position on my Twitter account and Facebook, but I am not intending to meet friends/acquaintances on the trail or really keep a "Where is Paul?" page.

Who is this Amelia character?

She is self described as "about as even-tempered as a hornet, and as social as an oyster" and is probably my favorite friend. Having known each other for about nine years through many trials and tribulations, we have settled into a Calvin/Hobbesian friendship as near to family as one can be without blood. We also both suffer from a certain kind of madness and take a special glee in it, and thus are both the kind of people to go backpacking for 5 months. While we will be starting at the same time down in Campo, California and her parents are our resupply coordinators, our 10 inch difference in height and rather different personalities means we will be hiking in tandem rather than together on the PCT. She has a very entertaining blog that you should totally check it out.

OK, what's all this knee talk about?

In August 2011, I was leading a trip up near Mt. Adams and while jumping down from a ledge my right patella/kneecap slammed into a small rock outcropping. Took out a sizable chunk of skin and made the next two days of traveling rather painful. Back in town, I got an X-ray just to confirm there was nothing broken and got fitted with a leg brace to wear for 10 days. It improved but was still a bit painful. A month later, I reinjured it, which lead to me seeing an orthopedic surgeon and dropping out of the pre-medicine program I was enrolled in. Physical therapy went well but two and a half months in, it took a severe turn for the worse. No idea why, but it is possible the cartilage was still loosely attached somewhere and finally tore completely. That led to arthroscopic surgery that discovered a severe defect in my articular cartilage and cracks throughout. They cleaned up what they could, but it was not the result they were hoping for. What followed was six months of slow, difficult physical therapy just to get back to walking in a straight line and pedaling up hills on my bike.

Basically a mess with torn ligament/tendon, impinged fat pad, and the damaged cartilage. And so, after eight years of soccer, decades of trail running, and a lifetime spent outdoors I got a bum knee all because I jumped and my knee was half an inch from being in the clear. But, I have kept on exercising and pushing it so that I have done hour long trail runs, snowshoed into a remote fire tower, and been training with a 30 pound backpack on 10-12 mile hikes. The knee will never be 100% again and it might not handle the PCT mileage, but I have prepared it as best I can.

Are you excited?!?!

Not so much excited as I am curious. Very very curious. Curious to know if my knee will hold up. Curious to know how my gear will work. Curious to know who I will meet on the trail. Curious to see how the trail changes me. It's an adventure. Exploring, hiking, trying new things, seeing new locations, meeting new people. Makes me very curious to see how it all turns out.

What will you do when you are done?

This question amuses me. I just spent four months planning a five month backpacking trip, which I have not even started, and you already want to know what I will do next? At this point, I am waiting to see how the first month of this trip goes. Only after that will I really get a sense how the rest of my year will shape up. I do have ideas though! The Appalachian Mountain Club has winter caretakers for their huts in the White Mountains, and I have always wanted to do that. I also just finished up the recertification process for being a Wilderness EMT and would not mind becoming an instructor for the NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute. And, there is quite a bit of technology and code that I would not mind learning and building with to the point of perhaps taking a full time, 9to5 gig with a development firm.

Despite feeling adequately prepared for the trip itself, the pace of things needing to get done beforehand has quickened of late. This is my last week of work, so naturally there is a rush to polish off every to do list item. I am moving this weekend, so naturally things need to be sold, organized, and/or boxed up. The start date for the Pacific Crest Trail adventure is less than two weeks away, so naturally my training hikes have increased in distance and time. Also, my EMT recertification just finished up last week and taxes got sent off. So. Busy.

But, we carry on. While I am on the subject of things getting done, by vocal demand there are now comments on the blog. I am using the all new and cutting edge Craft CMS, but there is no native comment plugin yet. So, I went with a hosted solution called Disqus, which allows registering through Facebook, Twitter, and Google. I am not a huge fan of anonymous comments or spam and this allows me to do a certain level of moderation, so hopefully it will be agreeable to the commenters-that-may-be.

