Pacific Crest Trail

The fun of PCT Preparation

One of the fun parts of doing a thru hike is all the planning that happens before taking the first step. I love researching and organising and a new thru hike gives plenty of opportunity to indulge in these activities. The PCT is a well established and popular trail so there is a wealth of information to peruse.

The PCT website (www.pcta.org) is the best place to start as it has a lot of good information and links to other more detailed information. I quickly worked out the key things I needed to organise. The key things are:
• PCT Permit
• Plane Tickets
• USA Visa
• California Fire Permit
• Canada Entry Permit
• Gear
• Maps
• Pre trail transport and accommodation
• Resupply

PCT Permit
In an effort to provide some protection from the large number of hikers the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) introduced a permit system limiting the hikers starting the trail to 50 people per day. The places were released in two tranches; 35 places in mid November and the remaining 15 in mid January. I started my research too late and missed out on the mid November tranche so was relying on getting a spot in the January tranche. I held out on any other planning until I knew I would have a place.

There is a limited window for starting the PCT when going north (NOBO). If you start too early you risk having too much snow in the Sierra Mountains. If you start too late you have the extreme heat in the desert and risk hitting the snows in the north as it approaches Autumn. The ideal month to start is April but I was willing to go anytime from mid March to early May. If I couldn’t get in April I would rather start earlier and then I could really take my time easing into the walk and if needed take a break for a few weeks to wait for the snow in the Sierra Mountains to be passable.
I had ruled out hiking southbound (SOBO) as you need a good level of fitness to start and need to cover bigger distances early to get between weather windows.

I set multiple alarms to ensure I was up 30 minutes before applications opened on 16 January. The instructions were that everyone who was on the site before the opening time would be assigned a random place in the que and those that joined after the opening time would be placed at the back of the que. Once your number came up you were allowed to enter the calendar and select a day to start.

I had checked the time zone conversion multiple times and was sitting starting at my phone by 0720 hours. The countdown ticked down and within a minute of the open time I was assigned my place in the que. I was number 2174. My heart plummeted as I saw my chances of getting a reasonable date disappear. However I decided to be patient and watched as my number got lower and lower. What I later worked out was that people had logged in on multiple devices and once they got the que number the stayed with the lowest que number and closed down the remaining devices. There were also people who had a narrow window and once they got through and realised their preferred days were gone they gave up.

Just under 3 hours later I was in. I eagerly looked at the calender. April was fully booked so I moved to March. The latest date available in March was 23rd so I quickly clicked on that and finished the permit application. I was very happy to have the permit and a reasonable date. The advantage of the early date is that I can really take my time at the start of the hike and ease my body into the stress of hiking long miles day after day.

Now I had to wait a couple of weeks for PCTA to review the application and then issue me the actual permit.

Plane Tickets
While my permit had not been issued I knew there was rarely issues with the application so I was confident that 23 March was my start date. After some quick research I booked my tickets, flying with Air New Zealand from Dunedin to Auckland, San Fransisco and then San Diego.

USA Visa
As a New Zealander I knew that I could use the ETSA for entry to USA for up to 90 days but over that I needed a B2 visa. I currently held a G4 visa (United Nations) but as I had left the United Nations I had lost the use of this and wanted to do things correctly so I applied for a B2 visa. The process was complicated but clear. The steps were:
1. Apply for DS-160. You had to register on the website (https://ceac.state.gov/genniv/ to receive an Application ID Number, fill in the questions and upload a photo. Once completed you received a DS-160 Approval.
2. Apply for interview and pay for visa. I had to go to another website (https://cgifederal.secure.force.com/?language=English&country=NewZealand ). Here I needed to register and create another profile. Once in I selected a time in the Schedule Appointment page, paid for the visa and then scheduled an appointment (first one available was in 5 weeks) entering the DS-160 number, payment confirmation number and passport number.
3. Prepare for the interview. The key purpose of the interview is to; determine purpose of visit, confirm not intending to work, confirm ties to home country and confirm ability to support yourself financially while in USA. As I am not employed at the moment, I thought I may have some issues so I did a lot of preparation. The physical documents required for the interview were; DS-160 Approval, Visa Appointment Confirmation, 1 photo, passport, supporting documents which for me were proof of my financial situation, my PCT Permit and my return plane ticket.

4. Attend the interview. As it was a B2 visa I needed to physically attend aninterview. The strange system in NZ is that if you are in Canterbury you can go to the Christchurch USA Consulate, if you are in Wellington you can go to the Wellington USA Embassy but if you are from anywhere else you need to go to the Auckland USA Consulate. As I am in Dunedin, near the South of NZ that meant I had to go to Auckland, the other end of the country in the North, despite Christchurch only being a 4 hour drive or 1 hour flight. Luckily I was already planning on a road trip in my campervan to Auckland so I only had to arrange the time when I needed to be in Auckland.

The Consulate is in the middle of Auckland City and I was not keen on trying to find a carpark with my campervan. Luckily I had been offered a bed at a fellow hikers house and she was nice enough to drop me off outside the consulate.

My appointment was 0815 and there was already a big que. Once through security I had to go to the first window where my Appointment Confirmation and Passport were examined and the physical photo scanned. That confused me. I had to go and get a proper passport photo taken, despite having to upload an electronic photo for the DS-160. Then at the consulate they take my physical photo and turn it electronic. When asked for purpose of visit I said Pacific Crest Trail and the lady knew what I meant.

