Health and Hygiene on the PCT

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I’ve been doing health-wise on such a long hiking trek. How are my feet doing? Have I lost weight? How do I stay healthy along the way – especially in the middle of a pandemic.

The short of it is that I’ve been pretty lucky so far and have stayed relatively healthy. But I’ve had my fair share of health and hygiene challenges along the way. So here’s a rundown of the various things one has to contend with on such a journey.

Foot Health

By far the area with the most amount of issues has been foot health. Just think about it. Every day you strap a 25-35 pound pack on your back and walk 20-25 miles. Granted, in the beginning and in the Sierras I was not doing that big of miles, but ever since Northern California, a 25 mile day has been pretty standard. This abuse, day after day does a number on your uninitiated feet. It’s a recipe for blisters for sure. I started to get my first blisters on the fourth day of the hike when my feet weren’t used to the daily mileage and abuse. Treating blisters properly is really important, and catching it sooner than later is the key. I didn’t catch mine quickly enough and had fully developed blisters which I had to lance.

The best way to deal with a blister is to nip it in the bud while it’s just a hot spot and hasn’t yet turned into an actual blister. A good way to do this is to put Leukotape (or moleskin) on the hot spot and cover it during the day while you walk. If the hot spot has turned into a full blown blister, then I like to open the blister to drain the fluid inside. I’ll sterilize a sewing needle with a flame and then add a short length of thread to the needle. A technique is to add some antiobiotic ointment such as neosporin to the thread as well. Then I’ll insert the needle on one end of the blister and then exit the needle on the opposite side of the blister making sure to run the thread all the way through so that I can then remove the needle and have thread protruding from either end of the blister. I’ll sleep at night like this and then in the morning prior to setting out, I’ll slap a patch of Leukotape over all of this and walk on it. In this way, the thread keeps the holes in the blister open and allows it to continually drain as I walk. This method of blister management seemed to heal a blister within a couple of days.

Also, it is entirely impossible to keep your feet clean during a hike such as this.

I wear trail running shoes (Altras) and they let dirt particles in through the mesh quite easily. So after a couple of days my feet are really dirty and nasty. I deal with this by trying to wash my feet and legs whenever I get to a nice creek or stream. Often, I’ll stop at such a stream for my lunch break and then will wash my feet and legs after lunch. I usually have two pairs of wool hiking socks with me so I’ll swap out socks at this time and then wash the dirty pair in the stream and hang them on the back of my pack to dry as I hike in the afternoon.

I have gone through four pairs of shoes thus far in the hike. They seem to get me about 400-500 miles on each pair. I had been told to expect that my foot size would grow on a long distance thru hike and that has proved true for me. I started out with size 12 shoes, then moved up to 12.5 for my third pair, and now I’m into size 13 shoes for my fourth pair. I’ve been told that I will never go back to my original foot size after this…I guess that means I’ll have a lot of shoes back at home I can no longer use:(

Interestingly, I have met two guys on the trail who have very unique choices of shoes for the trail. I hiked with a guy from Alaska named Kicks and he has hiked over a 1000 miles in sandals. Another guy named Fire has hiked in a Scottish kilt and uses Crocs sandals. You see all types of things out here!

I’ve been diagnosed in the past with plantar fasciitis and this hike has certainly exacerbated it. I already was wearing medical orthotics in my shoes but that hasn’t been enough to keep it at bay. I would find that my feet were super sore and stiff when I first woke up and I would hobble around camp like an old man until the feet warmed up and stretched out. I brought a cork massage ball with me and use that to roll out my feet and stretch them out before setting off each morning. I’ve found that using the cork ball, and lots of foot and leg stretching helps a great deal in alleviating plantar fasciitis pain.

Additionally, I’ve had some numb toes since the third week of my hike. I’ve talked to a lot of other thru hikers about it and many of them also have experienced this. Apparently it is quite common and is referred to as “Christmas toes” because you end up regaining feeling in those toes around Christmas time following the hike. At this point, I have two numb toes on my right foot and I sure hope I regain feeling in them by Christmas!

Drinking water

There are a couple of ways that hikers use to treat their water. One is to filter the water and the second is to treat it with a purification system such as Aquamira water treatment drops. I have been using the filtration method and use the Sawyer Squeeze. I filter all of my water no matter how pure it might seem. I know of several hikers this season who did not filter/treat their water all of the time and did in fact get Giardia symptoms. I definitely don’t want to get that while on the trail.

Weight Loss

Most people lose weight on the trail. It is so difficult to maintain weight when you are burning so many calories each day. I have lost between 20-25 pounds so far and you can tell that I have skinny, “chicken legs” now. I’ve lost a lot of weight in my upper body to include in my arms as well. Some tricks we use to stem the loss of weight are to add olive oil to meals as well as to eat lots of peanut butter. But in the end, I think it is near impossible to do a thru hike such as this and not lose weight.

Injuries

I have really only sustained one injury so far on the hike. I was careless while fishing the North Yuba River near Sierra City and slipped and fell while hopping across some river stones. Initially I felt fine, but later that night I started to feel a sharp pain on my shin bone. I took a pain killer and then hiked 18 miles the next day. The day after that I hiked 21 miles and by the end of that day I was in excruciating pain. I ended up taking a “trail zero” where I just stayed at one tentsite location for another night. Then I hiked 60 more miles to Belden where I took another zero day and iced my shin the whole time. I was able to start hiking again after that, but it didn’t fully heal up for another couple weeks. I’ve learned that it is important to give the body a sufficient rest to heal up in order to be able to keep pushing forward after an injury.

Trail Facts

• Trail miles walked – 1146
• Current PCT mileage marker – 1600
• Current Audiobook – Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
• Additional wildlife seen – California Scrub Jay, Northern Rubber Boa, Cascade frog, Northern Flicker (red-shafted)