The Pacific Crest Trail

The pacific Crest Trail is a long-distance mountain hiking trail that runs in Washington, Oregon, and California between Mexico and Canada. The trail follows the highest portion of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range, which parallels the Pacific Ocean by 100 to 150 miles. The trail is 2,650 miles long and ranges in elevation from just above sea level at the Oregon/Washington border to 13,153 feet at Forester Pass in the Sierra Nevada. The route passes through 25 national forests and 7 national parks. The Pacific Crest Trail is a place where space and time have become an illusion. With civilization we can take a train, drive an automobile, and fly a plane. With nauseating speed we fly by monuments, wilderness, man made obstructions, natural fields, rows of trees, buildings, and people. We are never really aware of the actual space in which we exist because we are annihilating time and space by traveling beyond our means. It is not until we attempt to move about on our own two feet that we realize the immense size of the world that we live in. Nobody is forced to walk anywhere; I will walk 2700 miles across the United States. For the first time in my life, the less that I have the better off I will be. I will have escaped clocks and calendars, where the only time is defined by the rising and setting of the sun.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

First 10 boxes

 Well it's finals week here at UCSB, and that means lots and lots of time to do things other than study. So naturally I spent most of the week prepping for this hike rather than studying, and I got a good deal done! Every resupply package is done, maps split up, food distributed into 10 boxes, spanning 1000 miles. The heaviest one weighed in at 15 pounds of oatmeal, trailmix, rice, mac n cheese, and various noodles. The lightest weighs less than 5 pounds and will only last for 2 days. The completed packages are all stacked in my living room awaiting their respective shipment dates. The post office will hold packages for 2 weeks before returning them to the sender. Mailing them from southern California 7 days before I am supposed to arrive gives me an approximate 10 day window to pick the package up before it gets shipped home. At no point during this venture should I be that far behind schedule without notification. Countdown to the PCT is at 6 days. All that's left to do is get on the train to Canada on Monday. Then it's just a simple matter of walking home through some of the most remote and rugged terrain on the west coast.
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