Pacific Coastal Range Expedition

posted by Claire on Feb 10

Nate and I just had a blast talking about our trip to the elementary school classes at Forest Lake Elementary, where Nate was a wee one back in the day. When he told the kids that he was there in 1995, they all gasped in disbelief. 1995?! Wow, he’s really old! You can see photos of the event on the FLE website.

I keep forgetting how strange this trip seems to most folks. We are surrounded by fellow campers and athletes, steeped in thru-hiking culture. To the outdoor adventure community, hiking the PCT in one season is a feat, but not extraordinary. But to most of the people we encounter, backpacking and camping are themselves adventures. Add to the mix 25-mile days and 6 months continuous hiking and you have an awe inspiring expedition.

It was wonderful to show these children our world, our passion, and see them get fired up about it. It’s true that the questions often involved dangerous encounters with bears, mountain lions, snakes, scorpions, and moose, not to mention cold, ice, hunger, being lost, impassable crevasses and insurmountable rock faces, but the students were truly interested in the whole proposition. Why are you doing this? How do you get food? What about communication with your families and friends? How can you walk so far in a day? What will you do when you’re done? My personal favorite was, “Are you, a boy and a girl, going to sleep in the SAME tent?” For all you wondering about that dilemma, we are sleeping in the same tent. It’s unbelievable, I know, but we really have to minimize the weight we carry, despite the hardships involved.

posted by Claire on Feb 3

Two months until we’re off! Yep, we’ve set a starting date of April 5th. Unless we get a major warm-up, there’ll be buckets of snow, so snowshoes are top items on our gear list. Speaking of gear, we’ve been generously supported by Outdoor Research and Leki. Check out their stuff through the ‘Supporters’ links on the right. I’m looking forward to playing with their gear. Don’t worry, we’ll let you know what we think right away!

You may visit our site and say, ” Claire, this is rather boring, can’t we get an interactive map?” To that, I say sure, just teach me how! No, really, I’m trying to pick up this Google Maps API and Java and such, but my efforts are severely compromised by large amounts of ignorance. I think I’ll have something up by the time we leave. No promises.

In other news, we’ve decided most likely to come back to Minnesota for the 4-5 month hiatus over the winter months. The lure of friends, family, and most importantly, a job, draws us ever homeward. Since funds are an issue, we can’t go gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest. Money must be acquired to allow us to complete the second season of hiking. While that makes me pretty darn sad, it’ll be nice to have a place to come back to after being nomadic for 6 months.