[pct-l] Thru hike Survival style

[Scott Williams]

As one who does a fair bit of foraging on any trail I hike where it's
legal, I wouldn't expect to be able to supply my huge thru hike calorie
intake with just the available foods around me.  The pine nuts and ripe
fruits in the deserts were available only in the fall, with greens and
mushrooms in the spring, seeds such as chia in the summer.  Animals can be
scarce.  Indigenous peoples stored up supplies for the year when they were
available and not just while moving through a landscape.  As for food in
the snowy High Sierra, it was almost non existent in spring except for the
tiny golden trout which are not high enough in calories and are not a sure
thing.  Thru hiker season is not hunting season, so large animals will be
off limits.  There are the occasional grouse and marmot, so it's not
totally absent.

This summer I met an ex Marine living in a remote section of the Gila River
while I was hiking the CDT who was doing what you are thinking about.  He
did use some outside food however but stayed in one place where he learned
the game paths and was living on the occasional rabbit, lots of lizards and
snakes and was well versed in edible plants.  We spent an evening soaking
in Jordan hot spring and he was fascinating to talk to, but he was not
getting all his calories from the local sources.

Great point about community Fireweed and it makes me think of Ishi who
lived with his small family, the last of his band of  Yahi, for many years
in the Hat Creek area of Lassen County and is called the "last wild
Indian," in the literature of the time.  When his little hidden band was
discovered by a group of surveyors early in 1911, he and his sister and
mother ran and he never saw either of them again.   The surveyors took all
his tools and hunting weapons and stored foods and skins.  Without those
basic items and probably in deep depression, he was found some time later
nearly starving at a farmers fence and was taken to jail as a mad man.
 I've always thought that he could probably have remade enough tools and
traps to continue his life in hiding, but maybe not, maybe the sorrow of
losing the last of his tribe just became too much for him, but it points
out the difficulty of even a very skilled hunter providing enough caloric
intake while living in the "wild."  There are some really beautiful books
out there about him and his life, Theodora Kroeber's Ishi, Last of His
Tribe is one.  She was the wife of Alfred Kroeber the CAL anthropologist
who eventually took Ishi in.  Great story and a real tear jerker.

I love foraging on trail, but often pass up opportunities so as not to
sacrifice mileage for the time it takes to harvest and prepare foods.  The
thru hike is the thing once I start blasting out the big miles and frankly
I wouldn't ever have made it to Canada if I hadn't done those big miles
consistently.  I wish you well out there.  Living off the land can be
really fun!  You'll have to weigh which is more important to you,
completing a thru hike in one season or living off the land in the pure
sense.  At least I have to weigh those two and the hike has always been the
winner.

Shroomer