Hello 2025 (well spring 2025). This year instead of focusing on two or more walks spread across the globe, I figured I would spend my last year of semi retirement walking from Mexico to Canada (at least that is the plan).
I am starting in early April and here it is late March and I am finally doing those last minute shoppings, and will add a gear list, and I may even dork out on the weight. Normally I am not a weight weenie, and I typically come in around 30-35 lbs “packed” (with food and water etc). Since i have been doing this walking thing a while, I have the fortune of not needing to dump a cool few thousand on all new gear, but that said I did pick up a new Durston X-Mid 1. I got some good usage out of the OG (gen 1 Drop version) X-mid, and am looking forward to the added width of the new one.
Pack: I’m still rocking an Atom Packs MO 50L, but replaced the hip belt, and I replaced all the bungee with a different color, and picked up some repair patches as well from AtomPacks.
Sleep System: I will be using a Western Mountaineering Terralite 25F bag and a Big Agnes Rapide SL pad.
Kitchen: is an MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe, a snow peak spork that I have been using for years. My pot is a GSI Outdoors haullite 1.7L pot. Yah my kitchen could use some weight trimmings but it’s hard to justify spending money when I have gear that is fine. My base kit of the big 4 comes in at just around 9lbs, light enough for me, but heavier than others i am sure. My food bag for the first week is 4.2 kilos, or 8.5lbs. That is about a pound, to 1 1/2 pounds too light for a 6 day jaunt.
Summits on the Air: I will be carrying a Summits on the Air kit on this walk, and after much toiling have settled on a mid-band QMX (40-15). That total kit adds an additional KG to the pack weight, the penalty is the 5aH battery, but I am fine with that as it will reduce the amount of times i need to charge up; I should be able to get 10-15 activations depending on how much time I activate. Pretty much anytime I hit the RV I’ll do a top off balance charge. Speaking of, why would I want to walk some 2600 miles and do this whole side quest thing? Is walking from Mexico to Canada not hard enough with all the other logistics involved? Yes you are correct, I am adding a bit of an extra bump in difficulty to this journey by taking on these side quests, however after a few long distance walks with SOTA I do have some ground rules. The ascent to a peak should never be more than 30 minutes in one direction (so < 1/2 mile and < 500 feet elevation gain). AT the end of the day, unlike the AT which has close to 200 peaks where the trail traverses the AZ, on the PCT with those ground rules, I am looking at just shy of 100 peaks, which would add about 1-2 weeks overall to the walk time (if my maths are right).
Resupply Logistics: Since my earlier days of the JMT, and the section hikes I have done in the past things have gotten much simpler. For one, the amount of places you need to mail a resupply to yourself is much lower now (or worse yet, back in the day when you had to march your resupply in ahead of time and hope it was still there month(s) later). It also helps that I have someone who is going to meet up with me from time to time to help with those resupplies. I am trying to reduce the number of Zeros or Neros on this journey this year. According to my happy planning spreadsheet there are about 30 resupply spots, 12 of which would be a mail in. So < 50% and those are mostly the way off places.
Time to head back to work, that is all for now. I will try and chime in from the trail after I start.. FWIW, current pack weight, with that 1st weeks worth of food (oh it will change) is sitting at 20lbs, but none of my layers have been put on the scale yet.. (sleeping shorts, puffy, etc..) so yah I’ll be hitting ~30lbs. That is about par for me.
Backcountry Saunters 