Advice for future PCT thruhikers

If I wound back time to sit down with my former self planning to embark on the PCT, there are many nuggets of wisdom I would share. To assist future hikers, this will be a brain dump of all my learnings from thousands of miles hiking with everything on my back through many landscapes and weather conditions.

My first piece of advice is to just do the damn hike. Yes, it feels crazy, impossible even. It's never going to be the perfect time. If you have the dream, take the leap. It will reward you in ways you can't imagine. It will make time feel jam packed with rich experience — filled with relationships, vistas, hardships, and laughter. In the "normal world", 6 months passes without much fuss, but on a thruhike you will feel like you've experienced an entire lifetime in that same span. So do it, make it happen, save some money and take the leap.

After committing to this wild idea, you may be compelled to buy maps and trail encyclopedias like I did. They aren't necessary. Really all you need to understand are the broad strokes — the sections are Desert, Sierra, NorCal, Oregon, Washington. Know the challenges each section can have throughout the season changes. Understand the pros and cons of varying start dates.

Start dates and the Sierra

If I were to hike the trail again, I would aim to start in mid March. Even in a high snow year, starting earlier just gives you more time to make decisions. You can even take things slow in the desert which is lovely with the good towns and your body is ramping up to the lifestyle.

My start date was March 28th and 2026 was a low snow year for all mountain ranges in the West. We entered the Sierra on May 14th and despite the low snowpack, we traveled consistently through snow from Cottonwood Pass to Sonora Pass. I believe we hit the Sierra at whats known as the "secret season" — no storms, snow stayed firm until midday, and creek crosses hadn't swelled. In other words, the melt hadn't begun.

Once the melt starts, thats when the going gets miserable. It'll be 6am and you're postholing because the temperature don't drop enough overnight to firm up the snow. And let me be clear, you do not want to be post-holing all day. Its slow and you lose trail often, not to mention the increased risk of spraining an ankle or worse. I wouldn't want to be in the thick of the High Sierra when the melt is popping off. River crossings and steep snow travel to me, were some of the most dangerous moments.

It's easy to say because I've now done the High Sierra when it was chock full of snow, but I wouldn't be concerned about going in if there is a stable weather window and the snow stays firm for a solid portion of the day. Bring microspikes and an ice axe, warm layers and you'd be surprised how comfortable you can get traveling through snowy terrain when its firm. Be prepared for frigid temps though, the morning we awoke to do Forrester Pass someones thermometer read 19 degrees inside the tent.

Once you are getting closer to KMS (think near Tehachapi), start watching the snowpack in the Sierra, which will determine your ideal entry window. Postholer can be helpful but sometime misleading. Social media can be a blessing and a curse at this point in time, keep a level head despite everything you hear or see. There will most likely be hikers ahead of you blazing a trail, so just know it can be done. Before going into the Sierra, know your exit passes if conditions take a turn or you get in over your head. Have your maps downloaded, you don't get service through this entire section. Ideally at least someone in your group should have an InReach device, but satellite text is an okay backup so long as you have the battery power to support it when necessary.

Beware of fear mongering

Don't listen to fear mongering on Facebook. Assess trail conditions for yourself as they can vary wildly from day to day, especially in snow conditions. Your best sources of information will be other actual PCT hikers and your own senses. FarOut comments are incredibly useful, for me they provided the most value for water conditions. I did feel things were often blown out of proportion on FarOut, so the further I got along on trail the less I paid attention to overly negative comments.

At a certain point on trail you will start running into SOBO (southbound) hikers who are at the start of their journey, so hard stuff feels really hard, and it is for them just like Mission Creek will be for you as a NOBO. But by the time you get to Washington just remember that you are a hiking machine, almost nothing can be worse than what you have already endured — so just be aware of others perception of what entails difficult or scary conditions since it may be quite different than your own.

NOBO or SOBO

For weighing NOBO vs. SOBO, I traveled northbound and I couldn't imagine it any other way. There's something so incredible about starting in the desert with more water, cooler weather and beautiful cacti blooms. The big crux with NOBO is the Sierra. But having entered the Sierra on the early side, I would definitely do it again. Don't be scared of the snow so long as you bring the right gear and you at least have watched some YouTube videos on how to use it (yep, I didn't practice with my ice axe until we were on Mount Whitney although I don't recommend that).

Gear, tl:dr you don't need much

Regarding gear, everyone says this but definitely try to lighten as much as you can before you depart. Most everyone I saw who had kindles mailed them home. Multiple changes of clothes? It depends, but likely you have too many clothes. While on trail always be looking through your gear to assess whether you are using your items, or if they can go. I would keep a list on my phone of things to mail home when we got to town so I didn't have to remember it all. Even tiny things like a little charging cable that seemed redundant, every gram counts baby.

Unless you've thruhiked before, and even then, you will almost certainly change out pieces and parts of your gear while you are on trail. It's okay, its a part of the process. You're not gonna be dialed at the starting line, but try to make an attempt to slim down to the bare necessities before you get there. Be open to mailing stuff to yourself ahead while you are on trail to lighten the load. Once we got to Sierra City, we mailed our puffy jackets to a friend in Oregon to pick back up for Washington and that saved me 11oz for ~940 miles.

