Post PCT Q&A

Description

** Stuff/Gear I Mention in this Video **

Post PCT Thru-Hike Gear List Video - https://youtu.be/zfqxFjJ8Eb8

Post PCT Gear List (Detailed) - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2018/09/20/darwins-post-pct-thru-hike-gear-list/

Waymark Thru 40 Pack - https://www.waymarkgearco.com/thru-series-packs/

Sea to Summit Spoon - http://amzn.to/2nqpICn

Katadyn BeFree 1L Filter - https://amzn.to/2xr9CLG

Altra Olympus 3.0 - https://amzn.to/2pjzuVr

BD Ergo Carbon Cork Trekking Poles – https://amzn.to/2DbagCo

ZPacks Arc Blast- http://www.zpacks.com/backpacks/arc_blast.shtml

Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter – http://amzn.to/2G4aiZo

Altra Lone Peak 3.5 Shoes – http://amzn.to/2xWDNfC

Cnoc Vertex Carbon Cork Trekking Poles (Modified) – http://amzn.to/2EVMoQnZ

Pre PCT Thru-Hike Gear List - https://youtu.be/aaQqPbu1Fa0

Pinhoti Trail Thru-Hike Gear List - https://youtu.be/EsCCh6nGwlM

AT Gear List - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2016/05/03/darwins-2016-at-gear-list/

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*** Gear Used to Shoot this Video! ***

- Cameras -

Canon EOS 77D - http://amzn.to/2zf5OQ9

- Lense -

Canon EF 24mm IS USM - http://amzn.to/2zeJuWU

- Sound -

TakStar Shotgun Mic - http://amzn.to/2kMsAnM

- TriPod -

Targus 360 Trigger Tripod - http://amzn.to/2kMsU5Y

------Intro By: Kat Pendergast------

https://superk.at

------- Music By: Mike Boren --------

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Tags: UL Hiking Gear,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Q&A,Post Thru Hike,UL Backpacking,Zpacks,Waymark Gear Co.,UL Backpacking Gear,BeFree Filter,Altra Olympus 3.0,Altra Lone Peak,Hiker Trash,Hiking,Backpacking,Adventure,Long Distance Hiking,Waymark Thru 40

