One of the questions I get asked the most is how long it take me to hike the entire Pacific Crest trail. My go to answer has been “about five months”. However, up until just a few days ago that was just a rough estimate. Over the past few weeks I have been slowly putting my plan together, calculating how long it will take me to get to certain points on the trail, figuring out where and how I will resupply, documenting the details about each town I will stop in and of course, how long it will take me to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail.
Planning out a hike that will take “about five months” may seem like quite the undertaking but luckily there are a few resources that help make things a lot easier. The first and what I found the be the most helpful is Craig’s PCT Planner. This site allows you to easily create a plan by just entering a few pieces of data such as your start date and hiking pace. After creating your initial plan you can then make adjustments section by section, selecting the towns you want to stop in and where and when you plan to take a day off and get some rest, or maybe just spend a little extra time. One thing that is extremely helpful is being able to enter notes about each section including the towns you plan on stopping in. While it automatically selects popular resupply points along the trial when you first create your plan you’ll definitely want to make some adjustments and add in additional information.
For the information side of things I used two different resources, Yogi’s Pacific Crest Trail Handbook and Halfway Anywhere’s 2017 Pacific Crest Trail Thru-hiker Survey Let’s start with Yogi’s PCT Handbook; it’s AMAZING! At $40 it may seem a little expensive but it’s well worth every penny. The first half of the book is a lot of great information about everything form logistics to gear to personal care and what to expect during your hike form the perspective of multiple different (and hardcore) thru-hikers. The second half the book is detailed data about the towns and trial tips, post office information, where to resupply, town maps, restaurant information, you name it. To give you an example of how detailed information it will include things such as “the vending machine in the lobby has candy for $1.25” and phone numbers of Trail Angles that will give you a ride and / or let you stay at their home.
The other wealth of information Halfway Anywhere’s PCT Survey. This survey contains a lot of great information gathered from those that hiked the Pacific Crest Trail the previous year. This really helped me determine where I wanted to stop resupply and when I would need to have a resupply box mailed. In addition to the resupply information the survey covers everything from gear to how long it took hikers to complete the PCT. If you’re interested in what i’m getting myself into take a moment to check it out.
With those resources I built out my plan with detailed notes about each stop along the way. While i’m sure i’ll tweak it a little bit, adding bits of information or account for when i’ll need to hike into a town, here is a summary:
(11.0 in town “zero” days)
with layovers: 16.7 mi/day 1,978 ft/day
Note: Since my notes include how to mail things to me along the way I should note that even though I’ve captured post office information that doesn’t mean i’ll be stopping in that post office. If you are kind enough to feel the need to mail me something shoot for the towns that include “Mail Resupply” in the notes and don’t mail anything too far in advance. Also, shoot me a message using the contact form so I know that I should expect something.