There is also an RSS feed link in the upper right corner. There is some auto-discover magic in the HTML, but it seems for some people that was not enough. They wanted the link to be explicit. Obviously I have incredibly strong opinions on this as I am using emphasis everywhere. Not really. This textarea just happens to have a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor natively and I am easily amused. Moving on...

I built the design of this blog myself and based the CSS off the work of someone far more clever than I. It should collapse down nicely for mobile browsers while still looking reasonably shiny for everyone else. As I am a programmer by trade and not a clever HTML5/CSS3 loving designer, there might be a few hiccups. This should but add to the charm of the blog. Revel in the charm.

Finally, thanks to my most excellent friends at EngineHosting, I have a really spiffy and fast server for the site. Virtual Server Cluster, Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS, SSH, SSD local storage, and something described as "VMware replication services". Sounds really impressive, no? No, no, don't glaze over, I actually know what all that means and how to use it! Why it all began back in the winter of 2003 when I was just teaching myself PHP...

...ok, you don't care about the history of how I gained my technical knowledge or how it all works. The takeaway: Great server, solid CMS, responsive design, and a few cool features. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled Pacific Crest Trail entries.

Your feet are likely the most important part of your anatomy for long distance hiking. With 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments your foot absorbs shock, keeps you balanced, and helps transfer the power of your leg muscles into forward (or backwards) motion. This is why thru-hikers are so fascinated with reducing every last ounce from their pack weight; we are trying to reduce the impact of 2,600 miles on our feet and legs as much as possible. It is also why there has been a movement away from heavy boots and towards trail runners combined with lightweight moisture-wicking socks. In the desert when the heat is unbearable and you are sweating or in the mountains when you are continually damp from snow or rain, you need to keep your feet as dry and comfortable as possible.

So, when I heard via Twitter that KEEN was looking for PCT hikers to test their Olympus hiking sock, I leapt at the chance. Heard back from them this morning and both Amelia and I are in as testers! Free socks! For the entire trip! And, they are designed specifically to take the abuse of long hikes like the Pacific Crest Trail! Excuse the pun, but I am extremely excited to put them through their paces.

I am having the socks mailed to Amelia's parents as they are managing our resupply boxes and we are moving our belongings to their place this weekend. I should hopefully get my first look at the socks next week. Throughout the hike I will be sending KEEN emails with our feedback, and I should post a few of my serious but entertaining thoughts here as well. Will they survive the horrors of Paul's feet? How well will they adapt to his Sierra puppet theatre? Only time will tell...

To assist in preparing physically I have been spending a couple hours after work every day hiking in Fort Worden State Park with my backpack loaded to the gills with clothing and water. While the park is not too expansive, you can loop around the Chinese Garden's lake, hike up muddy trails to the old fortifications, and traipse along the beaches without becoming too bored. Today, as I was enjoying 30 mph winds, a light drizzle, and a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit near Point Wilson Lighthouse, I could not help but think that in just over two weeks I will be in Southern California. A location well known for its sunshine and dry conditions. The difference between the Pacific Northwest and the Mexico-California is only about 15.5 degrees of latitude, but let us compare next week's weather report for each location.

Port Townsend, Washington

Campo, California

We had an out of the blue (editor: pun? where?!) sunny weekend a few days ago, and I purposefully spent a couple hours outside reading on the deck to build up my "base tan" so that my skin has at least a fighting chance. But that first week of heat acclimatization? Going to be a hoot and a half.

Amelia: I am not sure this is enough.

Paul: OK, then just add more calories.

Amelia: ::looking askant:: I feel like we're not having the same conversation!

Paul: Oh, right, I will eat whatever is put in front of me. You're picky.

Amelia: And this is why we're not hiking together, we're on totally different trips. Same destination, different trips.