Now I was into another que as we waited for the interview booths to open. At 0900 they opened and I was surprised that the interviews were conducted in front of everyone. It provided entertainment listening to the interviews. NZ Residents and Citizens had quite brief interviews but other nationalities seemed to be questioned more. Once of the ladies in front of me was also doing PCT so we had a quick chat when she finished.
When my turn arrived I was prepared for a lot of justifying about being able to support myself and was surprised by how easy it was. The whole interview went like this. Her “Purpose of Visit” me “PCT”, her“ Have you visited before.. ah I see you have, you have a G4 visa” me “Yes but I am not with the UN anymore” her “OK I will cancel that, where did you travel with UN” me “Several places in Africa, longest in Mali and DR Congo” her “did you go to the Middle East?” me “Yes; Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan while I was in the Army” her “any travel not in an official capacity” me “no” her “what is your job” me “I am retired” her “OK, I will give you a 10 year multi-entry B2 visa, your passport will be mailed to you in 7-14 days” me “thanks”. I was surprised how easy it was and no need to show any of my documents. As I left there was a lady still in the que also doing PCT. Three of us in such a short time so no wonder the embassy staff recognised it. Six days later my passport arrived in Dunedin with a 10 year B2 Visa.

California Fire Permit
A fire permit is needed when hiking in California but this was an easy online video and 10 question test. Once you pass the test you receive the permit.

Canada Entry Permit
As the trail goes 11 miles into Canada a special permit is needed as there is no border crossing post at the crossing. The Canada Entry Permit allow me to cross back into USA without freaking out the Customs staff on both sides. The permit process is pretty easy. Fill in the Application Form, print, sign, scan into PDF, email the PDF along with PDF of your passport, USA visa and driver licence. The approval can take up to 8 weeks so I am still waiting for a response.

Gear
This is the fun part and a lot easier for me as I have already done two thru hikes. Most of my equipment from Norway was still in good order but there were a few things I needed to do. I wanted to make a new pack specific for PCT and changing a few things. I made some wind trousers, a synthetic puffy jacket for hiking in, some pouches/stuff sacks.
I ordered some replacement gear and had them delivered directly to my San Diego Trail Angel.
Then I weighed everything and played around with the composition before finalising it. For the full gear list click here. I also did a video of all my gear which is below. I managed to get my base weight, including consumables, to just under 7 kg (15.5 lb). True baseweight without consumables is 6.5kg (14.4lb). This weight is heavier than I had for Te Araroa Trail but lighter than NPL in Norway. Here is the full list PCT Gear List – Kirstine
Here is all of my gear spread out

And now packaged

Maps
From all reports navigation is not an issue until the Sierras so I could probably get by without paper maps and just use my phone but I am old school and like to be prepared in case something happens to my phone.
There is a full set of very detailed 1:32000 scale maps produced by “Halfmile” (http://www.pctmap.net ) a former PCT hiker. They are an excellent resource and I have downloaded them to my phone but decided not to print them as I would need so many. Instead I decided to buy the US Forest Service PCT maps which were at 1:63,000 scale which was much more practical.
I have also downloaded the app “Guthook” which is an excellent resource with maps and markers for points of interest like water sources, campsites etc. Hikers comment on the locations so there is up to date information such as the state of water sources.

Pre trail transport and accommodation
Because this is such a well known trail, and Americans are generally very generous, there is a network of “Trail Angels”. Trail Angel is the name given to people who help out hikers with all sorts of things such as accomodation, transport, water, food. I sent a message to the Facebook PCT Trail Angel page and received an offer to be hosted. My trail angel is a family with parents and two children. If they agree I will give more details once I am at their place. My interactions so far have been positive and they have agreed to be collecting and holding the packages of gear I have purchased. I will meet them at the airport in San Diego, stay with them for two nights and get a ride to the trail start. I am looking forward to meeting these generous people.

Resupply
Resupply is the most difficult aspect of any Thru Hike. The route is generally easy to navigate, accomodation is a tent in my pack but food and water takes a bit of planning.
Water is going to be a major concern for several parts of the trail, in particular in the desert. Thankfully Halfmile coordinates a Water Report (www.pctwater.com )which lists all known water sources and updates this with reports from hikers on the trail. This means I will have good information on where the next water source is and how much water I need to carry to get me there. There are some very long stretches and in dry years this is really bad with the longest section being 82 km (51 miles). Thankfully this is looking to be a much wetter year so it is likely that 51 km (32 miles) will be the longest stretch. There are some amazing Trail Angels who maintain water caches between the reliable water sources but these cannot be relied on as they can run dry, depending on hiker numbers.
For food resupply once again Halfmile has a great resource and has a document with all the resupply locations on it ( http://www.pctmap.net/trail-notes/). Based on this I created a spreadsheet where I estimated the number of km I would do per day, where I would be on the trail and where I would resupply and with how much food. This is just a plan that will be adjusted as I go when I get a better appreciation of my speed on the trail. It looks like my average resupply will be every 4-5 days with the longest being 8 days. Compared to Norway where 9 days was normal and 12 days my longest this will be much easier. Here is my plan – My_Resup_Plan

Visits: 1554

5 thoughts on “The fun of PCT Preparation”

  1. Haha! If only I had finished reading the post before asking the question. 😀 I see how you found a trail angel and it looks like you restocked on the trail as opposed to having someone send you boxes. Thanks for all the valuable information. : )

  2. Kia ora!

    Myself, my husband and our two Taranaki-born boys are planning to hike the PCT next year. We’re really enjoying reading your blog and watching your videos…so thank you! We currently live in England and are wondering…how did you find a trail angel in the States that you could send stuff to? I’m American and have family there but I’m hesitant to ask them to store and then ship boxes of food to us along the trail. It seems like a lot to ask. : )

    1. Kia ora. The best way is to join the PCT trail angel facebook group and explain your request. I am sure someone will offer to help out.

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