5 mistakes from the PCT

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I really wouldn’t change much about my PCT thru hike this year. But I did do a few stupid things involving becoming too friendly with the mosquitoes, trying to out smart bears, and (a lack of) resupply…

1. Putting coffee and electrolytes through my sawyer squeeze

Look it was early days in the desert. I was pre occupied with generally staying alive. The whole ‘dirty bottles-clean bottles’ thing confused me somehow. I would often just drink directly from the sawyer squeeze if I was feeling lazy- which by the way works wonderfully.

Somewhere along that dusty trail i found rare shade under a nice plant and sleepily poured an electrolyte packet into some unfiltered water. Without thinking too much about it, I just screwed the filter on and chugged away. This act got a few laughs at camp later on, especially the next morning when i almost put cold ‘dirty water’ coffee through it.

“Get your dirty bottle system down Clash or you’ll get SICK!” Tombraider jokingly warned me. I labelled my bottles and tried my best. Then forgot about it by the next town. Luckily I never got sick. Still don’t really know what I learnt from this. The sawyer squeeze survived though.

2. Not fully reading my Garmin InReach plan.

And being very confused at the bills each month. $35? Huh? I thought I signed up for a £13 a month plan? £13 definitely isn’t $35, right?

Tracking. The plan didn’t include tracking. Damn. It was fun to share tracking points with family and friends back home. I was sharing it every 10 minutes, then quickly changed to every 4 hours when I realised the battery wouldn’t last longer than a day or so. I worked this out well over 1000 miles in, woops.

The next time I turned it on was for the final mile approaching the Canadian border. Of course I wanted to share that with them! In a land of no phone service, it was nice to know they could follow me in live time. Here’s how it looked when I eventually got into phone service:

Continue reading further details about the 5 mistakes Rachel McVittie made on her PCT hike here.

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Editors
The Trek Editors

We are the word nerds of The Trek who want nothing more than to infuse some hiking and backpacking joy into your day.

Medya Mansyone

Sawyer’s spray offers an impressive 12 hours of protection against mosquitoes and ticks, and a little less (eight hours) against flies, gnats, and chiggers.

Korin Miller
Health, Lifestyle and Commerce Writer

Medya Mansyone

Sawyer’s Permethrin spray has also worked as promised.

Mark Melotik
Freelance Writer

Medya Mansyone

Sawyer, for example, checks to ensure that no pore size exceeds 0.01 microns, stating that “the filters are then checked four more times at crucial points of assembly for filter integrity before they make their way onto the shelf.”

Dan Hu
Ekriven