hobolog :: Continental Divide Hike

As our preparations occupy more of our time (and our bank account), the undertaking we have planned for so long is starting to feel real. I first proposed the idea when I proposed to my wife by asking if she’d accompany me on a honeymoon hike of the Continental Divide Trail. Since then we have started referring to the CDT as the CDBW, or Continental Divide BushWack, because we are discovering that it is still more idea than trail. Still, there are few hearty souls like Jonathan Ley who find their way from border to border each year. In mid-April we will set out to join them, under the precept that as husband and wife we will step onto and off of the trail together. Or, as my friend Pete joked, we’ll stop when the honeymoon’s over!

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Trying to guess where and when we will be someplace on a hike this long is surprisingly complicated! We’ve started with a spreadsheet that estimates our progress at an average of 15 miles per day. I went a little nuts with the actual spreadsheet, which now has about a thousand columns with indecipherable formulas.

This table has just the supply points, while the excel spreadsheet has all the gory details. Future posts will explain how supplies will be mailed, and you can send us something if you like!

It’s a gorgeous morning, and Ann stayed warm during the cold night. We’ve now tried a number of different ways for her to keep warm at night. Read on if you’re interested in what we’ve learned.

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We have mashed, stacked, packed, and jacked all our stuff into a 15-foot moving truck. Ann drives the truck south on 395 while I follow in the Subaru. We talk on the radios we got for long climbs. It’s exciting to be on the move with all our things. If all goes well we’ll start putting it into storage in Denver on Wednesday…

We roll into Denver and head straight for our reserved 10×15 storage unit. We learn that it’s an upstairs unit, and that we have to squeeze through a small door and elevator to get there. The downstairs units are more expensive - but of course they don’t tell you that when you’re making your reservation. We do some comparison shopping by phone, then decide on an outside unit here.

Two sweaty hours later all our stuff is locked inside, and we’re down to our travel stuff in the Subaru. After dinner I drop the truck off. It feels great. My department head said when I left my job that we are wise to take on this endeavor before we accumulate too much mass. We have traveled over mountains with the bulk of our mass, which we can now leave behind. As our preparations proceed we will become lighter still…

Ann and I are staying at Pete’s house in Denver at the moment. He and his wife Jess are taking care of our dog Jezze while we’re on the trail. They orginally planned to hike with us, and even though circumstances forced them to cancel those plans, they’ll still be playing a major role in our journey.

I first encountered Pete in Junior High, when I was trying to figure out how to reject social norms without too much ridicule and he was into school athletics. We would probably not have become good friends, but one summer we were both interested in working, saving money for school, and skateboarding, so we loaded up my van and went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We lived outdoors there in the Gros Ventre wilderness and worked together cleaning condos. It was during this time that Pete told me about his desire to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, which we attempted in 1996. He encouraged me (and everyone else) to become a member of the Institute of Sociometry. Our friendship has had a profound impact on my life.

It might look, given my recent entries, like we’re sitting around watching movies these days. Actually, organizing our supplies and getting all our gear working has become our new full-time job. I haven’t published any of the many tables and lists we are working on yet, because there are constant revisions, and we want to publish the last one before we leave.

We’ve fallen into a nice segmentation of our days. We start with analyzing our route, making key decisions about maps, alternate routes, food, and water. When our heads are spinning fast enough to make our eyes cross, we shift to making and stocking our 33 supply boxes. That gets tiresome and monotonous after a while, so we walk to Mugs, a local internet cafe, to write emails and research things like current water levels and supply locations. I’ve also been putting a lot of effort into getting some GPS software working on my handheld computer.

Next we really will take a break, to attend the 2004 Sociometry Fair.

Today we mailed our first supply packages, which made things feel very real. We’ve updated our supply schedule for the last time before leaving. This is the schedule Dan Kuhn will use to mail our packages to us. Good souls with kind wishes may also use the schedule to mail things to us. Most of the supply points are United States Post Offices, who will hold general delivery packages for 30 days. Packages can be sent to us up to a month ahead of our scheduled pick up date, addressed in this format:

Of course we have to carry everything we get out of the post office, so items that can be consumed on the spot will be most appreciated. Thanks!

Today Ann sent this off, her first mass-email:

Dear Friends and Family:

Many of you know by now that my (newish) husband Dylan and I will be launching off shortly on our delayed honeymoon: On April 18th we will be dropped off on the Mexico/New Mexico border from where we plan to walk north, staying as close to the Continental Divide as possible, until one of the following happens:

a. we reach Canada;
b. winter sets in; or
c. the Honeymoon is over!

Dylan intends to keep his website updated along the way with the help of a PDA, a cell phone, a digital camera and solar chargers attached to his pack. This is all dependent on an occassional digital cell phone signal, of course. The address is www.cyberhobo.net.

Since I have never done anything remotely like this in my life, it’s quite a ridiculous thing to announce to anyone at all. But so many of you have shown so much support and enthusiasm, I can’t be proud. I just have to thank you for your interest, positive thoughts and prayers! So if you’d like to mail us food or simply follow along you can go to the website. We will be posting our (very tentative) itinerary there before our departure.

For those of you in Santa Fe: We will be at the Rio Chama bar at around 6.30pm this Friday. We’d love to see you before we go!

Thanks again and keep in touch!

On my Pacific Crest Trail hike Pete and I almost starved due to naive food planning. Fearful from our stories, Ann really put her mind to the problem of providing us with a reasonable diet. The information she compiled follows, starting with the most general and working into more detail. The first items should satisfy the curious, the rest might be useful for planning your own trip.

• Master Food Plan
• Detailed Meal Plan
• Food Expenditures
• Serving Calculations

All of this information is also in our master checklist excel spreadsheet.