Trail Community

Clearly one of the most wonderful thing about the PCT is the amazing cast of characters you meet along the way. Being out on the PCT is such a unique experience because you never know who you are going to meet next, who you run into again later down the trail, and how long you may end up hiking with someone. I have never felt lonely out on the trail with all these awesome people all around and at the same time never feel overcrowded on the trail. Clearly the best of both worlds. I thought I'd use this post to try my best to explain the very unique community we have out here that is always in constant motion which leads to some very interesting surprises along the way.

The Pack

I have made numerous references to the pack on my blog but haven't fully take the time to explain this phenonmenon. The pack is the large group of hikers generated by the AZDPCTKO kickoff at the end of April. Since there is a limited window to make it past the snow in the high Sierras, avoid the heat of the desert and make it to Canada before the snows many hikers chose to start around the end of April at kickoff. This means that 100 or so hikers will all be leaving around the same time and all those people stay near eachother because they are doing similar mileage for the first 500 miles or so traveling like a swarm of locusts attacking thru hiker towns up the trail. Some people fear getting stuck in the pack and opt to start hiking earlier and hitch back down south to go to kickoff. When you get stuck in the pack you risk reaching water caches to find them dry, getting into a small grocery store to find all the thru-hiker food has been bought out and never finding a place to camp in some sections without many sites. However being in the pack is also a great way to meet other hikers and it builds the community on a trail where you often will not see many of your fellow hikers except when you get into town.

I was very excited with the timing of my trip because I started two weeks after the pack left. I first started running into the tail end of the pack in Big Bear City. I'm not sure if some of those hikers I passed who were hiking quite a bit slower will make it the whole way to Canada but you never know some people just have a slow start. As I hiked north the pack slowly started to separate out so when I really started running into more people in the Sierras it would be little clumps of 15 or so people instead of the clumps of 50 people you may find in town before. I remember hearing stories from other hikers how there were 80 people who got into the Saufley's (the trail angels in Agua Dulce) at the same time and they had to find someone else to host because their place only had capacity for 50 people! At this point in the season people are very spread out along the trail where it would be odd to find more than 20 hikers in one town even if people are taking multiple zeros. During my trip I have gotten to slowly creep slowly up through the ranks and meet people as I go. At the same time I have gotten passed by a few hikers speeding up the trail or who I may have passed earlier but have taken it up a notch lately. Coming up through the ranks really is an awesome way to do the trail and I have yet to run into any of the problems with the pack this whole time.

Trail Communication

One of the difficult things on the trail is staying in touch with everyone. One of the best methods we have to know where people are and to send messages, is through trail registers. A trail register is a notebook that someone leaves at a trailhead, a trail angel's house, a water cache or a landmark on the trail which hikers will write down the date they arrived, their trail name and a small note. It is always so exciting when you come across a trail register, because sometimes they are few and far between, and I will spend at least a good 10 mins examining it to see where everyone is and read their comments. There are some issues with this means of communication though because while it is a great way to see where the people ahead of you are you have not way to hear from all the people behind you. You also can't guarantee that everyone in front of you signed it so just because you don't see someone's name there doesn't mean they aren't ahead of you. It is always a surprise to see when someone you though were weeks ahead is only a day ahead of you or to see someone in the registry that you though was behind you pop ahead of you and must have passed while you were in town, off trail or asleep. That is the unfortunate thing though because once you get out in front of someone you only have this one way line of communication and can leave them notes but can't hear back from them. I remember in Sierra City one of my friends, Smiles left a note to some of here friends she had been hiking with since the start who had gotten behind her that if they catch her in the next two resupply towns she will buy them ice cream to give them a little extra incentive to catch up. It really is a cool way to stay in touch with everyone.

You also get to hear so many stories just through word of mouth. You slowly get to learn about other people you may not have met yet but have heard their stories from other hikes. Then when you do run into them you sorta feel like you know them a bit. There are a good number of names just ahead of me that I was getting so anxious to meet because I have heard great things from people behind me. Also when you do meet someone who is doing big miles and passing you I always like to get a report to see how all my friends behind me are doing and if any are close to running into me again. You really never know who you will see next out here on the trail. One couple I have hiked with a lot, Carpenter and Creeper from South Carolina, keep talking like they are going to take off flying to Canada doing 30 miles a day and few zeros but then right as I am getting to the next town I will see them at the trailhead heading out and get to hear about all their latest adventures. I also recently ran into another guy Shutterburst here at the Oregon border who I met back in Yosemite. He had taken off ahead but stayed in Ashland to visit family for a while and it was great catching up with him and hearing about his time in northern California. Recently I have also met many southbounding section hikers or thru hiker who can give you great advise on what to expect with the trail you are just about to head into. Every day is such a surprise because you never know who you may see next and its always a treat to meet someone new.

Hiker Demographics

There are all sorts of people out here on the trail but I have been starting to notice a few trends in the types of people you meet out here. The one thing that everyone will always have in common is that they somehow have managed to find 4-6 months to go leave the "real world" to come out to the trail and complete a thru hike. How they manage to get that time period varies from person to person. While these are large generalizations below are some of the types of people I have observed out on the trail.

