Progress

Sunshine did not make an appearance in the Seattle lately and the constant rain has successfully transformed us into homebodies. I miss the mountains, the rustle of the wind and the songs of bubbling creeks, and the tales that moss draping from tree branches has to tell, and certainly I’m having regrets about the lack of training but I admit that sleeping in a wee bit longer is nice, and not going on a hike means we have several extra hours for PCT preparation. After all we are planning to hike for about 150 days in a row starting at the end of April, and I really can’t complain about that.

We are making a steady progress. After a big moving sale and a run to a charity store, our living room is nearly as empty as it was when we moved in. Against one of the walls, where our armoire used to live, now hums a dehydrator. We keep it busy. We still have 40 cans of chicken and 14 lb of ground beef to dehydrate but all our vegetables are finished, including two large jars of my very favorite bell peppers, and later this week I’m going to start assembling the individual meals.

There are still few things on our gear list we need to get. One of them is a solar panel to keep our electronics and camera batteries charged during the longer stretches of the trip. I’ve heard mixed things about solar panels. It seems like they either work great, or don’t work at all. I hope the one we pick belongs to the former category. This will be an incredible journey and we want to take you with us, every step of the way. Fingers crossed that I can keep my cell phone alive to bring you frequent updates on all our adventures and misadventures.

One of the big motivators of our PCT trip is a photography project I have in mind. Couple projects actually; which, if I am successful, will show the wild, untamed wilderness areas slightly differently than they are usually captured. If the sunshine ever returns to the Pacific Northwest, I’m planning several backpacking/photography trips to wake my camera from hibernation it currently enjoys and to train my eye to look for my subjects. It’s going to be fun if the sunsine ever returns. Stay tuned!