Tan on the PCT

Edited by Jeff Johnson
Photos from Tan Nguyen, except as noted

Many people in GLS have met Tan Nguyen on GLS hikes. This year, he hiked six months on the Pacific Crest Trail, starting at the Mexican border on March 22 and…it got complicated. Virtually all of us have hiked on some piece of the PCT and imagined doing more, so I thought it would be interesting to hear what Tan had to say about his PCT experiences.

Preparing for the PCT

I’ve been backpacking in the Sierras with friends for years. I did WTC last year before I started. (https://wildernesstravelcourse.org)

I used the Halfway Anywhere website (www.halfwayanywhere.com) to do most of my PCT research.

I weighed my gear and used the site (lighterpack.com) to list my gear and compare the weight of each item to determine what to remove or replace to make my base weight lighter.

I talked to people who had done the PCT before.

Through hiking

When you get the permits to hike the PCT, they tell you it’s a thru-hike. You’re expected to hike continuously in one direction. The Forest Service wants to manage the effects of all the traffic on the PCT, so they want to know how many hikers are where. You’re told you’re not allowed to flip flop different sections of the trail and you’re not allowed to be off trail for more than five days. But that doesn’t reflect reality when you are hiking. You can’t get sick longer than five days? A family member dies or gets married and you can’t leave the trail for more than five days?

You voluntarily sign a register at the beginning and some points along the way. That’s it for tracking. If you go and come back, no one is checking your permit. If they do catch you, you get a fine.

Then when there are natural disasters and fires on the trail ahead of you, they have to close the trail. That’s getting to be more of an issue with climate change. It was this year.

Replace your shoes at 500 miles

They say to change your shoes every 500 miles. At my first 500 miles, my Altras still looked new. I thought “I’m not hurting so bad, I’m OK.” By 600 miles, near Ridgecrest, I had an Achilles issue in my heel. It felt like a bee constantly stinging my heel. It was painful just to move. I had to stop walking in the middle of nowhere. I hobbled over to two women and told them I can’t walk anymore. They said get in, we can take you to the highway. It was a long 20-mile ride down Kelso Valley Road to I-14. Eventually I got to Ridgecrest, rested there for three days. I got a replacement set of Altras.

I got back on the trail at Walker Pass. I taped my heels, which reduced the pain by about 50% but there was still pain. I took an Advil every night and every morning, hoping the swelling would go down. I took it really easy, hiking much slower than my group, coming in to camp about 9 PM, later than everybody else. It was not OK.

By the time I got to Kennedy South, I already ordered Salomon Ultra 4s to pick up there, with more heel support than the Altras. I got the Goretex version because I was heading into the snow. With those shoes, the pain was manageable. From then on, I just replaced my shoes every 500 miles. Whatever the condition of the shoes, just switch to new ones. I went through five pairs of Salomons by the end of the trip. My heel is still tender now, but I can hike up 5000 feet in one day and not cry about it.

Staying connected on the trail

Most people carry a satellite emergency notification device with an SOS button for emergencies. You can use it with your phone to send messages from the trail. That’s how I had the new shoes sent to me.

PCT hikers have an app called FarOut, which used to be called Guthook. It has a digital guide and GPS map and people can leave comments. When you get cellphone reception, you get updates and tips from the people ahead of you. So, for example, before you get to Lassen you hear other people say there’s a burn area and you have to hike straight through for 25 miles, nonstop, no camping. So you can arrive there prepared to hike straight through.

In the past, relying on paper maps, I would actually have had to carry more water because I wouldn’t know whether a stream shown on the map was running this year. Climate change has made streams less reliable. With FarOut, someone ahead says this stream is running, or it’s dry and you’ll have to carry extra water for the next eight miles. The digital map makes the experience safer as far as water is concerned. You know better what to expect and don’t have to carry as much extra just in case.

At the beginning I was eager to jump on my phone any time I had reception to share the amazing views I was seeing. The problem with this is I would pay attention to my phone and miss a junction. In fact, I did this several times in one day and earned the trail name Wrong Turn. This is ironic because I took a navigation class as part of WTC before starting the hike.

