So get a Garmin  GPS that works with the POI loader.   I used a Garmin 60CSx that I bought at REI on sale for 199.00. It weighs 6.45 ounces with lithium batteries.   It’s pretty much the same GPS as my older 60C but my 60C won’t work with the POI loader.

Install the ” Mapsource Trip & Waypoint Managaer”  software, that came with your GPS, onto your computer.

Download Halfmile’s consolidated waypoints for:

California

Oregon

Washington

Unzip the files and put just the .gpx files in a single folder. So, you end up with a single folder with three .gpx  waypoint files…one each for CA, OR, & WA.

Now download the Garmin POI loader and plug your GPS into your computer via a USB cable.

Run the POI loader software, it will prompt you to select the folder where you placed the waypoint files and then it will load all the points in about 10 seconds.

He also offers this advice:

You will probably need to set the map zoom level that points display on your GPS. Go to the map screen(on your  GPS), select Menu > Map Setup – Points >and then set the Max Zoom for Map Points and User Waypoints to a value such as .5 miles. When set to .5 miles, waypoints and POI’s will display on the map screen when the map is zoomed in closer than .5 miles but will not display if zoomed out farther than .5 miles, so set the number to what works best for you. I set mine for 30 miles.

So there you go… over 6000 waypoints  saved as Points of Interest on  your GPS.   I’ve heard of people saving 10,000 waypoints this way.

Next you may also like to include all the topo maps for the PCT on your GPS.  So pop in your topo software.  I used Garmin USA topo but Halfmile recommends the Garmin West topo CD.  The topo software doesn’t come with the GPS it’s something you buy extra.
Next I hit the “find” menu “find places” and started typing in the towns for the PCT and marking them as waypoints.
Some towns are listed under “features” and not “cities”

Once you have all the towns marked, highlight all waypoints, right click and select “select maps around waypoints.” Now you should have  all or most of the maps  you need selected.  Look at the map and select any more maps you think you might need. Now transfer maps and waypoints to your GPS.

You don’t need a big memory card…I haven’t even put  anything on the little one it came with.

Note:  Garmins Topo software is nothing to write home about.  It’s often wrong.  For instance once I was standing on Pieper Pass and it said I was 278 ft from it.    On the CDT it said I was on the trail and I was on the side of a cliff.

Halfmile also freely offers all the printed topo maps for the entire PCT– available for download.

Related posts:

I have the whole PCT in my GPS

Protecting your GPS screen from getting scratched.

I discovered this shirt in 2003 in a gear shop in Connecticut while hiking the Appalachian Trail and have been wearing one ever since.

My current hiking shirt had over 6000 miles on it and was duct tapped together;  I needed a new shirt and this is what they had.

It looked good but I was thinking that it was built more for form than function.  I was wrong.   This is a good shirt.    It cleans well, wears well, stuff doesn’t fall out of the pockets, and mosquitoes can’t bite through it.   It has mesh side panels, flip up collar, rubber buttons, a big Neapolitan  pocket for maps, and zippered vertical pocket for reading glasses or what ever.

Comes in men’s or women’s style. The woman’s sizes run big.

It’s a 65 dollar shirt on sale at REI outlet right now for 32.93 dollars + you get 20% off  their discounted stuff which brings the price down to 26.33.   That’s a really good price for such a fine shirt.

After buying 2 pairs of Fox River Off Road socks in 2008 and hiking over 2000 trail miles in them, 1/2 of those miles while wearing  sandals,  and then wearing them all winter, and then hiking another 500 trail miles on them and then wearing them all the next winter, and then wearing them for many long walks in socking feet this spring, they have finally started to wear.   So I’m sock shopping.

I found them at Footsmart for 1/2 off and I entered the code: wmsshoe2 and got free shipping.   The short sock and the crew are both on sale.   They only cost 5.95-6.95   a pair now.

So for 12 bucks you can buy socks for a whole thru-hike.

Related Post: Best Socks Ever

We monitored the results of the 2004 New York City Marathon and compared finishing times by age. What we found is that starting at age nineteen, runners get faster every year until they hit their peak at twenty-seven. After twenty seven, they start to decline.

So here’s the question — how old are you when you’re back to running the same speed you did at nineteen?

The answer: 64!

A good story and useful information—what more you could ask for. I couldn’t put it down.

My days of shelling out 700 dollars a hike for footwear are over.

These guys do 100 mile runs wearing homemade sandals. Their energy drink is chia seeds dissolved in water with lime and sugar added. And their energy food is pinole(roasted corn flour with sugar added, I believe). I think pinole is going to be the next corn pasta on the PCT.

I bought my Macabi hiking skirt in 2004. I tried hiking in it on the CDT but my legs would get burned when I laid down for a nap and I got some chaffing between my legs.

I see many thru-hikers wearing them though, men and women, and they love it.

I wear mine all winter long with long underwear underneath. It feels warmer to me than pants. I also think there is something about wearing a skirt that is good for flow.