(edited for blogging, enjoy a full melodramatic interpretation here)

Trying to discover the success rate for thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is problematic with estimates ranging anywhere from 20-60%. For example, the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) has a FAQ that states:

Perhaps 500-800 people head out intending to hike the whole trail in a year. Perhaps 60 percent finish.

Their list of finishers includes the following stats for the past seven years:

• 2012 - 353 finishers
• 2011 - 150 finishers
• 2010 - 197 finishers
• 2009 - 83 finishers
• 2008 - 89 finishers
• 2007 - 90 finishers
• 2006 - 134 finishers

That is quite a range. Naturally, there are hikers who never requested a Pacific Crest Trail Permit from the PCTA and/or never report that they finished. Other websites have used trail journals as an indicator and stated that a normal year may have 300-500 people attempt a thru-hike with a success rate in the range of 20-40%. One of my guidebooks casually tossed out 180 as the number of people who finish in an average year. Suffice to say, no one knows for sure how many attempt and how many finish.

Thanks to Cheryl Strayed's Wild book, I expect more people to be hiking it this year and also an increase in the number of people who actually know about the trail. Here in Port Townsend, I think at least half of the people who I have talked to about the trail have mentioned the book. The power of Oprah is indeed strong.

What I do know for sure is that the spreadsheet I received from Scout and Frodo last month indicated that they alone were hosting over 130 potential thru-hikers at their home in San Diego this year. That indicates to me that we are going to have a bumper crop of hikers this year.

Honestly, I think I have a 50/50 chance of finishing the first month, mostly depending on how my body reacts to the stresses of 20+ mile days and caloric deprivation. With my knee being my greatest anxiety. If I make it that first month, I think that one month shakedown cruise will prove I am physically capable and I should be golden the rest of the way.

Still, there are other things I am keeping an eye on...

The Sierras are experiencing their second low snow year in a row with the average "Snow Water Content" being around 50% of normal. While that bodes well for crossing the high passes, it is a bit more problematic when you remember that the melting snow feeds the water sources at lower elevations. It is a balancing act that has thru-hikers aiming to enter the Sierras around June 15th during an average snow year. According to Postholer the recommended date for entering the Sierras this year is June 5th. I am continually glancing at the PCT Water Report website, and the current reports make me think that I will be essentially traveling between spigots and water tanks in parts of Southern California (spigot hopping!). And, there are definitely going to be days when I start with 6 litres of water in my pack. In hot desert weather that 13 pounds are going to make my days significantly tougher. But, one does need to drink. Here's hoping for a spring storm or two.

Speaking of water, or lack thereof, California and Oregon seem to be rather prone to forest fires in the summer. When I was section hiking the PCT between Sisters, Oregon and Cascade Locks five years ago, I remember seeing hills covered in blackened, dead trees and walking through a burnt patch that was still smoldering. They actually recommended not entering the Jefferson Wilderness at all.

Thankfully, a lovely storm system came in and doused pretty much everyone for three days in cold, miserable rain. So, a section of the trail could easily be closed off because of fires. Flip flopping or skipping to return later might be an option, but if things go poorly it could mean not finishing the entire trail. The decrease in the Forest Service's fire fighting budget because of the sequester is not encouraging.

And finally and most likely, there are injuries and mental/physical exhaustion. I am a big fan of North Star and Shutterbug's Wandering the Wild website. These two PCT alums just started hiking the Appalachian Trail and right off the bat Shutterbug developed a knee problem. Shin splints, twisted ankles, knee pain: the trail is unkind and a problematic injury can happen to anyone. Combine a painful injury with long days and not enough food, and it is enough to make anyone quit. I hear Northern California with its relative lack of towns is particularly problematic for people. I know that I for one have a hard time reining myself in and could easily burn out or break down by not taking adequate rest days.

None of these are huge, worrisome concerns but they are on the back burner in my mind. Expectations are an important part of making a long trip go well and I am trying to manage them as best I can before starting off.

