[pct-l] Mom and 10 year old son section hiking

Barbara Egbert nelliebly04 at comcast.net
Sun Sep 2 16:14:12 CDT 2012


Hi Mary!
I’m delighted that you’re planning to hike part of the PCT with your 10-year-old son. My husband and I thru-hiked with our daughter in 2004 when she was 10, so we have a lot of information to share. I’d enjoy emailing back and forth with you individually so feel free to send questions directly to me at nelliebly04 at comcast.net. 
With our daughter, Scrambler, food choices weren’t as much an issue as just getting her to eat at all when she was tired out at night. (We averaged 16 miles a day overall, but in the southern Sierra it was sometimes less because of the large altitude gain and loss each day.) I asked her just now about her thoughts and she mentioned that she didn’t like the freeze-dried food we brought because it  was difficult digging it out of the bag with her spork without getting her hands messy. Our food choices were based on what we had learned to carry and eat during our training hikes (which included a two-week thru-hike of the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail when she was 7 and another TRT thru-hike when she was 9). It’s really very individual. Snickers bars are the only trail food that all backpackers seem to like. 
We walked to some resupply locations and hitchhiked to a couple. And at about four locations where resupply was really difficult (including Sonora Pass) we arranged for friends or relatives to meet us. 
Hours of hiking per day was usually 8 to 10. We paid more attention to how many miles we needed to cover in order to camp near water each night.
We didn’t take many zero days, but the ones we took were so enjoyable that I titled my book about our thru-hike “Zero Days.” 
Good luck!
Barbara (trail name Nellie Bly) 



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