Gear Updates from Real-Life PCTers

PCT Above Drakesbad

"The nalgene bottle is dead. At least to the thru-hikers." Such was the bold statement made by Pot, one of a group of 'grey-hair" PCT thru-hikers we meet up with at Drakesbad (see previous post). In addition to being a welcome haven for car-campers, Drakesbad is a welcome stop for thru-hikers. Not only do they making their showers, laundry and pool available, the ranch accepts and holds mail, provides free phone charging and serves their awesome meals at half price.

It was while waiting for our laundry to finish that we sat down with some of the thru-hikers. There were 5 of them and since they were the only non twenty-something thru-hikers we'd seen (and we've seen over 168 by now), we just had to buy them a glass of wine and ask them how it was going.

All in all they said it was going fine. They certainly weren't making the same time as 'the kids' but then again, they said, they were on the luxury tour, refusing to go without hot drinks, and warm meals. Apparently the twenty-somethings are mainly eating pop tarts, cold ramen noodles, cold instant potatoes, and trail mix. They don't have the time and spare weight for stoves, fuel, and pots.

But back to the death of the naglene bottle. S.D. and I had noted that almost all the thru-hikers were

In other trail-technology news hydration bladders have been relegated to backup reservoirs used only when hiking a particularly dry section, and the best tents are now being made out of high-tech sail cloth and use trekking poles for support. They're really light weight, practically indestructible, and being made to hold up in the wind, are also extremely water proof. They're also all being hand crafted at this point and are really expensive so we'll have to wait a while to get back into 'sailing' or...get one of our sailmaking friends interested in a new line of products?

We also learned that trail magic goes both ways. After sharing the wine and driving their packs from Drakesbad to the campsite, the thru-hikers were extremely happy. After listening to their stories and learning about life on the trail, both S.D. and I felt pretty great too!

View of Boiling Springs Lake from the PCT
Lassen in the distance

carrying their water in old soda and Gatorade bottles with a filter at the top. As Pot explained, nalgene bottles were too heavy, while disposable plastic bottles were much lighter and rather than having to try and clean them all they had to do was buy a new one every week or so and put the old one in the recycling bin. Additionally they didn't need to stop and filter water, just fill up the bottle attach the filtering straw/lid, and they were off. How cool is that!?