There are snaps to shorten the skirt. There is also a clip to make the skirt into pants or shorts. The shorts thing doesn’t really work because it’s still really easy to expose yourself…. maybe I was doing it wrong.

If it rains, you can shorten the skirt with the snaps and wear a trash bag skirt over it or put on rain pants and pack the skirt away till it stops raining.

One thing you need to be mindful of when wearing this skirt—don’t stand next to any heat source or it starts to melt and burn. I have little burns all over mine from standing near a campfire, a propane heater, and even just standing next to a wood stove.

Most of the time it’s just me in my sphere on the trail.   So I lie down in the middle of trail confident that no one will be coming along.

I need to be careful  of doing that right out of town because there are often day hikers around.   One time I  felt sleepy coming out of town, so I laid down on the trail and went to sleep.  I woke up to a day hiker screaming because she thought I was dead.

A hiker on the Appalachian Trail told me this story:  She was hiking along when she saw a man lying on the trail.  He had his tent laid over him and a “Do Not Disturb” sign out.  “Odd place to take  a nap” she thought as she carefully slipped by him mindful of not disturbing him.   A little ways down the the trail she met a sheriff who said the man was dead.

There are enough ads in this world we don’t need them on our clothes.

Company names and logos look  bad and render clothes useless for anything but for the activity they were intended.

I once owned a nylon shirt in vibrant blue with no logos on it. I wore it for everything. When I took my dying mother on a cruise, I wore it with some black slacks and fake pearls to formal night. Then I wore it on a 5-month Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike. I kept wearing it every day for the next year. Then I wore it for the Florida Trail. Next, I wore it for the Appalachian Trail. Somewhere in Connecticut, I replaced it.

That was a good shirt. It didn’t have any logos so all I needed was one shirt that went from formal night on a cruise to hiking a long trail.

My grandchild is preparing to be born, so, I have been shopping for baby gear. The outdoor clothing manufactures are putting logos on baby clothes! I can’t believe anyone could be so crass.

They aren’t going to stop until people refuse to wear their company toting stuff.

Everything looks better without logos.

Related Posts: Yes, we have no logos
Removing the logo from your pot lid

I said, I used to use that too until I hiked the Florida Trail and then the hunters that roar through the woods at night shooting at anything that reflects made me change my mind.

Then, one long hard day, we made it to a campground with water. There was a bunch of drunk loud people but we were too beat to carry on further. We both put up our gray tents.

After dark, as I was lying in my tent, I hear a truck and see the red backup lights getting closer to my tent. Then I hear, “Oh fuck! There’s people back there.” Then I saw brake lights glowing through the wall of my tent.

It was probably Pinball’s reflective line that caught his attention and stopped him from backing over us.

He took my reading glasses and his glasses and lined up the two pairs of glasses so he was looking through both of them.   Then he moved them closer and further away from each other and closer and further away from his face until the hill came in focus and said, “Yep, it’s a cell tower”.

He says,  it’s easiest to start with  both lenses pretty close to your eye, then slowly move them away from your eye.  Depending on the lenses, the first one will probably be 4 inches away from your eye, the second will be 3 inches farther.

He also says if you only have one pair of glasses you can still do it,  if you don’t’ mind popping out one of the lenses.

Stinky hikers don’t bother me; I don’t really notice.  But stinky hikers that try to cover up their stink with deodorants and scents  can make me gag.

Deodorants and scents are for clean people that don’t smell.  When dirty, stinky people try to cover up their stink with scents and deodorants it doesn’t make them smell good, it  amplifies the stink.

If you want to smell better, wash up.

You also don’t heal as well on the trail as you do at home where you can, sleep comfortably, take baths, eat good fresh food, and hydrate well.  The trail has stresses that make it hard to fully rest and recover.

A smarter alternative to starting early is to stay at home for those two or three weeks and do training hikes of 20 miles every other day with a 35-40 lb pack.    Get good rest, eat good food, take baths,  heal and build in a stress free environment.   Then when you hit the trail with your light pack, you will be ready to go.

When I travel around with my kayak on my roof rack and people see the wheels attached, they drive by and give me a thumbs up because  right away they can see my method for loading and unloading my kayak by myself.

1. Put a bath mat on back of your vehicle where your kayak will touch it, so that it won’t scratch your car ( the rubber on the back is so it won’t slide of your roof.)

2. Put a V-shaped kayak foam block on each of your roof rack rails.

3. Attach  a wheeled kayak cart to the back of your kayak.

4. Lift  front of kayak up on roof.

5. Go to back of kayak, lift up letting the front of the kayak rest in the V of the foam block, and push on.

6. Leave the wheels attached so they are ready for you to unload again.

To unload:

Grab hold of the back of your kayak and pull it off and down so the back is resting on the wheels.

When the back is resting on the ground on the wheels and the front is resting on the top of the roof rack, go to the front and just lift the front down to the ground.

