Would anyone here be interested in a Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike without re-supply stops? If I ever get decent enough at slinging to hunt small animals, I think I would like to try. I don't know if this is possible because of hunting rules, but I like the idea.

No re-supply would mean no fuel, so this would require a portable wood stove for cooking. I’m not sure if these are allowed by the park/forest services. If they’re not, then an Appalachian Trail without re-supply stops should be fun as well. I think the AT allows wood stoves.

I probably won’t be good enough at slinging in the foreseeable future, but I’m curious to see if there’s any interest.


The Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail are two very long hiking trails that run roughly North-South, in the western and eastern halves of the United States, respectively.

Come to Canada, lots of real isolated hiking areas. No suppliy stops because there are really no people or places to get supplies for hundreds of miles!

You bring yer diggin sticks, I'll bring a bit more. I like to head out for about seven to ten days, but I take my sling, a tent, thermarest, food, fishing rod, .303 enfield rifle, short shotgun (for grizzly bears), gps, compass, ultra-light camping stove that burns naphalene, some knives, flares, sleeping bag, snowshoes, crampons, and so on. I like to take my kayak so I can also take my bow, and piles more gear.

Every now and then some tourist wanders off (usually only ten minutes from a city like vancouver) in shorts and sandals going for a hike with his diggin stick. Then the search and rescue find his frozen corpse three days later. Not to mock diggin sticks, but at the very least I would take warm clothes, emergency flares, first aid gear, signal mirror, a tent, water purification tablets (halazone or chlorine) emergency fire starting gear (usually a lighter and some kind of solid petrolium stuff)and so on.

Fuel burning stoves really are the only way to go, what if everyone went around hacking up all the trees to burn? When I catch city folks up in the alpine burning up yew and cedar trees that took four hundred years to grow 8 feet high I'm glad I brought a rifle. Plus with the increased forest fire hazard in the last few years in north america open fires are banned in many places.

that sounds cool

It is a bit of gear. I use new tents, sleeping bags, thermarests, stoves, and so on. The new high-tech stuff is super light. I try to kayak out down a big lake, or up the ocean coast also. I can get about 300 pounds of gear in my kayak. It holds about 275 litres volume in the storage hatches. Or in the winter I snowshoe, and pull a sled behind me.

The lightest I take is about 50-65 lbs of camping gear plus 20 lbs for a rifle, a short shotgun, and ammo.

New stoves are fairly fuel efficient, I use a msr dragonfly, and I take two 750ml bottles of naphalene (or white gas or whatever) for about a week.

The wood chip burning stoves I have seen are pretty hard on fuel. They use chipped wood, and you need nice hard wood and not punky windfalls to get them going.

Sometimes if the risk of fire is low, or it is winter, I make a small campfire. I dig a hole, line it with rocks, make a low ring of rocks around the top. Put a couple of big flat rocks on top, leaving about one quarter uncovered. Then I dig a channel for air to enter. Most times the whole fire is down in the hole and not resting on the ground. It will burn very hot and smokeless. I make coals and then use it like an oven and cover the open part. You can get a lot of cooking from a little bit of wood.

Call me an idiot and all - but whats a digging stick?

My cousin did some minimalist camping before. canoe, axe, hunting knife, matches, some fishing line and a couple of hooks, some rope and 2 days food and water....was out for 6 days before he got fed up with the mosquitos and black flies.

I am tempted to go with him next time.

He is putting thie finishing touches on a hand made birch bark canoe he is building...the thing is beautiful.