Pacing, getting there, hiking your own hike

At the beginning of the hike, it was basically a vacation. I felt that it was a stroll, we had all the time in the world. It was challenging though. I would get tired after hiking 15 miles in a day, maybe because I was carrying more water and gear I did not need.

It wasn’t until I got to Lake Tahoe that I realized, oh crap, we have to hike 20, 25 miles a day if we want to make it to Canada before winter weather. Then you realize this is no longer a jog in the park, this is a marathon. There’s a finish line and a deadline to get there. The hike changed from looking around taking pretty pictures to we need to put in the miles to finish safely.

By the halfway point, I was stronger and could hike 20-plus mile days and feel less tired when I got to camp. And then some people were treating every day like a marathon, plugged into their headphones, consistently doing 30 mile days. Everyone hikes their own hike.

Town days

In general, you hike maybe five days and then get to a town to resupply. Once you get to town, you’re looking for a place to stay, for a supermarket, a place to eat, a place to shower, a place to do laundry. If you sent a package to yourself at that town, then you have to wait for the post office to open. So your whole day is gone. People think it’s relaxing in town but no, other than sleeping in a real bed, you’re running around doing chores to get ready for the next day. Then you wake up really early and leave. Or sometimes there’s a reason to wait there, so you spend two nights and have a zero day.

At the beginning, on the trail I thought a lot about what I could eat when I get to town. Later, I just looked forward to a hot shower and clean clothes.

Trail family

Most people start off by themselves. Then you meet people and you camp together, eat together, you sort of hike the same speed, they don’t annoy you, you like them enough to hike with them. That’s how you find your trail family. I had four trail families.

My first trail family, I really only hiked with them like two days. We hiked our own speed and soon we lost contact and couldn’t find each other anymore.

My second trail family, I met them at mile 100. It turned out to be an interesting group. I met Ramen Bitch, Happy Meal and Flora, who were the first LGBT people I met. It felt nice to hike with people I related to.  

I think mile 100 was one of the best days. It was our first 100 miles and our camp was at mile 101, by Barrel Springs. People there said congratulations and gave us a tiny bottle of Fireball and some cereal. Cereal with alcohol, don’t ask. There were string lights and people playing ukuleles. There was a watering hole with a bunch of frogs that sang all night long. It was a weird little party that started to happen, like a bunch of gypsies got together and started singing all night long. It was fun. I lost that family around Big Bear when I was meeting up with friends.

Then my third trail family, I hiked with them all the way through the Sierras until Lake Tahoe. At Lake Tahoe, people had other things to do, meet a boyfriend, wait for a daughter. We started hiking at different speeds and eventually ended up hiking separately.

From Lake Tahoe, I hiked alone until I got to Donner Pass where I met somebody named Camino from Denmark. I hiked with him all the way to Washington and then, later, back to Oregon. So my fourth and final trail family was basically two people.

I hiked alone for only about a month out of the six months. It is nice to have people around. I like camping by myself, but it’s nice to have someone else there sometimes, just to know that you’re not by yourself. I would get separated because I was slow or had an injury or it felt it too dangerous and I’m tired and it’s 9 PM and dark and I can’t hike another 5 miles to catch up. So I would find somewhere safe and stop. I learned if you try to keep up with the faster people, you’ll get injured, so I always hiked my own speed.

Crossing rushing rivers

A scary thing that I did not expect was some of the river crossings, on logs, over very strong rivers. It’s different doing it in real life than seeing a video of someone doing it. Your heart is pounding, oh crap, I hope I don’t fall in here. Luckily, there are people around you. When you see someone in front of you doing it, you feel better because you know it’s possible. It gives you enough courage to follow them.

There are days when my body doesn’t want to cooperate. Just out of Burney, we knew we had 7000 feet of climbing through a burn area. At a tiny little stream, all I had to do was walk across these slippery rocks, I’d done it many times. But this time, for some reason I fell in and my shoes got wet. And then it happened a second time that day. It was just not my day.

