Pacific Crest Trail - July 3-6, 2001

Introduction

After being defeated in only a couple days by the Pacific Crest Trail last year, Justin and I decided to come back for some revenge this year. The trail had destroyed us the year before, causing us to cry "Uncle" after only two days on the trail, due mainly to the huge blisters I developed. This year was to be different, though. I had been wearing my hiking boots all over the place, and had been doing a lot of weekend hikes to prepare for the trip.

Not only had I been training, I'd also worked really hard to carry less weight this year. This year my pack was down to about 45 pounds, an amazing 20 pounds less than the previous year's 65 pounds. Not that 45 pounds is light, but compared to 65, it's wonderful! Even with all the training, I was still a good 15 pounds overweight, but I was pretty confident I'd do better this year.

After all, we'd planned smaller this year. Whereas last year we'd planned for something like 10 days and 115 miles, this year we the plan only called for 55 miles over 6 days...an average of maybe 10 miles a day. Surely we could handle this!

Would we conquer the trail this year, or would we cry "No Mas!" like we had the year before? Only time would tell. Read on to see how we did.

NOTE: You can click the MAP link at the bottom of the page any time to see the map of the part of the trail we hiked. (The medium thickness black line represents the PCT. We started at the road by Blue Lakes at the bottom of the map.)

PCT Index

MAP