If all goes according to plan, I will start hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in under three weeks. This very month! As I am so very human, I am starting to develop little momentary panics over things that I cannot possibly control or even predict.

Going down the back stairs early this morning, they were a bit damp from morning dew and my foot slipped. Immediately after I regained my balance, I squinted down at my ankles and mumbled, "Don't you dare..."

The new lightweight hiking shirt I ordered at the end of February specifically for the Southern California desert? Still not here. It was backordered and was supposed to be available again at the end of March. Still no notice from the company that it has shipped. Sort of need a shirt for this trip. Sure, sure, I have plenty of options if that one does not come through in time. Still! That shirt! It's important! If it does not arrive, who knows what else could go wrong!

Since I work during the day, I am trying to hike with a full pack immediately after work every day. Tonight Amelia tried lifting my pack with 6 litres of water inside and you could see a brief cloud of concern cover her face. "That's how much six litres weighs? Shit, Paul..."

These little bouts of panic only last a few seconds at most, but I think there is a certain amount of pressure that builds when you start planning trips/adventures of this magnitude. I have been talking about this trip on Twitter and Facebook for months now, and even though I am a curmudgeon whose own ego eclipses the opinions of others, I surely do not want this trip to fail in the first week.

As one would imagine, when you are hiking for 8-10 hours every day for months on end, food is an important consideration. I particularly love this tidbit from the Plan Your Hike website:

The Basal metabolic rate requirement of food calories is approximately 1,000 per day per 100 pounds of body weight. This means you need to eat about 1,000 calories per 100 pounds of body weight per day to survive without losing weight under normal conditions.

Does that seem low to you? I am an 180 pound male who exercises regularly and I definitely eat around 3,000 calories a day. So, I am estimating that I will need to consume at least 5,000 calories a day for the entire trip, minimum. To give you some perspective on what would be required to intake that many calories, here are a few foods and the quantities required to reach 5,000 calories (source):

• Olive Oil - 42 Tablesppons
• Peanut Butter - 53 Tablespoons
• Snickers - 18.5 regular bars
• Whole Almonds - 6 cups (1.9 lbs)
• Dried Quinoa - 8 cups (3 lbs)
• Muesli - 17 cups (3.2 lbs)

The foods listed there are considered relatively calorie dense for their weight too. The average PCT thru-hiker will be consuming about 2-2.5 pounds of food a day and even then most will lose 5-15 pounds of weight during their trip. I am a fairly lean guy already, so the process of keeping my body fueled and healthy is in the forefront of my thoughts now that all of my gear is purchased and ready.

While the calorie quantity and weight of the food is important, it also has to meet all the nutritional requirements that the strain of the trail puts on your body. An often cited resource for thru hikers is Dr. Braaten's Pack Light, Eat Right website. She covers everything from protein content to vitamins, as well as some recommended foods and recipes. Thankfully, as Amelia frequently says, I am a good eater. Put food in front of me and I will eat it. Even on mountains and in cold weather, my mind is so used to eating on a constant basis that even if I am not feeling hungry I am programmed to continue putting anything consumable within reach into my mouth.

That being said, I do appreciate having a hot, tasty meal that has absolutely nothing to do with energy bars, trail mix, soup mixes, or potato flakes. Since I am being resupplied five times via mail drop while in California, those boxes seemed like a perfect time to throw in a half dozen lightweight backpacking meals. Researching a half dozen dried and freeze dried meal companies online, I settled on Outdoor Herbivore. Their meals looked the most appetizing and were extremely price competitive compared to a company like Mountain House. They also have a fantastic 15% bulk discount on orders over $200, which sealed the deal. I went through their website last Monday and chose twelve different meals, which were delivered at the end of last week:

Bought two Hungry Double sized packages of the following meals:

• AppalaChia
• Bee Good Couscous
• Blackened Quinoa
• Cheddar' Mac
• Chia Oat Crunch
• Coconut Chia Peel
• Ginger Chia Gooey
• Naked Freckle Burrito
• Savory Lentil Simmer
• Sunny Sunflower Salad
• Switchback Soup & Stuffer
• Toasted Sunburst Muesli

If you want to see how the different meals compare on price/weight/calories, I created a spreadsheet that breaks it all down. Even with their excellent prices, if I bought only these meals for the entirety of my trip, the cost to feed me for the entire trip would be approximately $4,400. That is not including any money I spent on restaurant food during zero mileage days in town. Bit pricey. But for the occasional treat during mail resupply, I think they are going to be extremely welcomed.