Crossing steep passes

When you’re going over a pass and scrambling down rocks and snow, you’re wondering whether it’s the best way because it’s so steep, but you have to traverse it. The time that felt the most dangerous was at Mather Pass on June 8 when we started glissading. Most people in the group were able to stop sliding before a big boulder. One person, her trail name was Sushi, wanted to go last. When she went, she flew right over that boulder. All I could think was it was kind of funny, but it was scary. I have a video of that. Afterward, we kept looking at it every night and laughing because you could hear Sushi screaming. She was OK, but she never glissaded again after that.

I was lucky that no people in my group had to be rescued. Every time that we’d see a chopper, oh, somebody’s getting rescued. That happened a lot in the Sierras. There was a lot of altitude sickness in that area.

Pushing the button

One hiker who started with us was One Square. He was a very fast hiker. He was able to hike in sandals with a full pack as if he’s just walking in the park. He had the same altitude exposure as everyone else coming up through the Sierras. The night we went to the top of Mt. Whitney [a detour off the PCT], most of us got to the summit and we didn’t see him, so we were wondering where he was. When we got back down to camp, he said that as was hiking up, still below the switchbacks, he blacked out and couldn’t see anything. He had to drop his pack and crawl back to camp. He and his girlfriend decided to head down into town and have it checked out. Then, on the way out, he had another episode like that. So they pushed the SOS button. The helicopter came and got them out. After a week or two off-trail, his girlfriend came back and continued on the trail. One Square stayed in their van and supported her.

Another person we heard about was a young girl in her 20s who was a couple days ahead of us in the Sierras. She was reported to have had blue lips. On Forester Pass, she had a cardiac issue and died.

Earlier, just two days from the start at the Mexican border, some people pushed the SOS button because they were dehydrated. One guy had blacked out. The local fire department came and gave him fluids. His trail name became Spot. It’s an inexperience thing. Some people from the east coast or from Europe aren’t used to the desert. They don’t realize they have to drink so much. I’m used to the desert, but at the start I myself forgot until someone pointed out there is no water source until Lake Morena [20 miles from the border].

Longest day

My longest day was 29 miles. I had hiked past the PCT halfway point near the town of Chester and had to find a camp. The whole area had burned. Dead trees were creaking and dropping branches. I was along a switchback, going down. Normally, along a switchback in the Sierras, you can find somewhere to stop, but this was not safe. After walking 29 miles, I ended up sleeping on a fire road. Then you wake up in the middle of the night and hear branches creaking, oh crap, I hope it doesn’t fall on me.

McKinney Fire

When the McKinney fire happened [July 29, just south of the Oregon border], we were 75 miles south of there, near Dunsmuir, and got out at the Gumboot trailhead. The southbounders we’d been meeting said the snow just melted north of here and it’s wet, it’s going to be fine. Next thing you know, it’s on fire.

People ahead of us on the trail, who actually hit the fire, had to be evacuated out to Etna. They all went to Ashland somehow. With so many people getting thrown off the trail around there, they bought every bus and train ticket to Portland and Seattle, to get north past the fire. Then no one could get a ticket to get anywhere. We had to figure out something else. We got a taxi to the city of Mt. Shasta, and then a friend’s son from Ashland drove down to pick us up and took us to Ashland.

In Ashland, we were so confused. When a fire happens, there’s confusion and your mind kind of doesn’t work for a bit. I thought, oh, maybe if we didn’t have so many zero days here, here, and there, if I didn’t wait for this person and that person, I could have made it through. I kind of lamented that I took so much time off. I’m sure other people thought that too.

We stayed two nights at a motel in Ashland. Everyone had different ideas, I don’t think anyone agreed on anything. The second day we all got together at a brewery and over beers, people took out their maps and drew. OK, we’re going here, we’re going there. I can get us a ride to here, and so on. The air quality in Ashland was not good, so let’s decide something and get out of here. To Cascade Locks [on the Columbia River]? To somewhere south of that in northern Oregon? We decided on Frog Lake trailhead, at Government Camp, on the south side of Mt. Hood. Once everyone agrees on a plan, you stick to it and just move forward. Luckily, I had some friends who live near Portland who were able to drive down and give us a ride up there.