Now you are ready to wheel your kayak to the water.

These are my bags.

Clear plastic pack liner:  I stuff my sleeping bag into this because it’s faster and easier than stuffing it into a stuff sack.  It also more evenly fills up the bottom of my pack.

Big red bag is my food bag.

Yellow bag is my clothes bag and also my pillow.

1 or 2 gallon Ziploc is my office:  maps, guide book, pen, cellphone, etc.

Red zippered bag is my ditty bag

I stuff my tent without it’s stuff sack into the big stretchy outside pocket of my pack.  I put the tent stakes  in there too, in a little bag.   That way I don’t need to open my pack to set up my tent and I can pack up everything, pop out of my tent and stuff it into it’s pocket.

When everything is in bags it makes set up and break down of camp easy.   Not to brag or anything but I can set up or break camp in under 4 minutes.

When I hike it’s more like I’m coasting–like I’m just resting on my legs as they move me along.  I pick a nice even easy speed that I can keep up hour after hour day after day.

I don’t carry poles so my hands are free.  I have a beverage in my strap pocket to drink as I go; snacks in my hip belt pocket; I fiddle with my MP3 player listening to music or finding a radio station; I look around at the scenery; I have my GPS in the other strap pocket that I can amuse myself with.    Feels a lot like driving.

A lot of people power past me, especially boy scouts, then 40 minutes later I pass them resting on the side of the trail and I never see them again, but  every once in awhile I get stuck with someone,  or even worst a group of people, who power past me, then they take a break and I past them, then here they come powering up behind me again.  I have had that go on for days—that drives me nuts.    Leapfroggers are the worst.

Well, Wanderlust Gear disappeared off the face of the Internet a long time ago.   I contacted his webmaster— he hadn’t heard from him;  I sent him a check for a tent and it came back.  Poof, this guy was gone.

I often wondered why no one picked up his design.   In fact with my new sewing machine I was thinking of pulling out my old nomad light, tweaking the design a bit and making  a lighter improved one.

Looking around the Internet this morning I stumbled on to LightHeart Gear.    It’s a hiker/sewer selling a tent that  looks to be a lot like  the Nomad light.     It’s a double walled tent weighing in at 26 oz (737grams).  It requires 4 stakes and two trekking poles.   It comes in some crazy colors.   I like colors but I think gray is the best color for a tent so people can’t see you.   In standard gray it cost 235.00   The fly is attached but you can roll it up and enjoy the stars when you just want a net tent for the night.

Something she doesn’t state on her website is, the gray tents are  made in China.    So if you are looking to support a cottage industry, keep looking.

Also her website says “Patent Pending” which is sort of crappy because it’s not even her design.

I’ve heard that Gossamer Gear may be making a similar tent in cuben fiber soon.

Even though I don’t carry a stove anymore, I often nab a package of noodles.  I crumble them up into a baggie and sprinkle the flavor packet over them and eat them as a cold trail snack, like chips.

Some hikers miss having a chair but I  never do; even when there is a picnic table to sit at, I still lie on the ground with my feet on my pack, because having my feet hanging down below me doesn’t feel like a rest.

At night I  put my pack under my feet or even better— find a slopped place to sleep and point my feet up hill.

Logos on your titanium pot lids can easily be removed with sandpaper.

The next morning I woke up to snow.   It would snow and then I would drop down in elevation and it would rain and then I would go back up and more snow.   The trail was so muddy and steep in one place I kept slipping and sliding down the hill; I was covered in mud.   I only had about 400 calories to go the next 30-40 miles.   My feet were cold.  The reroute wasn’t well marked and I began to have the sinking feeling that I had missed a turn.   I never stopped singing and smiling that day; if I had known how to tap dance I would have done that too because a bad attitude + a bad situation can quickly send life into a tailspin.

I was belting out show tunes as happily and enthusiastically as I could when I met another hiker.   He looked at me covered in mud,  in my trash bag skirt, my sandals, and my chrome umbrella and  scowled, “What’s with the umbrella!?”

Now that I’m off the trail, I have a list of things I’m supposed to do everyday,  I use the 10 before 10 rule there to; I try to get 10 of them completed before 10am and then I know I’m set up for a good day.

Related post: Tools for your feet

What I have found more rejuvenating  than taking a zero day in town is to hike fewer miles on the trail for a few days.    Sleep in, take long breaks hanging out on the crest and eat more food.  I discovered this when after my son would join me for a week of doing 15 mile days I would feel completely rejuvenated in a way that 3 days in a motel room never did it for me.

Zero days break my grove and suck up all my time and money.   I think it’s best to keep moving no mater how slowly.

I hiked with a guy called  “Just Dave” for awhile and I said, “You know, I think zero days hurt performance.”   He said he thought so too. He only took one zero day for the Appalachian Trail and he said it was the worst mistake he made.  I don’t think he took any for the Pacific Crest Trail.    The best hikers don’t take zeros.