Stubbornness is one of my defining characteristics. There is a voice in my head at all times that is a cheeky and rather brutally honest critic. I do not always listen to him because, let's be fair, such personalities are exhausting and particularly frustrating when you just want to ignore work/responsibilities/life. But, he's there and without that voice constantly pushing me I would have never gotten back to a state that would allow me to attempt hiking the entirety of the Pacific Crest Trail.

So. Here I am four weeks away from starting that journey and the excitement is starting to build. Amelia has been fiddling and testing and researching with glee and determination for most of the past three months; while I have been rather more leisurely about my preparations. Steps were mapped out in my mind, of course. I perused gear reviews and blog entries in my off hours, bookmarked webpages, created a spreadsheet for gear costs and weights, and set money aside for purchases. Yet, it was not until the beginning of March that my relative languid behavior disappeared and I started seriously concentrating on the task before me.

All the gear except a few middling items have now been purchased. I am still waiting for a shirt and a stove to appear on my doorstep from the USPS fairy (I have yet to actually see our mailman), but all other incidental items can likely be procured in a single afternoon. A significant pile of dried meals has been ordered from Outdoor Herbivore and will be allocated to specific resupply boxes later this week. Plane tickets are purchased and sleeping quarters arranged in San Diego for the night before the hike starts.

Yup. All coming together.

The planning and preparations never really concerned me as much as they did Amelia. Much of my formative years were spent exploring forests and I have extensive backpacking experience from previous trips. Ultralight backpacking is reasonably new to me, but I have always been careful to choose the best gear for my outdoor activities, which has helped me have a pack weight that is significantly less than people who are still using packs purchased in the 80s. As a man whose metabolism still burns fiercely, food intake to me is as much about fuel as taste so I will eat almost anything put in front of me. While my concern for all these things is not exactly lighthearted, it borders a bit on laissez-faire. We shall just see how the gear and food goes, no?

What is on my mind is the reliability of my body. Last year at this time is when Amelia visited me in Portland after her stint in Antarctica and trip around New Zealand. She told me the other day that what she remembers of that visit is me still limping and becoming tired after walking just a mile. 10 months ago I was still scared of uneven ground for fear my knee would collapse on me. 6 months ago is when I went for my first 2 minute jog. 3 months ago, I snowshoed up solo to a remote fire lookout. A month ago I finally did a trail run that lasted over an hour (full disclosure: very sore afterwards). And, right now I am rotating between days of walking 6-8 miles or spending two hours in the gym doing weights, rowing, and stationary biking.

My knee will never be 100% again, I understand that. As my physical therapist joked, I no longer have original factory parts. I tore it up pretty bad and it will never be completely reliable. Rubbing the scar tissue in my tendon has become somewhat habit forming. But, in the past year I have worked desperately to restore as much strength and functionality as possible. Strong enough to attempt a 2,600 mile backpacking trip. Not strong enough to feel remotely certain of finishing.

In all fairness, I am giving myself even odds of making it through the first month. Even disregarding the knee, I have not treated my body gently these past three decades. Years of soccer, running, backpacking, mountaineering, and shenanigans have taken a toll. It has been a well lived life, in my opinion, but I am now starting to deal with the complications of that hard playing. Lots of muscles, tendons, and ligaments are infused with scar tissue. Backpacking 2,600 miles is not going to treat them kindly.

And yet, why the hell not try.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."