If you are headed North from Campo, don't bring 5 days worth of food on day one. You are 20 miles from Lake Morena where you can get a nice breakfast and buy snacks, and shortly thereafter you'll be at Mount Laguna so no need for the extra weight. You won't starve in the desert with all the close town stops!

Challenging sections

The most challenging part of trail for me was Northern California, between Sierra City and Burney Falls. I hadn't researched this section much and wasn't aware of what it entailed. At that point the adrenaline of the Sierra wears off and the magnitude of the distance you still have to traverse smacks you in the face. But this is when the real work of thruhiking begins. It becomes a mental game of just moving through the discomfort day by day. It helps to find people to hike with to empathize in shared suffering. This section may not be your hardest, but I promise you will have low days or weeks where you think, "why am I doing this?". If you know that this will come, when it does repeat to yourself, "this will pass". And just focus on getting to the next town, the next milestone. Northern California has some of the best trail towns, go to all of them.

Trail logistics

If you are hiking with a trail family, make plans at the beginning of the day on where you plan to camp. Most often, people hike at different paces and you might not see each other over the course of of the day. Identifying pre-determined break points and a campsite helps to mitigate confusion.

In terms of resupply, honestly I wouldn't send myself any boxes until Kennedy Meadows South and then none until Oregon / Washington. In Oregon, we sent boxes to Mazama Village (Crater Lake) and Shelter Cove, which I would do again. And in Washington we mailed to White Pass, Stephens Pass, and Stehekin. For these spots I would only do White Pass and Stehekin. For Stephens Pass, instead of sending a box you would go resupply in Leavenworth. It's a really fun town to stop in and at that point you'll probably want a shower before you enter the remote and challenging final push.

Hitchhiking is a necessary part of this hike. My experiences ran the gammut, but remember that local bus systems exist! I was very impressed with some rural bus routes that will even pick up or drop you off at trail. Sometimes you need to call ahead to schedule it so do your research in town for the next section, or when you get a spot of cell signal.

Water

If its early season in the desert, generally its okay to trust the water caches on FarOut. Be a good trail citizen and make a comment when the stash is getting low so the maintainers get a heads up.

I was surprised at how many people didn't filter water on trail. I only saw one person get sick, but still. Personally, I filtered every drop. I used a Katadyn BeFree which meant that I could filter while I drank and that sped things up. Most folks who didn't want to stop to filter had a Sawyer Squeeze. If your filter gets really slow, just replace it to save time and frustration on trail.

Remember to sleep with your water filter every night if there is a chance of freeze. Some of you may not know that if the water filters freeze they are ruined, and that my friend is how you get giardia (which someone in our trail family did in the Sierra). If you have any inkling that it might have frozen overnight, replace it.

Pretrail prep

For my next thruhike, I plan to do more specific strength training and time on feet so I can begin at a faster clip. With fire seasons so rampant, it truly is a race to maintain a continuous footpath. I went into the PCT expecting to deal with trail closures due to fire. We got really lucky in that we only hit a closure at the very end, so we maintained a continuous border-to-border footpath. But before you get on trail be flexible to change and keep your non FarOut mapping app ready in case you need to plan an alternate route.

If you have dietary restrictions, plan to send more resupply boxes with special food. Sometimes it truly will be a gas station resupply, and once I got burned only eating candy and chips for 100 miles I resigned to researching resupply boxes further North. For my next trail (looking at you CDT), I will probably send more boxes because I have a good sense of what I like to eat. Know that your tastes and hunger levels will vary wildly. Some things that I ate for hundreds of miles would suddenly become gross to me, so don't send yourself too much food unless you know you'll eat it.

Money

Give yourself a wide financial buffer for this adventure. Hotels, injury, unexpected gear replacements, $20 plates of eggs in the middle of nowhere that you will devour — there's lots of unexpected expenses to blow a budget on. Another thing to prepare for is living costs once you finish the trail and are looking for work again. Budget for a few extra months on the tail end in case the journey takes longer than anticipated, or ends up being more expensive.

Food is a huge cost once hiker hunger kicks in. For us, what followed was lodging. We got quite a few hotels but know that there is a trail angel network to lean on if you want to save money. Try to arrange trail angel stays a few days before you get to the town. This looks like posting on the local trail angel Facebook group beforehand to coordinate. Don't expect to just show up and have someone pick you up at a trailhead and offer you a stay. Respect the trail angels' time and generosity by communicating well and making a plan ahead of time.

You don't need titanium and dyneema everything, despite Instagrams marketing. Plenty of people were out there hiking with "normal" gear and doing just fine. Sure, if you can lighten up on the big four do it. But don't blow the bank on new gear before you get on trail because your stuff might break anyways, in which case it makes more sense for the upgrade at that point.

Set aside extra money for shoes. I went through a pair of shoes every 400ish miles. Some people stretched their pairs almost double that, but they were younger than me and by the end it was really hurting their feet. If you have any injuries like plantar faciitis or achilles issues, replace your shoes as soon as your feet hurt to prevent a worse injury.

Be open to the people you will meet. Take pictures of them. Sure the nature was great, but what surprised me most about the PCT was that the people were the best part. It put my faith back in humanity and rewilded my brain.

Really, all you need to do is start hiking. You will figure out the rest as you go. Take it town by town, don't think about the whole thing at once. Don't even say the word "Oregon" until you get to Burney Mountain Guest Ranch. Make yourself mini goals to focus on and just execute one after the next. Happy trails out there ✌️