Washington is beautiful

So, we jumped to Frog Lake and continued north into Washington. It’s wet, nothing is on fire, we are thinking this is a good time.

Washington is absolutely gorgeous, that whole state, so much to look at. Goat Rock Wilderness was spectacular, challenging and impressive. But there were so many blowdowns across the trail in Washington. We’re talking about giant trees, multiple giant trees across the trail, that you had to climb over or reroute, find your way around them because there’s no way to climb through them. It was not fun. It was very tiring. And the Washington mosquitoes were very aggressive.

Fires at the terminus

Then I got to Stehekin, by Lake Chelan. I had 80 miles left, just four days to the border. I was waiting there for the shuttle that goes down into the town of Stehekin on the lake. People were looking at me, hey did you hear? It’s really bad news. What, what’s going on? In my head, did the President die? What happened? No, the terminus is on fire, they’re closing the trail. Suddenly, several wildfires were burning by the trail near the border.

So, these hikers were just getting off the bus from Stehekin, heading back to the trail to hike the last miles to the border and they’re learning they’re not going to be able to do that. Young people, in their mid 20s, they’re just crying. A lot of them were from far away. They had gathered all their savings for this once-in-a-lifetime trip, this was their only chance to do it. They had gotten through the fires to the south, they only had a little bit left, and they were not going to be able to finish. It was devastating for them.

We took the shuttle in to Stehekin and spent a couple nights there by the lake deciding what to do. Do we sit here and wait for the fires to go down? Do we go as far north as we can go, or find an alternate route to the border? Or head south and finish the parts we skipped in Oregon? We decided to go south.

Stehekin is at the north end of Lake Chelan with no roads connecting it to the outside. There’s only the ferry that goes down the lake to the town of Chelan, 50 miles away. So we took the ferry out. The mother of a friend we met along the way came to pick her up there, and they gave us a ride to Seattle. We stayed two days in Seattle, then took a train to Portland, then a bus back to Government Camp where we’d been before. And we started south from there to cover the areas we had skipped in Oregon.

Cedar Creek Fire

Then back in Oregon, the Cedar Creek Fire was burning across the trail near the Sisters, so we had to skip that section. When we were near McKenzie Pass, we were surprised by some friends from L.A. who happened to be in Oregon, they were tracking us on GPS and luckily were nearby. They drove over and picked us up at McKenzie Pass and took us to Bend. We stayed two nights in Bend. Then a trail angel took us down to Shelter Cove and we continued south from there, breathing smoke from the fire. So we had a 76 mile gap in Oregon. We continued south until we got to the border with California, and then south past the McKinney Fire site to Gumboot trailhead, where we first skipped the McKinney Fire. Then I took a 23-hour train ride from Dunsmuir home.

Oregon/California border sign

It was strange when we hit sign at the Oregon/California border. When I was hiking north through California, I was thinking about getting to that sign. My vision was that I was walking from one end of California to the other, a huge deal, and I would get to that sign. But after we had skipped around and we were hiking south through Oregon, I got to that sign and I didn’t feel anything. It felt like I hopped around in a marathon and decided to finish the 26 miles somewhere in the middle. So now I’m a little concerned that if I do finish it next year, will I feel the impact of reaching the Canadian border even though I didn’t get to do it in one long shot? I know what I’ve done is a major feat. Hiking 2500 miles is not easy. But what have I lost when I cut it into sections?

What will be different next year?

I will invest in a lighter sleeping bag and focus on lighter food that gives me sufficient calories.

No need for the ice axe or crampons, which I didn’t use in the Sierras because the snow was so low. Next year’s weather is a different story.

Skip the pack towel, the town clothes, the extra headlamp, the things I got rid of along the way to save weight.

Bring a sewing kit, and pocket knife with pliers.

And I will make sure I am in shape and capable of hiking more than 25 miles a day if I need to.