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin here with a post PCT thru-hike QA to answer a bunch of your questions that you asked over four months while I was on the trail I got a ton of questions and comments here on YouTube over on Instagram and on Facebook of things you guys wanted to know about my hike from Mexico to Canada so today I figured I would finally answer a bunch of the most commonly asked questions I watched through all of these today and I was wondering - injuries and open the Sierra Nevada what was your average cadence on the trail so John my average cadence on the PCT is pretty similar to the cadence that I always have when I do hikes I typically hike about 3 miles an hour I have pretty long legs and a pretty long stride and I just kind of like to boogie and move down the trail so typically I hike three miles an hour now obviously that was different right in the beginning whenever I was still trying to get my legs under me it was definitely different when I got that injury around Wrightwood California when I got that little tear in my tendon of my leg and it definitely dropped whenever I was in the Sierra Nevada because of all the snow and the postholing and the higher elevation those days I was probably getting maybe two sometimes two and a half miles an hour there might even been some days where I was only getting one and a half mile an hour especially in the Sierra but for most of the trail I would say I was hiking about three miles an hour which do you hate more biting flies or mosquitoes mosquitoes cutter mosquitoes awful this trail the PCT was some of the worst mosquitos I've ever seen in my life and I grew up in southern Indiana and hiked the Appalachian Trail were some of the worst mosquitoes in the world are right around that Massachusetts area especially in the summer but Southern Oregon took the cake as far as mosquito infestations go now the main reason I got mosquitos so bad as I was hiking in Oregon right during the beginning of mosquito season so they were just horrible there were certain times of the day where I couldn't stop hiking because they were just hundreds of them swarming me all over the place and my legs made me look like I had some sort of a disease or leprosy and then as soon as I got into Washington that was the start of their mosquito season too they weren't as bad in southern Washington but they were still pretty gnarly and something I'll never forget for sure as far as biting flies I never really did get biting flies too bad there were some towards the end of Washington but that was about it but yeah if I had to take one or the other I'll take biting flies any day over the mosquitoes that were on the PCT you are no longer using the not trekking poles what happened so when I was in the Sierra Nevada I essentially was just snapping trekking poles left and right now the trekking poles that I happen to be using at the time were the nock carbon cork trekking poles I absolutely loved those poles they've been some of my favorite however as deep of the postholing that I was doing they just didn't survive now I don't know if it was because they were NOK trekking poles or really if I would have had any other trekking pole if they would have snapped all the same what was happening is I was postholing and my pole was going all the way in and then I was falling on top of my pole it happened three times that I fell over my pole and it just snapped there's a certain part of the pole that is a little weak I guess where it kind of snaps into place and that's where it was breaking I ended up switching to my Black Diamond carbon cork poles which were also carbon and I didn't get to pick those up until mammoth and at that point I was really out of all of the hardcore snow that I was postholing in so who knows if those would have snapped too and then I'm sure even if I had aluminum poles I probably would have bent the crap out of those I do plan on using more of the noch carbon poles in the future but um as far as I'm concerned for the Sierra at least the High Sierra they didn't work out so well now coming off that question is how do you set your tin up without a pole just find a stick or something so I would assume what you are referring to is there was a time during the Sierra if you watch those videos that I only have one pole and that's because the other one was broken so because I use a trekking pole tent that takes two trekking poles to set it up luckily the guy that I was hiking through the Sierra with his name is Cruz he had a freestanding tent so he didn't need his trekking poles to sit his tin up so every night he just let me use one of his now I probably could have used a stick I know there's a lot of people that have done that in the past but I was using one of Cruz's poles luckily I had him with me and he had some poles that he wasn't using did you recover your spork no no I never did get my spork back what mark is referring to is for years I've had this long had this long handled aluminum sea2summit spork it has been on every single hike with me it's fed me every single meal since 2014 and I lost it right before the halfway point in California what happened was I took it out of my food bag to eat lunch I set it on the ground and when I packed everything back up I forgot to grab it I am still on the lookout for it though so if you are on the PCT right before Chester California right before the halfway point and you find a long-handled sea2summit alpha aluminum spork get a hold of me I would love to have that thing back did you use the ice axe so Jordan I did carry my camp corsa ice axe all the way through the Sierra though I would say that I probably only used it twice whenever we were going over Forester Forester pass there's this like super crazy snow chute I definitely use that to make sure that I was anchored in and then there was a couple other times that I used it I did have the ice axe I ended up not really using it that much however I know a lot of people that went through the Sierra about the same time I did and actually had to self arrest with their ice axe because they slipped and started sliding down something so I would still suggest bringing one because you never know what kind of situation that you're gonna be in but in the long run could I have not taken it yes would I take it again yeah I think I would keep wondering how you edit and upload these videos on the trail so Geoffrey I actually did not edit any videos or upload them to YouTube on the PCT so before I started my through heck of the PCT I ended up beginning a relationship with a video editor named cat Pendergast now if he watched any of my pen hodie trail thru-hike videos she did all the edits on those and then I decided to bring her on for my PCT through hag just to take a little bit of load off my shoulders make it easier so I could really focus on my hike next week I'm gonna be doing a Q&A with my editor cat so keep an eye out for that and we'll answer a bunch of different questions about making my PCT video series would you rather be in the cold of the Sierras or the heat of the Mojave the heat of the Mojave 100% and that's really just because I love the desert especially the desert section of the PCT the first 700 miles were some of my favorite miles on the entire trail whenever I was going through the snow and the cold of the Sierra I'm just postholing all the time and it just kind of sucked so if I had to take one of the other it would definitely be the heat of the Mojave because in the long run over all 700 miles there was really only one day that it was super hot and kind of hard to deal with it was right before Tehachapi California it got crazy hot that day was a long stretch without water and there was no shade aside from that the first 700 miles were awesome and great hiking so I would definitely take the heat of the Mojave over the cold of the Sierra I don't understand why snowshoes would not help with postholing now this is one of the most commonly asked questions and commonly left comments that I got during my PCT through hike now the reason I did not use snowshoes and the reason a lot of hikers didn't use snowshoes this year was because of the type of snow that we had so I've done a bunch of snowshoeing in the past when I lived in New Mexico up in Colorado at Cumbres around the CDT and then I did a big snowshoeing trip up around wheeler peak in the Taos Bali last year into for snowshoes to really function well you need nice pretty cruisy flat terrain and dry packed snow the problem with the snow in the Sierra this year was it was really wet and it was melting fast so you weren't really able to cruise on top of that snow that's why all the postholing was happening so if you're on that type of a snow with snowshoes you're just sinking more and making a bigger post hole so in the long run they just wouldn't have helped that much Plus for snowshoes to work really well they need nice smooth terrain and most of the trail going through the Sierra Nevada on the PCT is off camber and rocky so whenever you're kind of on the edge of like a cliff or a drop or something snowshoes don't really get the traction that they get when they're on flat surface plus all the rocks and scramble they just wouldn't have been a good option to use I would say that if I did have them I would only be able to use them about 10% of the time so the other 90% of the time that I'd be carrying him I'd just be putting on and off and on and off and for me that's just not efficient hiking so that is why I didn't use snowshoes got a little bit dark on me some uh overcast so it seems like there were more miles packed into these last few videos like I was surprised that Washington was summed up in just two videos was that just my imagination so the reason Oregon and Washington went so fast in my PCT series is I was only an organ for 14 days and two of those days were zeros so technically it only took me 12 days to hike Oregon so I wasn't there a lot so I didn't film a lot of footage the other reason is because even though I'm there a lot if I just keep shooting the same thing the stories wouldn't really be as interesting I try to focus and build a story out of the most important aspects of what I'm filming so if I just made the video

