1100 M I L E S

Cheryl Strayed wrote a memoir called "Wild," where she traveled along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) - which starts at the Mojave Desert and ends at the top of Washington. She set out on her travel after losing her mother to cancer and going through a divorce. Strayed traveled a total of 1100 miles in 94 days. Her memoir explains the supplies she included as well as the many trials she endured on her journey. Her back, who she named monster, was roughly 70 pounds when she started her expedition.

You may be wondering why I am telling you about this. After watching videos about her journey and the reason behind the memoir she wrote, in groups of two we decided on a place we would like to hike for 10 days with just a pack on our backs. My partner, Kalie, and I decided to go through the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and hike 100 miles of it - part of the trail that is in Colorado. We then created a packing list of everything we would need for the expedition and we weighed everything out to see just how heavy our backpacks would be. One backpack came out to be roughly 50.0 lbs. We put 50 pounds worth of weights in a backpacking backpack and carried it on our backs to see just how heavy it would be. It was very heavy at first, trying to stand up with it on my back, but after standing up and walking around for a few minutes, it didn't seem to be as heavy.

Creating a packing list for a 10 day hiking trip through the Rocky Mountains was pretty hard, because determining the clothing, food, and extras to bring depended on the weather, which could change at any time.