Future Hiking Plans

Right now our hiking plans include two national scenic trails – the Pacific Northwest Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.

The Pacific Northwest Trail connects the Continental Divide in Montana with the Pacific Coast at Cape Alava.  Cape Alava is the western-most point of the lower 48 states.  We have done the section of the PNT from Alger, WA to Port Townsend, WA.  That was 80 miles, and we learned a lot about what we needed to do and not do.

The Pacific Crest Trail runs from Mexico to Canada.  It is featured in the film Wild, but that is not where we got our motivation.  We wanted to do this way before the book and film came out.  We will hopefully start this trek in May of 2018.  It is 2650 miles long and will take us 4 to 5 months to complete.

One of the things we needed to do is to obtain some lighter weight gear.  A big part was dumping the idea of using hiking boots and going with lighter weight shoes.

My new Oboz are on the left and Elaine’s Sauconys are on the right.  I tried out some La Sportiva trail runners but they didn’t have enough room around the toes.

We also got a lighter weight water filter made by Sawyer, 3/4 length foam sleeping pads and lightweight backpacks made by Utah Lightweight Adventures (ULA).  They came by FedEx today.  Very excited to try them on.  They are less than half the weight of our regular hiking packs, but seem to have some great bells and whistles anyway.

Our next objective is to try these babies out and get ready for our next section of the PNT this summer.