Lessons from
the Trail

In May and June of 2006, Ken Tran and I hiked 500 miles of the PCT over 37 days, walking north from Campo, CA to Lake Hughes, CA.

In September 2006, we hiked 80 miles of the John Muir Trail, from Tuolumne Meadows through the High Sierra camps and back — most of that off the PCT itself.

In April 2007, we walked from Lake Hughes, CA to I-58 near Tehachapi, CA, through the Mojave Desert and part of the Tehachapi Mountains — about 85 miles, not counting the extra miles spent exploring the desert.

June 7–15, 2007, we hiked from Whitney Portal, packs at max weight, over Mt. Whitney and four passes heading north on the PCT. We came back to civilization at Florence Lake — we'd run out of good food — for about 90 miles total.

From Florence Lake to Tuolumne Meadows in 2008 completed the John Muir Trail for us. In May 2009 we hiked from I-58 to Walker Pass and on to Kennedy Meadows to fill in the sections we'd missed, plus a stretch south from Idyllwild to Paradise Cafe and Warner Springs — just extra. We've re-hiked Campo to Warner Springs a couple more times too.

In August 2007 we pedaled our bikes from SF's Mission/16th to Guadalupe, CA — about 300 miles — then trained to Santa Barbara and LA to meet friends, camping and "moteling" three nights along Highway 1. It doesn't count as thru-hiking miles, but it's on the list of adventure miles. Three flats in one day, one blown tire, plenty of roadside strawberries.

In 2009, hiking without Ken, I went from Tuolumne Meadows to Sonora Pass (5 days) and later Sonora Pass to Ebbetts Pass (1.5 days) — with the bonus of biking back from Ebbetts Pass, over Monitor Pass, through Antelope Valley, and up Sonora Pass from the east side to reach the truck: 72 bike miles plus 32 trail miles.

Specifics on the PCT itself live at PCTA.org.