I upped my training pack weight to forty pounds, the maximum recommended weight for my ULA Catalyst, and I’ll do my practice hikes at that weight level until I leave. Unfortunately, where I live is flat, so the best I can do is carry more weight than I will every carry and go faster than I’ll ever hike to simulate going up hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At forty pounds, my pack did become quite uncomfortable, especially my shoulders, so I went to the ULA website and watched the fitting video again. At the maximum weight capacity, making sure the pack is properly fitted is critical. Every strap is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, my normal nine mile hike consisted of me adjusting all the different straps seeing what felt best. I have a tendency to tighten the straps too tight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Normally, I will leave a resupply point with twenty-eight pounds. That is roughly 15 pounds of base weight, two liters of water (five pounds), a fuel canister (1 pound) and four days of food (8 pounds). There are two areas where I will need to carry near the maximum capacity of my pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One area will be the 43 mile no water stretch. The good news is that most of what I will be carrying is water, and the weight will go down rather quickly. I will loose 2.5 pounds per five miles or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second area is the stretch of passes in the Sierra Mountains. There water isn’t the problem. It is food. The PCTA recommends a one pass per day strategy. Depending on how you look at it, that means I will leave with 8 days of food, plus a bear canister, micro-spikes and some warmer clothes. I often wonder how my sisters and brothers will handle these sections with their light-weight gear. Eight days of food is 16 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is a worry for another day. By then, I will be so much stronger. I will have plenty of time talking with others to figure out what I’m going to do when I get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Train, train, train. Wait, wait, wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I upped my training pack weight to forty pounds, the maximum recommended weight for my ULA Catalyst, and I’ll do my practice hikes at that weight level until I leave. Unfortunately, where I live is flat, so the best I can do is carry more weight than I will every carry and go faster than … Continue reading T-Minus 25 Days<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pct2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2964,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/2964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jphikes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}