everything that I saw it'd be pretty boring and pretty long so I tried to sum up those videos as nicely as I could tell a good story for you guys now Washington was no different I was only in Washington for 15 days and same thing I shot a lot of footage but in the end we use what works best for the story and what is gonna be interesting for you guys to see so a lot of the stuff just didn't make it to those videos also keep in mind that California was 1700 miles long so obviously there were more videos in California than there ever would have been in the four hundred ninety something miles of Oregon and the 500 miles of Washington so that is why those videos were summed up in just a couple videos because there just wasn't enough footage to cover him why did you change packs and why this one what water filter have you changed to and why are you still hiking in the ultra temps so the reason I changed packs from the Z packs arc blast to the way Mark through 40 was just because I wanted to try something different and that pack seemed like the right one to pick up so there wasn't anything wrong with my Z packs pack I just wanted to switch it up as far as water filters I went from a Sawyer squeeze to the katadyn be free one liter filter again just because I wanted to try something different over the last 500 miles and as far as the ultra temps go I've never hiked in the ultra temps I was hiking in a pair of Lone Peak 3.5 s and then when I couldn't find a pair in my size anywhere not even on the Internet I ended up switching to the Ultra Olympus 3.0 and I'm glad I did because those have become my new favorite hiking shoe they just got more cushion and they feel a lot better so the reason I switch to those three pieces of gear towards the end was just because I wanted to test out some new gear and what better place than the last 500 miles of the PCT alright guys last question that I'm gonna answer for my post PCT Q&A is they're just a big difference in the terrain between the 80 and PCT so that you can crank out big miles each day or do you just generally crank out big miles no matter what so yes I said it before I'll say it now that I have completed the PCT I think in my opinion that the Appalachian Trail is much harder hiking for the most part the PCT was a pretty smooth easy gentle trail now it definitely had it's hard parts of the trail but for the most part it was nice and cruzi see the difference between East Coast hiking and West Coast hiking is on the East Coast the mountains are smaller but they're much steeper much rockier and much routier ruder routier routier and on the west coast the mountains are taller but it's more gradual to get to the top of the mountain and then once you're at the top you stay at the top for a while before you drop back down we're on the East Coast it's kind of like a roller coaster you just up down up down up down so yes I still think that the Appalachian Trail is a much harder trail and because the PCT is a smoother a little bit easier trail a lot betty's e'er I was able to crank out bigger miles where I was putting in 20 to 30 mile days every single day and right in Washington we were doing 30 to 40 mile days every day the reason I was doing such big miles is because I was able to so I took advantage of it and cranked out some big days all right guys so hopefully that answers a bunch of the most commonly asked questions about my PCT through hike I'll probably be doing another one of these Q&A s probably next month just to answer some general questions but next week I will have a Q&A with my video editor Kat Pendergast the lady who helped put all of these awesome PCT videos together so keep an eye out for that I have a bunch of really big news coming up for the channel for me and some of the next trips and adventures that I'm going to be going on so stay tuned because I'll be making some pretty big announcements soon if you haven't had a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a ton of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles and I have come up plus a bunch of pictures from my PCT through Hank if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

[Applause]

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