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How do you have the time?
How many pairs of shoes have you gone through?
How many miles a day do you hike?
Do you hike together?
How do you get your journal and pictures on the web?
What did you eat?
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Extras
How much weight did you lose?
What wildlife did you see?
How many zero days did you take?
Doing this hike has been a dream of ours for many years, so we made the time. Lexi quit her job and Dave took time away from his self-employment.
Dave wore four pairs: from Camp to Kennedy Meadows (700 miles) in Asics Trail Eagle III, Kennedy Meadows to Sierra City (500 miles) in New Balance 806, Sierra City to Sisters (800 miles) and Sisters to Manning (700 miles) in Asics.
Lexi wore five pairs: from Campo to Kennedy Meadows (700 miles) in Saucony Grid Shadow Trail, Kennedy Meadows to Truckee (450 miles) in Sauconys, Truckee to Seiad Valley (500 miles) in Montrail Vitesse, Seiad Valley to Cascade Locks (500 miles) in Sauconys, and Cascade Locks to Manning (500 miles) in Montrails.
We both used green Superfeet. They lasted through about two pairs of shoes.
We hiked an average of 20-30 miles a day, not including partial days in and out of town. In southern California we hiked 20-23, in the Sierra 17, in northern California 23-30, and in Oregon 24, and in Washington 22.
Most of the time we're within 100 yards of each other. However, if one of us is feeling faster or slower, or Dave wants to draw, or Lexi wants to examine a plant, then we agree for the person in front to wait after an hour or so, or to meet at a specific place, like a trail junction. Since we carry one set, we intend for the person in the rear have the maps. In the unusual situation that the trail is unclear, the person in front can simply wait. The most common problem being apart was that the other person would have the trusty orange shovel.
We write our journal entries the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. When we can get to a public library or other place that has internet access, we transcribe the entries ourselves into the form on the password protected "Add Entry" page. Otherwise, we mail them to one of the friends on our Support Team, and they do it. To post pictures from our Canon S50 digital camera, we had a MicroSolutions Roadstor portable card reader/CD burner in our bump box. In town, we burned the pictures to CDs, and mailed them to a friend on our Support Team (Pete D is fabulous), who resized the pictures and posted them with another form on our "Add Entry" page. Dave mailed his orginal watercolors to another friend (Ian is fabulous), who scanned them and posted them in the same way. Highly customized freeware perl scripts (Pete is fabulous) run the whole thing. We can send you the scripts if you're interested and know what to do with them.
Keep in mind that these quantities are for two vegetarians, one of whom set the pancake eating standard (4.1) this year in Seiad Valley. We both lost a small amount of weight, which was hard to measure because we never found a reliable scale. We burned out on some of these foods, but you might love them everyday. For most people, variety is key. The lines under Breakfast and Dinner each constitute a complete meal for 2. The only cooking trick we used was to undercook, remove from the stove, put in the cozy, and let stand 10 minutes. This just conserves fuel. For cleanup we carried 1/4 of a Scotchbrite pad and a very small refillable bottle of Camp Suds.
Everything that isn't strictly breakfast or dinner we count as lunch, even if it is second breakfast or dessert. We bought our lunch food by weight: 1.5#/day at the start, increased to 1.75#/day in the Sierra, and increased further to 2#/day in Washington, where it was cold and rainy. We tried to carry a mix of salty and sweet foods, and ate fresh stuff on the first day of a section.
As appropriate to the meal, we sometimes added an aseptic box of tofu, or TVP (texturized vegetable protein). Although we never found it, tempeh keeps well for a day or two. We ALWAYS added 2-4 T olive oil or homemade ghee (clarified butter). We use a 3L pot.
For each section we carried one box of instant chocolate pudding and powdered milk. We also carried cocoa powder and tea bags (with honey packets), but only drank them in the Sierra and Washington.
Having trained by completing the Canadian Ski Marathon (185K), we started in pretty good shape. My Agua Dulce we had lost a couple of pounds. By the time we got to Etna, we were both down about 10% of our starting weight, if you believe that scale. We haven't been on any reliable scales since. Yeah, we lost weight, but not an amount that became a problem.
7 black bears (none in the Sierra and none with behavior problems), mountain goats and elk in Goat Rocks (WA), several foxes and coyotes, many mule deer, 3 rattlesnakes in southern CA and loads of harmless snakes, and hoardes of marmots, squirrels, mice, and lizards.
We took a total of 22 zero days, as follows:
1 at Kick off
2 at Agua Dulce
1 at Kennedy Meadows
1 to climb Mt. Whitney (a high effort zero)
1 at Independence
3 at Tuolumne Meadows (including one climbing day, another high effort zero)
1 to climb Mt. Shasta (super high effort zero day)
2 at Ashland
1 at Bend
2 at Cascade Locks
7 at Stevens Pass (its fair to count 1 as a real zero and 6 as a dealing-with-family-emergency-zero)
We were also big fans of Near-0s (4-7 mile days in and out of town, just to cut down on expense)