Rolling Along

It has been a busy week here.  We are less than 100 days from starting our PCT thru-hike.  We have a lot to do between now and then, including moving out of the house.  But we aren’t rushing that.

As of this week, we have about half of the house either in storage, donated or disposed of.  We are working on downsizing, too.  It’s amazing how much stuff we accumulate, even moving every few years as I have my entire life.

Too much stuff.

But we’re also walking to do our errands in town, getting the feel for our new backpacks and other items.  Like these Bear Canisters, full of our bi-weekly haul from our CSA.

The Bear Canisters are required through stretches of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  They are supposed to keep the scent in, but really they are just meant to give a bear a big playtoy while it tries to get at the contents as we sleep peacefully nearby.  Ha!

These canisters have been tested with Grizzly bears.  Luckily there won’t be any of those, just black bears.

Each canister holds 11.5 liters of stuff.  Our longest stretch through bear country will be about nine days, so we need to get all of our food, plus any scented items (toothpaste, etc.) in them.

A friend was kind enough to let us borrow his canisters, with the stipulation that they come back scarred from curious bears.  That may or may not happen, as we can’t control the bears.  But it will be fun to see them come late June.

Anyway, he dropped them off for us the same day that we picked up our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) delivery.  It was a perfect trial run with the canisters in our backpacks.

Our CSA is with a local family-run farm.  We sign up with them in the winter so they can grow the vegetables that we won’t in the winter.  Plus, they provide things that we would have never bought from the market, so it pushes us to try different veggies and recipes.  And it actually turns out being cheaper per pound than the markets.  Plus we’re supporting a local farm.

We like that.

There will be more and more posts like this over the next few months.  Hopefully they will help answer the questions that family, friends and casual readers have about our hike.

Speaking of questions, if you have any, ask below.  I may answer right away or I may use it as a topic on a future post.

As always, thanks for reading.