Discovered the Pacific Crest Trail has a 60-mile waterless stretch that nearly broke me mentally

I was reading the PCT water report last night and found out the section through the Mojave Desert has no reliable water for 60 miles, so now I'm trying to figure out if anyone actually carries all that weight or if there's a cache system I'm missing.

3 comments

3 Comments

zarag1711d ago

The Mojave section is no joke, there are a few caches maintained by trail angels but you can't rely on them being full. Most PCT hikers I know either do a massive carry of 20+ pounds of water or they plan their miles to hit the highway crossings where you can stash your own bottles ahead of time. The real trick is getting an early morning start before the heat hits hard, because that 60 mile stretch turns into a mental game when the sun is baking down and you're counting every sip. People who skip the night hiking in that section usually regret it big time. Have you looked into the water report updates that show which seasonal sources might be flowing after a wet winter?

colegarcia11d ago

Yeah I second that thing about night hiking... did the Mojave stretch last year and started doing 3am wake ups after the first day almost cooked me. The water report is key, especially after a wet winter some of those seasonal creeks might actually have a trickle you can filter from. Another thing that helped me was carrying a small umbrella clipped to my pack strap, gives you a bit of shade on those exposed ridges without slowing you down. And yeah, don't bank on the caches being full, I found two empty ones in a row and had to backtrack to a highway crossing to grab my stash.

cora81311d ago

Starting with night hiking is smart advice. Did you run into any issues with wildlife or losing the trail in the dark on that Mojave stretch? I've done a lot of desert hiking and those early mornings sound brutal, but hearing you had to backtrack to a highway stash is exactly the kind of headache I'd fall into. Those water caches being empty is a real gamble, especially if you count on them to save weight. How much water did you end up carrying when those caches failed? Seems like the mental part is planning for the worst-case scenario and not hoping for a handout.