Robert and Roslyn on the Pacific Crest Trail
This proverb is attributed to Lao Tzu. It actually says 1000 li, which is about 360 miles. Our journey is 2650 miles.
great things start from humble beginnings
the first step is the one that counts
you can’t finish if you don’t start
Some numbers to start the US travel story:
1 1/2 = hours of sleep in the first 1 1/2 days of travel
2 1/2 = hours spent waiting in line at San Diego Airport to pass through immigration
3 1/2 = hours taken to cut my hair at the school of hairdressing
On the plus side of the equation:
We have adjusted quite quickly to local US time (17 hours behind Australian EST)
The poor harassed border security officer granted the requested 6 month visa with no questions asked
I saved $80 (US) by having a novice hair dressing apprentice cut my hair
Some more maths for you:
We now measure distance in miles 1km = 5/8 of a mile. We will be hiking about 2655 miles which sounds a lot less than over 4200km.
We now weigh ourselves and our gear in pounds instead of kg. My starting wt is 51.7kg and Rob is 82kg. In pounds we are 114lb and 180lb. (1kg = 2.205lb)
We are eating and burning calories instead of kJs (1kJ = 0.239 calories)
The best one though is the temperature which is about 40 minimum and 90 maximum in the desert (1deg C x 9/5) + 32 = 33. 8deg F)
I am old enough to remember when Australia used the imperial system for measuring distances, and can even remember painful maths problems at school involving miles, feet, inches. I thought it was a distant memory, but here I am having to grapple with it again.
I’m afraid we will have to re-adjust our thinking/planning/blogging to use miles instead of kilometers, because all the signage and talk among hikers will be in miles. I don’t think we will see many convenient signs like the one above! (thankyou Google Images). I guess it will be like coping with a 0.71AUD/USD exchange rate.
So here’s a handy table to help you understand our posts:
| Miles | Kilometers | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | If you walk zero miles it is about the same in km 🙂 |
| 0.62 | 1 | |
| 1 | 1.61 | |
| 5 | 8 | |
| 16 | 26 | The average distance we need to cover every day |
| 20 | 32.2 | Our target distance for the first day (because of lack of campsites with water before Lake Morena). Also, about the longest distance Ros and I have hiked in Australia in one day so far. |
| 30 | 48.3 | Hard to imagine doing this in one day, but lots of hikers work up to it |
| 500 | 805 | If you just wanna be the kind of man that walks 500 miles... |
| 1000 | 1609 | ... and 500 more |
| 4265 | Approximate length of the PCT |