And suddenly, my hike is almost around the corner…

Time is running here in the wonderful Winter of British Columbia. I work 5 days, take 2 days off, and walk 20.000 steps daily. Gym, skiing, yoga, and a lot of fun in resort life – repeat. Besides all that, I´m preparing for the biggest adventure of my life – only 75 days away from touching the Southern Terminus and starting my PCT journey. It is literally around the corner.

Blogging is new to me, and after my first post, I´m still about to find out what I should write about next. Not only thinking about what you guys are interested in, but what I want to preserve for myself in these exciting days. Therefore, I decided just to write about why those days are so exciting for me 😉.

Resupply, is there a right or wrong?

Yes, it is a long trip: 4200km, or 4.5 months of walking seems to be forever and needs tons of preparations. Yes and No- I would say. It all depends on what you want, and how you want your hike to be. Like the way you want to resupply for example. Reading a lot about not sending too many resupply packages and going with the flow, I very much liked various freeze-dried meals on my previous hikes. Yes, the expensive stuff. I think I´ll try a mixed approach and send only small boxes mostly entailing these dinners, some low-key lunches, and breakfasts, and get snacks in the grocery stores on the way. I´ll follow that strategy until Kennedy Meadows – the first 700miles.

This will give me a good insight into what is a working approach for me, and what needs to be adapted. This way, I don’t have to buy all the food right now leaving room for changes and improvements. I think I can live with that approach and can plan accordingly. In the end, you plan not the entire trail, only 5-7 day hikes, but 30 of them, back to back.

Today, I watched (again) all the resupply Zoom calls of Jogi to all the towns and resupply points on the way, and this is SO HELPFUL – thanks again for your effort, I hope that I can thank you personally in Kennedy Meadows 😉. I think I´m well prepared having an idea where to go when needing snacks, a shower, or a zero-day, and to pick up my resupply Boxes. The next step will be to finalize what to pack into my boxes for my “test stretch”.

Gathering all my Ultralight gear:

I ordered a bunch of stuff today (Merino Underwear, Socks, and Sunglasses), I´ll have 99% of my gear ready by the end of February. Only a sun hoodie I´m buying in REI right before the start 😉. The only question right now is, if I´m hiking with a sun umbrella. But there`s still enough time to get a feeling for what I want concerning that. Currently, I´m at 9kg (20 lbs) base weight, including ice axe and snow-spikes.  

Another thing I wanted to try for years is to produce Pemmican. For those who don´t know, it is dehydrated beef mixed with fat to create something like a meat-protein bar. Very long-lasting and high in nutrients (around 6000kcal in 1kg). Definitely, the nightmare of every vegetarian 😊, but that’s what the First Nations here in Canada and the US ate on long journeys. So it might be a good energy source when the hiker hunger kicks in 😊

Next To-do´s

Next on my to-do list is to check if I can ship my produced Pemmican and some Granola bars I´m thinking of producing here with access to a commercial kitchen and an awesome baker from Canada to my Basecamp in San Francisco. Otherwise, I need to put it in my luggage. In Addition, my short trip to the US Embassy in Vancouver in 4 weeks will hopefully confirm my last critical open step to take.

Closing words

I hope reading this Isn´t too boring for you guys. But honestly, thinking all this through and getting into the tons of details of the hike I´ve dreamed of for almost 17 years, fills me with so much joy and excitement. It is so difficult to explain, but I hardly ever felt that much anticipation ever before. It feels unreal to picture myself doing the first steps on the trail, and I think I won´t realize what is going to happen until it´s finally starting. Truly a life-changing adventure is ahead of me and I´m already soaking in everything it provides.

I only can encourage you, if you´ve got something you´ve ever dreamed of doing.  Start today with one step towards fulfilling this dream. It doesn´t need to be a big step. But at some point, you need to start moving toward that dream. Otherwise, it always will remain an idea. So why not today 😊

My next post will be about my expectations and a little bit more about my mental framework/pillars if you can name it his way 😉

Thanks for following me on my journey already

Feel free to follow me on my Instagram Account