Hey remember this? Trip Planning: Pandemic Options with a Baby

In August 2024, we welcomed a new baby girl to our family. I call her Lil’ Flier since she just flew into this world without a pause.

We’ve been looking for an opportunity to spend some time on the PCT for years. We did some short section hikes on the PCT before kids – something around Bridge of the Gods and Timberline Lodge as well as the JMT. We contemplated just taking an extended vacation and hiking the PCT south with Toothless this past summer when he was three, and even had a SOBO permit that we ended up releasing when we found we were expecting Lil’ Flier to be born.

So, we’re taking advantage of parental leave and got ourselves a NOBO long distance permit on the PCT next year. That gives us roughly March to September 2025.

Why?

Like our time with Toothless on the GDT, it’s an awesome opportunity for us to bond as a family and get to know each other.

This is another transitional period in our life, and it’s an opportunity for us to take a step back and bond as a family and figure things out.

The PCT is logistically very attractive. We’ll have about six months between our parental leave, Toothless starting kindergarten and the length of our VISA- that would be impossible to try to piece together a summer outdoors with all the permits and travel. This is all solved by a PCT long distance permit.

Toothless is now four, and he’s still very active. Honestly, he thrives being active and outdoors. Those are the times he’s best regulated and being himself. In my opinion, a summer, or even six months, with him being outdoors all day could be awesome.

It could also be terrible – we’ll see!

What’s the plan?

Not much of a plan.

We’ll just take it one day at a time and see where we get to. We might make it a hundred miles in, maybe 500 miles, maybe a couple thousand. Maybe we’ll “finish” (after skipping wildfires). Who knows.

The key is that, as usual, we have to listen to the kids and just make it about them. I’m not being irresponsible about “not having a plan” but instead am trying not to set firm expectations that I will be tempted to follow instead of just listening to what the kids need. It’s hard to plan for “no plan” but that’s what we are up against.

We will be hiking at Toothless’ speed: slow. I’m guessing 10 km a day is likely our minimum. Absolute maximum is likely 20 km a day and would involve him crushing it every day, and us carrying him. He could sustain 5-7 km/ day as a 2.5 year old. This year we haven’t been on many backpacking trips, but have gone on day hikes, and he can easily knock out 5 km in the morning on a day hike with a brief rest. I’d expect him to hit more than that with more rest periods and more time in the day to be out – so 10 km based on previous experience seems reasonable.

We don’t intend on hiking the Sierras unless it’s a near zero snow year, and if we are confident with dealing with elevation with the kids (who have limited ability to tell us if something’s wrong). So the usual “Sierra start” is not really a constraint for us.

So this left us working out a late March start. It’ll be cooler and more water available in SoCal, less busy at the start. We might hit snow in some areas (eg: San Jac) in SoCal but those are easily avoidable if not passable.

To finish, we’ll just go as far as we want and take it one day at a time.

If we get near the northern terminus, it would be tempted to skip a section if needed to finish in Manning. I always want to tag the entire trail, but if we aren’t going to finish, ending up in Manning Park is logistically attractive (since we live nearby) instead of having to find a flight to Vancouver.

What gear?

I’ve been working on a LighterPack. The goal is to get our base weight lower than our GDT thru with Toothless. This is a bit of an effort since we are now carrying gear for TWO kids. I’d be really happy with 15 lbs each for Natasha and I and over the moon with anything closer to 10 or 12 lbs. Toothless won’t be carrying much or anything at all. He might have a fanny pack with snacks.

https://lighterpack.com/r/myber1

I have worked on replacing some key gear:

• Shelter – now using a DCF 4P mid instead of the Triplex
• Puffy jackets and warm layers – upgraded our 10 year old puffy jackets with EE Torrids and replaced some gear with Alpha Direct or Octa layers
• I’ve replaced battery bank and headlamps
• I’ve since replaced my pack with an SWD Long Haul 40L
• We have replaced our synthetic MYOG RayWay quilt with a down quilt to reduce packed volume
• Toothless has a bunch of new clothes and a new sleep system since his thru, but only an iteration of gear since our backpacking trips with him as a toddler
• Replaced our “in need of service” Snow Peak stove with a BRS, and got a 900 mL Evernew pot to replace one of the 600 mL ones we had to accommodate Toothless’ appetite.

Honestly, most of our gear has been refreshed. But those are the highlights.

What next?

I’m still finalizing some of the gear which has been a challenge with the Canada Post strike delaying shipments for over a month. But I’m almost there. We are working through some more logistics – we have passports. I need to sign up for parental leave. We need to sort out travel to the trailhead. Then I think there’s not much left to do.

What about kids enrichment?

We are carefully considering that. For the most part, being in the woods will be enough.

But for Toothless, we need to find opportunities for him to develop. He’s learning how to write and read. He loves books. He loves stuffed friends. He loves being active and being outdoors.

Bringing books is just not feasible for any lengthy travel as a family (we read so many books), and we can’t print books on the back of map printouts the same way we did with the GDT. Toothless eats through books fast. We plan on bringing a colour e-reader which felt like a fair compromise. We’ll get lots of books, in colour, but not really a snappy, responsive screen with videos like a phone. The e-reader battery lasts nearly a month – so the extra weight of a different device is offset by the weight saved by not needing to bring a larger battery bank or physical books.

Under consideration are music and other toys. Toothless now has a Yoto Mini player and loves being able to listen to his own music. He puts in kids headphones when his sister is loud. He plays dress up and plays with Lego. He has a boatload of stuffed animals. So maybe we will look for opportunities to paint his nails with nail polish in towns, maybe bring a small toy or stuffed animal.

Lil’ Flier will get similar treatment Toothless did on the GDT – teething toys, books and the environment.

Will we write about it?

Hopefully. But we will see. It’s a lot of work.

Honestly, this has been about us sharing our experiences. So getting something out there is nice. But I’m not getting anything out of this really; I don’t make money. It’s just unpaid work. It’s nice, but lands low on the priority list.