20 Days- The To-Do List

Perhaps I’ve planned for enough thru-hikes that I’ve gotten really good at it or maybe my to-do list is deceptively short.  It has a measly nine items that are not checked off.  All but one of those items, making a sleeping bag stuff sack, has been started—most of them are nearly done.

I’m still waiting on making my sleeping bag stuff sack because I’m still waiting for my new pack.  I don’t want to make a stuff sack that won’t fit into the pack.  If you plan on buying from a cottage industry remember that mid-winter through spring is their busy time.  Don’t procrastinate.

New home made cuben fiber food bag with food

I have a few food purchases to make still.  I want to wait for sales, but I’m running out of time for that.  My list of missing food is thankfully short:  summer sausage, salami, tuna fish, salty snacks, pumpkin seeds, sesame sticks, gummy candies, and hot chocolate.  For the first hike ever Snicker bars were not on my shopping list—I had nearly a case left over from last year and will be flushing out my candy bar selection with other choices.  I have all the food I have organized and it will be a quick task to complete sorting my food once I have it.

Maps are organized.  It took Portrait and me a couple days to print off the maps.  We went through and highlighted the town and wrote on the map how to get there—the maps were surprisingly not user friendly compared to the PCT maps.  I still need to get a decent GPS program on my phone.  As I write my phone is offloading a year’s worth of photos to Dropbox to make room for CDT photos.

It’s a little disconcerting not having my days revolve around hike prep.  I think about what I need to do daily, but I don’t work on the prep daily.  Nevertheless things seem to be coming together. I don’t feel stressed or overwhelmed.  There came a point during my PCT planning that everything seemed to come together and I was able to focus on other things (although I was dehydrating food the day before I left), but that came much later in my planning stage than it has for this hike. 

High Priority Tasks Resupply schedule Resupply boxes Buy food Setup phone with GPS app and maps Make Food bag Make Sleeping bag stuff sack Make Mom List High Priority Purchases Order plane tickets Pack Warm hat Warm jacket Medium Priority Tasks Make stove Find fuel bottle Pack bounce box Plan route Figure out shoes Water bottles Wear out socks