[pct-l] International hiker, a few questions

[Meike]

Hallo Nummer vier auf meiner Liste deutscher Mitläufer,

Did you apply for your visa so far? It took me only three days waiting 
(after travelling 600km, sleeping in another hikers living room, waiting 
more than an hour outside the embassy and another hour inside, a 
30-second-interview and travelling 600km back, haha).

1. There is a search tool for the list at 
http://www.planyourhike.com/search/

3. Get in contact with trail angels in San Diego, order your stuff 
online and have it send to them. I will stay with Scout and Frodo in San 
Diego and have some things shipped to them (sandiegopct at gmail.com). 
Maybe even a new ZPacks sleeping bag, not yet decided... Scout and Frodo 
have so far already proven to be real angels.

4. The $/mile is usually meant to be your expenses on the trail: 
resupply plus town stops plus gear that has to be exchanged on trail on 
a regular basis, like shoes. That would make it probably more than 2000$ 
for most hikers.
I got a pretty cheap flight - Frankfurt via Reykjavik/Iceland and 
Seattle to San Diego, 550 Eur. Found it on expedia.de, several dates. 
Look out for that to save some money. Transportation in the US can 
mostly be done by foot :), trail angels, hitch hiking. I did not book my 
return ticket yet.
Gear in Germany: You know www.trekking-lite-store.com, I guess? Nice 
german shop for light gear. They sometimes have things you don't get 
anywhere else in Europe. Or call Matheuz Laufbursche 
(www.laufbursche-gear.de) and talk him into custom-sewing a tent for you 
:).

For any germany-specific questions we might consider talking off list... 
feel free to mail to me.

When are you gonna start? Maybe see you on the trail...
Meike von der Nordsee


Am 10.02.2014 14:45, schrieb Tobias Spiegelhalter:
> Hey guys,
>
> I'm planning on thru hiking the PCT this year and just discovered this
> wonderful mailing list.
> I'm from Germany and it will be my first trip to the US. It will be my
> first attempt at such a long hike (meaning more than a weekend hike,
> haha) and I know I'll probably make every rookie mistake possible, but
> I'm looking forward to it very much :)
>
> Naturally I have a few questions:
>
> 1. Is there a way to search the archives of this list (non-manual)? I
> don't think I'll be the first to ask the following things, so...
>
> 2.1 Canada Permit
> Is it possible to get this while on trail? I don't have the necessary
> documents yet, I'm especially waiting for my US Visa (everything depends
> on that, it's so annoying :-/ ) and am afraid that if I apply in the
> middle of march it won't arrive here before I leave mid april...
>
> 2.2 When I hopefully reach Manning Park, what would be the easiest way
> to get home? Could I travel to Vancouver Airport with the Canada Permit
> or is that not allowed?
>
> 3. Gear:
> I have to buy almost all gear needed. I'm currently considering to get
> some of it in the US, as I heard/read that it's supposed to be quite a
> bit cheaper there.
> I was thinking to spend 1-3 Days in San Diego to assemble everything
> needed. Is it possible to get this done only using local stores? How
> well are they stocked? (I guess internet shopping isn't viable for me...
> I'm not sure I'll have a set adress and don't want to spend a lot of
> time waiting for shipment...)
>
> As an example: I want to use the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo. It costs
> 285$ in a german online shop (don't think you'd even get it in a local
> store as it's not common here), it's priced 180$ at their hompage...
> thats a 100$ discount, awesome! But how easily would I get this tent in
> a store?... Same for sleeping bag, down jacket and so on (the expensive
> stuff...)
> I guess some general outdoor clothing won't be a problem to get...
>
>
> 4. Budget
> Yes, it's different for everyone, but almost everywhere I looked they
> talk about 1-2-3$/Mile, but what do these numbers entail? Is cost for
> gear covered?
> My current calculation: ~2700-3000$ for gear (This is calculated with
> german prices, hopefully gets a bit lower if I buy in the US...),
> ~2000$ for flights and transportation
> Here's the number I'm really not sure about: on-trail-costs... Is 2000$
> feasible?
> I'll be using some kind of Bounce Box and will resupply on the fly. I
> don't want to spend too much time packing Resupply Boxes and have noone
> to send them anyway.
> I hope to keep off-trail costs as cheap as possible, avoiding
> restaurants and keeping hotel nights to a minimum...
>
>
> That's all for now :)
> Thanks for your time
> Tobi
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