How I Planned/picked a Section Hike in 2 Weeks
Why did I do this 115mile trip?
Mid November I was hearing rumors that covid was spiking in my county and my Job was gonna get shut down again... It was very likely that in two weeks I wouldn’t have a job for a few weeks and as a 7 on the enneagram I started brainstorming what I could do with that time. I came up with so many fun ideas, so many new plans. I sat there talking to my fiancé about what missions trip I could join last minute. He took my love for backpacking and my plan to help others and said, “why don’t you try and raise money for a missions organization while doing a backpacking trip?”
And that’s how it started. I had less than three weeks to plan a two week thru hike. I wasn’t intimidated to the challenge of walking the distance other than where to start. I personally plan a backpacking trip atleast few times a year with backpacking newbies and knew how to do it but there were so many options and so little time.
How did I plan this backpacking trip?
First let me say I am not a professional and I didn’t study or take classes to learn how to plan a backpacking trip. Though I have had some experience and have learned from others with more experienced I’m still not perfect. So don’t take what I say as anything other than a newbie that has done some research and put in miles. I’m just a regular person who loves backpacking and am learning as I go how to be more efficient at it and eco friendly as I explore these forests.
After initial thoughts I realized I should find a hiking buddy so I don’t do my first big hike alone. Two days later I barely convinced a friend to join who had a flexible schedule and a open mind to challenges! That’s all I needed.
Where could I hike I thought to myself, It was going to be a December trip so I had to find a good location for winter hiking.
December backpacking trip options:
Southern part of the PCT
Southern part of the AZT
A different country
Southern part of the A.T.
The problem with even these trails is there would be elevation with possible snow, or there would be rain, and Covid kept us from other countries.
I sat on the computer for days.. looking at all of the trials, all of the elevation and then once I found what trail would promote the best weather possible that time of year it was the Arizona Trail.
Picking a section of the trail:
Now that I picked a trail.. and had two weeks left to plan. I was lovingly reminded I didn’t get to just pick a section and hike it, hoping there was water when we needed it, places to stop and resupply, and also what trail heads had available shuttles*. These were the big differences between three days and two weeks. Usually a three day is a loop and is easy to plan nights and keep your car in one spot.
4-5 days of food to carry at most was what I was told. That left us with 1-2 resupply needs.
Between the time frame available, the resupply locations along the trail, and knowing it wouldn’t be able to be a crazy difficult trail since my friend was coming from sea level and I lived at 7,000ft. I had to make short mileage days and not to any wild elevation gain if possible.
I found a section that was 115 miles long without any extreme peaks that could be covered in snow and had a town that was open right in the middle of the trail. This was a huge moment with about eight days before we left. Picking an exact location and trail heads felt great.
Transportation:
Now how to plan for transportation? How do we get to the trail head? Are we flying into Phoenix or was I gonna drive 10 hours from Colorado Springs? Could I even leave my car at the trail head for two weeks safely?
After much research here’s what I did:
Using a known website AZTrail.org
You can go to home- Explore- Shuttles
This has a huge list of local shuttles, local trail angels and much more! I found a list of people that would shuttle from the airport to the trail heads and back, and from the small towns to the trail heads and back.
After some planning I decided to drive to the small town in the middle of the thru hike (mile 46) and park my car there and get a ride from and to there to the trail head. I found the “Purple trail angel” MJ who was more than amazing. She was highly rated and had helped hundreds of thru hikers. She let me park my car at her house and let me and my friend stay in her guest room for hikers the night before she took us to the starting trail head. The start was about 45 minutes north of her home and the trail ended about an hour south of her home, so it was the perfect location.
Crazy that walking 115 miles took us 12 days and 115 miles only takes two hours to drive…
Food and water: (5 days left till take off)
So we have a section that had the right elevation and the right distance for our timeline. We had shuttles and gear ready. But what’s next? Where do we sleep every night, how much do we hike everyday, and how much do we eat everyday?
(Click here for my basic backpacking gear list)
If you hike at all you’ll know what you enjoy to eat and how much you realistically eat.
Me, it takes 2-3 days to work up my hikers appetite. After that a diet closer to 3k calories a day is safe to stay near. But this changes with how challenging a hike is and how many calories you’re burning.
For water, we used the app Guthook. This saved our lives. This is an app that doesn’t need service to have your GPS on the interactive map. This app has all the thru hikes on it for you to purchase and download. The map for your trail has everything on it that you’ll need for knowing where water is on the trail, where good flat spots are to camp and where the town is, and even Trail Angels homes can be on them. You can even read up to date comments from hikers doing the same route right in front of you!
I made a rough draft map of a general two week long trail that had some written locations of water and trail crossings and camping areas. We loosely used this map and 90% of the time used Guthooks and planned our campsites where there was a good water source.
Food details:
Like I said before, you know what kind of food you enjoy while hiking if you’ve backpacked at all before. I took a lot of that same menu and added a little extra. If you are still unsure, pop over to my Instagram and I have a reel that shows everything I bought.
An average day of eating was:
Breakfast:
Instant coffee/cappuccino
Instant oatmeal with 20+grams of protein powder added
Lunch:
200+ cal protein bar
Tortilla and a meat packet(similar to tuna packets etc)
Crackers and pepperoni
Dinner:
Dry freeze meal
Protein bar
Chocolate dessert
Snacks:
Nuts
Trail mix
Crackers and pepperoni
Snickers
Candy
Now you buy all of your food in supplies and divide it up into daily amounts. I mainly used freezer ziplock bags for this trip but I really need to invest in some reusable ones that can hold boiling water. Everything we had was separated into bags and marked with a marker.
I put however many days worth of food I was carrying into a stuff sack and packed that into my backpack. And then the rest of the days I left in my car at the trail angels house to resupply at, at the middle point of the trail.
That’s most of the planning that had to get done in 2 weeks. I Definitely had help and reached out to people that were way more experienced than me. The truth is, it’s not much harder than your usual weekend backpacking trip. It’s just more walking… and slightly more planning. Happy trails y’all!
After reading about this trip head over to how to plan a backpacking trip for my simple 8 step plan for any backpacking trail you may wanna do.
Other important things to remember and do when planning:
1. Look up fire bans, and know how to have a proper fire and put it out safely.
2. Learn specific rules to the land you’re going to be on.
3. Know how to “Leave no Trace”
4. Know what kind of animals you’ll be dealing with and if you need a bear box.
5. Check if you need permits for any section of trail
For more things to brush up on or to be safe while in the back country here is a link to USDA Forest service information on backpacking
