Steve & Ray's Excellent Adventure

On the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in Washington State

Or... How to hike 500 miles in one week segments...

This page is about hiking the PCT in Washington State. However, it is for those of us who cannot afford to take off weeks at a time and do the hike in one summer - it is for the rest of us who can only afford to take one week off at a time. Ray and I started this adventure in 1991, and have been hiking about 70 miles at a time, spaced every other year. We've hiked about 400 miles so far, and have two 30 mile segments to go to complete this adventure.

Our usual hike is 8 days, although some have been 9 (includes 2 weekends), and some have been as short as 6 days (we had bad weather, and hiked longer days to get out of the sleet and snow faster). We generally hike 10 or fewer miles per day - we want to enjoy ourselves, and would rather arrive at our destination early and do some scrambling rather than arrive exhausted and go to bed. We have done a mix of through-hikes (from point to point), day hikes (from car to car), and loop hikes (ended where we started - more or less). Each year is different, and overall, all have their good and bad points. For through hikes we generally drop a car at the pick-up location, and then either drive a second car to the drop off location, or bum a ride there from friends or family. Each night we tried to stop at a lake, if the milage was about right, or at least a water source. To date, we have never had to have a dry camp. That might change, as one of our 30 mile segments remaining has poor water availability - but since they are shorter hikes, that won't be quite as much of an issue.

This site includes information you might find useful if you wanted to plan a hike similar to ours. Included are maps of each segment, GPS readings for some of our camps, car pick-up and drop-off locations, and photos of sights and terrain along the route. Also included are some spreadsheets that show elevation gains, miles hiked each day, and more. To get to the details, please click on a link below to get to the section of map you want.

Map

Note: Click on the section name to the right of the map to go to that page.

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Useful Links

Below is a list of PCT links. I will add links ONLY if I feel they are more about sharing PCT hiking information than they are about selling a service, equipment, or other things. While I don't mind sites that sell, that is not the spirit or intent of my site.

• PCTA.org - Site has useful trip planning, photos and other information on PCT hiking.

• PeakToPeak.net - Trail and Wilderness Links
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