The 20 Something- I'll start with my demographic which is certainly one of the largest out here on the PCT. I would say this could even be broken down further into the recent college grad and the person who has been out in the working world for a couple years and can't stand it or hates the jobs they have been working recently and needs a break. Us 20 somethings tend to want to either avoid or prolong entering the "real world" or just get out here and live out on the trail before we get tied down to a house, a family and a career. However there are many other motivating factors. I think I probably fall into more of the later category. We also, especially the guys, tend to make some of the more stupid decisions on the trail and will punish our bodies because in general we can bounce back a bit easier and recover quicker than some of the older folks on the trail. This crowd also tends to have more of the partiers and I have been amazed at how some of these hikers after a long night of drinking in town can go back to the trail for a detox hike the next morning. I have made friends with lots of really fun hikers from this category because I can relate to many of them and its great to learn from their past experience both on trail and in life.

The Mid-Life Crisis/Transitioner- This category is what I think most people imagine a thru-hiker to be. Someone who just got laid off from there job or just had a nasty divorce that they just want to drop everything and get away from it all for a while. While these stories certainly exist and the divorcees are quite common to find I've notice that many of these people are experiencing less dramatic transitions in their life and may just be about to move from one job to the next or had always wanted to do a thru-hike and have realized they can manage to work out a way to take a few months off to go live their dream. I think the more dramatic stories do tend to be the people who write books about their trail experience so those are the ones your hear about but many people are just taking advantage of some transition in their adult life where they can find the time to go hike. These hikers can range from very strong-willed hikers to ones who are very succeptable to getting off trail. I've also been surprised how many of these hike can put in huge miles or party just as hard as their younger counterparts. You do tend to hear some great life stories from these types of people and find a wide range of career types out there from those who have been in the corporate world to actual rocket scientists.

The Retiree- From my limited experience on the AT I think this demographic is a bit larger out east on the AT than the PCT but there certainly are a good number of retirees out on the trail. I think that the long sections between towns and harsh climates may keep some of the older folk away from the PCT but those out here really know how to be smart and listen to their bodies. I think this can allow them to be more successful and they know that if they do start developing an injury it may be more advantageous to just call it quits for now and come back next year, whereas us twenty somethings like to push our injuries to the breaking point. I really do love hearing some of the life stories from the retirees and usually they are more than happy to tell you all about themselves. I have a lot of respect for these people finally going out and living their dream of hiking the trail and its so cool when you have a 60 year old passing you by on the trail.

The Section Hiker- Lately I have been meeting a lot of section hikers out here in northern California. A section hiker in many ways is just a thru-hiker who doesn't have the time to make it all way from Mexico to Canada in one go. They may find it more managable to break it down into shorter sections, not want to hike thru certain sections of the trail or just can't find a way to persuade themselves to take the 4-6 months off to complete a thru hike. I've been surprised though how many of these section hikers can be just as fast if not faster than thru-hikers and the only difference is they are only out for one month instead of 5. Others especially on the JMT carry much heavier gear and hike slower days and are pretty easy to spot. I find its pretty funny how they may be hiking over 500 miles themself but still have so much respect for us thru hikers and always make the clarification that they are just section hikers even though they are just as crazy as the rest of us.

The Addict- This is one demographic I may likely fall into some day but for now we will see where life takes me. The difference between the addict and the rest of the demographics is while everyone else view a thru-hike as a once (or sometimes twice) in a life time experience, thru-hiking has simply become a part of the addict's life. They have managed to find a job or career path that can allow for 3-5 month windows of time for them to go out and hike the longer trail. This category includes the triple crowners (who have hiked the AT, PCT and CDT) and people who have hiked the PCT multiple times. I love listening to the stories from the addicts because they have seen a lot of crazy conditions and met so many neat people in their many years. Some of them can be a bit arrogant and talk like they know everything but in my experience this is quite rare and most of these thru-hikers are very modest. One guy I met, He Su, I didn't discover until days later that he was actually going for his triple crown out here on the PCT this year. While I may one day soon jump aboard this train I got to finish this hike first, but I must admit its gotta be one of the better addictions out there.

The Unexpected- As one would imagine not everyone fits into one of those above categories and there are lots of other more random types of people out here. One of the coolest people I met on the trail was 7-year old Barracuda and his mom Sparrow who are trying to break the record for the youngest PCT hiker and possibly triple crowner. They were later joined by Barracuda's dad, Jules, and their dog, Guadalupe, in the Sierras so when I saw them most recently it was a whole family out on the trail. While Barracuda is such an awesome kid putting up with all the hard conditions and having to hang out with only people one or more generations older than him I really got to commend Sparrow as well. I don't know how that woman managed to take care of her son and haul most all of the food, water and gear for the pair all the way through the desert. Beyond trail families there are also people who come out to the trail to hike in bizarre ways such as this guy Train who is hiking the trail wearing 26 different wedding gowns. He started before me and is moving pretty fast so its not likely I will meet him but he has certainly been mentioned a few times in conversation. Then there are others who try to break some of the crazy records out on the trail like Tuna Helper who attempted to hike all 2,660 miles of the trail in just 60 days. He zipped by me hiking 40+ miles a day but sadly got stopped in Oregon by all the snow that hadn't melted yet and just got off trail when he realized he wouldn't break the record this season. Some people try more absurd records as well like trying to hike all three trails the PCT, CDT and AT in one year flying from trailhead to trailhead so they can do the snowier sections during the right time of year. One things for sure you never know what type of person you may run into out here.