Camel cccthru-hiker

I arrived at Camp Lockett near the Southern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. Having taken public transport to save on shuttle costs I was last into camp for the day and stumbled in midway through a briefing given by the camp organisers, themselves all experienced thru-hikers. A lot of the advice was very practical and I began implementing some of it immediately. Firstly I realised all the bags that I keep items in such as my tent weren’t super necessary and just added weight so I made my first donation to a hiker box. Everyone got an early night with a scheduled breakfast for 6am the next morning with pancakes cooked by trail legend and the go to guy to get your pack weight down by ditching unnecessary items, Papa Bear. Not his real name of course but thru hikers, particularly in the United States, are given trail names by their peers at some point along the journey. Usually the names come with a great story.

I arose early for breakfast but was the last to hit the trail with a few things to organise back in Australia before the internet became less accessible on the trail. Marmalaide, a thru hiker from last year and a representative for REI (a large outdoor gear store in the US) had a good chat to me about my gear and ways that I could improve my weight and overall efficiency of my pack. He also asked if we called hiking something different in Australia just as they do in New Zealand (tramping). I realised at this moment that for years now I have been referring to my various on foot adventures as hikes. In a way Americanising what has always been known as bushwalking in Australia probably because I felt saying hiking made it sound more intense. Marmalade suggested that countries should continue their traditions when it comes to these types of adventures and I found myself agreeing with this, bring back bushwalking!

I made my way up to the Southern Terminus around 10am, took the obligatory starting photo before making my way over to the daunting wall that has been built between Mexico and Canada. I looked over my shoulder for US border control officers who patrol the wall and with the coast clear, I placed a hand through to Mexico to truely start my journey. I don’t know for sure that they would have cared but it was clearly a very serious operation having seen helicopters patrolling over head throughout the previous night.

Finally after a failed attempt in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic, I was away. With roughly 4200km ahead of me I took my first steps on the Pacific Crest Trail. It felt pretty surreal after all this time and everything that had changed in my life since I had first planned to take on this grand adventure. Not long had I started the trail when a border patrol truck came to a halt, the driver jumped out and yelled, “hey, didn’t I see you in town yesterday?” Startled at first I soon realised that it was in fact a man I had been speaking to as I gathered my final supplies at an outdoor store in El Cajon. I went up to him to say hi again. He had shown genuine interest in the PCT the day prior and informed me that his wife loves following along with the thru hikers online. Spitting a sunflower seed in possibly the most American border patrol movie scene experience I’ll ever have, he asked for a selfie and then wished me luck for the miles ahead.

With a late start to day one I didn’t really have a plan on how far I wanted to walk. Instead I figured I’d come across hikers who had left earlier and kind of gauge what their plans were for the days ahead. As the first few miles wound up over rock formations with sand underfoot and a variety of cactus either side I came across my first trail mate. James had flown over from the UK and had also started the trail alone. He insisted that I go ahead as he was fixing a setting on his GPS but I said that I’d rather hang around and have a chat. We continued on our way both asking general questions about why one another had decided to do the trail, what our family and friends thought about it all and our brief experiences in American cities. James and I kept a solid pace, passing several groups of thru hikers who had started earlier that morning, stopping for brief chats with each group before continuing on our way. It was beginning to get really hot as the morning turned into the early afternoon. I had just spent 3 months in Queensland training and acclimatising, but for James straight off the plane from the UK, the heat was intense. I started to pull away as we began to climb but opted to hang around as we were getting on well and it was only day one after all. The climbing continued throughout the afternoon. Much like when I first laid eyes on the Larapinta Trail in Australia’s Northern Territory, I was blown away by the mountainous terrain of the desert landscape. The cactus soon gave way to large green shrubs and the sand to loose rock underfoot. We did our best to keep from getting sunburnt. I put my micro fibre towel under my hat for extra shade. By late afternoon we came across another thru hiker who had started earlier in the morning sitting in some shade midway up a decent climb. The hiker introduced himself as Windward, suggesting that this wasn’t his first time out on a long distance hike. In fact Windward had completed both the Colorado Trail and the Long Trail (which shares miles with the Appalachian trail) at the ripe old age of 21. He had gained his trail name on the Colorado trail after his Windward tent pole gave way in high winds and gave him a nasty knock to the head.

We enjoyed the relief of some shade with Windward for a while before deciding to set off again, this time as a trio. I was full of questions for my new found friend who although nine years my junior had achieved so much in this new thru-hiking world I’d found myself in. The first thing that grabbed my attention was Windwards pack. I had a 40L ultimate direction fastpack which although fairly ultralight was bursting at the seams with a relatively moderate food carry. Windward however had an even smaller pack and it was obvious that he had put a lot of work into dialling down his gear for long duration hikes. Windward was more than happy to share what he had learnt about gear from his previous endeavours and I immediately began planning a few changes to my own setup. Firstly, being Tasmanian I had been pretty hesitant to commit to ultralight rain gear. I have light jackets for trail running but I’d been caught in sudden snow storms before and usually opted for my heavy duty Arcteryx wet weather gear for longer trips. Windward assured me that the PCT in a low snow year would not require such robust rain gear, suggesting that even the Sierras only experience relatively brief storms which can be waited out in a tent if too severe. Other items were simply not needed for the desert section. I had read that the desert could get quite cold during the night but we were late NOBO (northbound) hikers and our biggest challenge through this section was by far the heat. As we chatted I took a mental list of what changes I wanted to make to my gear and began planning to get expensive items that I had brought over unnecessarily to New Zealand via a friend of my partners who is currently living in California.

Windward, James and I all got on very well and decided to stick together for the remainder of day one. It was a very hot first day from the Southern Terminus to our chosen destination for camp. James, fresh off a flight from the usually much cooler UK was now really struggling with the heat. I made the assumption that he was not at this stage a particularly strong hiker but I couldn’t be more wrong in hindsight. Perhaps I had forgotten that I had just spent three months in Queensland working as an electrician in roof spaces through the southern hemisphere’s summer. I had aclimitised to the heat, James had not yet had his chance to do so. We found a nice high campsite which could only really fit two tents properly but I offered to set mine up pretty roughly in the remaining patch of dirt. This would be one of only two nights I ended up using my tent in the desert. I lay in bed that night trying to convince myself that I was actually on the famous Pacific Crest Trail, eighteen miles in with a couple of thousand miles still to go.