I'm so excited to share with you all that I recently appeared as a guest on the Hikes and Mics podcast. In the podcast, I share my backpacking philosophy, best and worst gear, and tell some of my most exciting hiking stories.
Feel free to read along with the Full Transcript.
About the Hikes and Mics Podcast
Learn about the man behind the microphone:
Hi everyone! My name is lvan and recently moved back to the PNW after a 10 year absence. In the year I've been back I've revisited some of my favorite hikes and explored a few new ones.
Season 1 was recorded during the beautiful and long PNW summer of 2022. While hiking I set up my recording equipment off trail and interviewed a fellow hiker on the trail.
As the PNW jumps into fall and winter, season 2 will focus on interviewing some of your favorite hikers on social media, virtually. When conditions allow for outdoor recording, we'll try to take advantage and get back outside and record back on the trails.
Full Transcript
Ivan: All right, welcome everyone to a new episode of the from the Pacific Northwest. We're going to be talking about her hiking adventures and some of her goals that she said this month or if not this month this year. And Sarah, do you want to introduce yourself a little bit and let the audience know a little bit about yourself?
Sarah: Sure. Absolutely, my name is Sarah Yue. I run an Instagram page @thewildcompiled and bog out of www.thewildcompiled.com, I started backpacking about three years ago, after I moved from California to Washington and really got to enjoy the great outdoors in the last year. I've hiked about 268 miles in the last year.
Ivan: Was that mostly here in Washington state or did? Did you get venture out to other states?
Sarah: It was mostly in Washington state but about 70 of those miles were in Utah.
Ivan: Oh, yes, we will definitely talk about you Utah trip because some of those pictures were gorgeous, some of the national parks that you visited. So Sarah, how long have you been hiking? And how did you kind of get started and into hiking and backpacking?
Sarah: Yeah, so that question, is a little bit hard to answer, because I imagine everyone to some degree has been hiking most of their lives. When I was a kid, my parents used to take myself and my sister out to different national parks in the southwest for pretty much the entire time I was growing up, and so I had been to all the national parks in Utah and Arizona and California by the time I was a teenager. But all the hikes that my parents went on were relatively short distance, generally under three miles, mostly because when I was a kid I had a short little legs and didn't want to go that far.
But I really didn't start hiking more than six miles until I got into college, and I really didn't start backpacking ever, or really seriously camping outside, for the first time until I started dating the person who's now my fiancé, Everett. He had grown up backpacking with his parents, short little one night things, and it was a big part of his unique experience. And I really credit him for bringing me into the world of backpacking.
So shortly, after we started dating, and we were in Northern California at the time, he took me to Henry Coe State Park, a little state park around the Bay Area and it was a little 3mile-in, camp, and then 3mile-out thing. And it honestly wasn't the prettiest destinations, but we did get to see a lot of wildlife. We had a lot of fun with the just as a whole, and I think that's when I really fell in love with backpacking. And after that trip, I was like, when are we going to go again?
And obviously, when we moved into Washington, the entire experience of backpacking, just sort of exploded from from there because the the scenery in Washington state is just so spectacular. The weather is wonderful all year long. So yeah, I would say that my experience.
Ivan: I haven't done backpacking myself, but I know that there's viewpoints and there's summits that if you do at least spend one night, you can reach rather than trying to do it in one day. And it's something that's definitely on my mind for the 2023 year to at least experience, even if I start on one day or go out there and backpack and do a trip like that.
With some of the national parks that you visited as a kid, visiting them as an adult now, do you remember some of the sites and do they look different? Or do they seem smaller or bigger than you remember, as a kid?
Sarah: Yeah, with my most recent trip to Utah. I was surprised at how small of a distance away a lot of the big focal point were. Like when my family had hiked to Delicate Arch, which is that super iconic arch that you see on all the Windows wallpapers, it felt like this whole all-day excursion. It felt really hot, really hard to do. But when I went there earlier this month actually, it was a breeze to get from the trailhead to Delicate Arch. By the time I got there, I was like, "Oh, that's it. What am I supposed to do with the rest of my day?"
Ivan: Oh, that's really neat. I feel like when we get older, the hikes seem shorter than they actually are. I don't know if you've experienced it, but like I'll take a friend on a hike that I've done before and I'll be like, "Oh, it's super easy. It's just, you know, right around the corner." And then like, I keep saying, "This is right around the corner" for like an hour and they're like, "I thought you said it was pretty short."
So, it's funny how, like, when we were younger, we see distance so far and so long As we get older I think we see the distance shorten up when it's truly long.
Sarah: Yeah
Ivan: I don't know if you've experienced that.
Sarah: Yeah, that's why I keep GPS on me, to keep me true.
Ivan: For sure. Now, Sarah you live in the pacific Northwest now, and you kind of touched base on how you kind of fell in love with the scenery. What's your favorite region that you like to explore in Washington state? Is there a specific region that you've kind of captured your heart.
Sarah: Yeah, so I feel like the easy answer to fall back on with is Mount Rainier National Park, because I hiked the majority of my hikes in the Pacific Northwest there, but it actually isn't my favorite national park.
I am actually very in love with all the regions in Olympic National Park. It's a really large area for any of the listeners who've never been. It spans a big part of the Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It has a coastal region; it has a rainforest region; it has some mountain regions; and so you can keep going back to Olympic National Park. And every time when you explore different parts of it, it feels like a whole different experience.
And the backpacking campgrounds, I think, also have a really unique quirkiness that you don't see at some of the other national parks. So when I've camped there in the past, on the Olympic Coast, for example, instead of campsites being marked with some posts like you would normally see at other standard national parks, there would just be campsites all over the place hidden behind some brush, and they would all be marked with buoys hanging off of trees.
And in a different region of Olympic National Park, Humes Ranch, I had a backpacking permit there one night. And I had gotten to where the GPS had said that the campground was, and I looked around, and I only saw one campsite there. And I thought, "This is kind of weird. I thought there were supposed to be a couple more sites around." But as I explored further and went down trails I really didn't think were real trails, I found that there were a lot of other different campsite areas with fire pits and some stone benches on the shores down below where it felt like the campground should have been .
Ivan: I see, and did you find more people, like, at those campgrounds?
Sarah: Well, for Humes Ranch, no. Olympic Coast, yeah, lots of people hidden in those campsites.
Ivan: So Olympic National Park, you know for the Washington State listener's they're going to possibly get at me, but it's the one national park I haven't visited in Washington. And you know, we're seeing a lot of permit lotteries nowadays at some of our national parks. Is there such a thing for some of the campsites and campgrounds that are in Olympic National Park? Is there like a lottery system, or you just gotta plan, you know, a week or two in advance, and you'll be able to get a site?
Sarah: So there is no lottery system. There is a permitting system though, and you can usually snag permits through reservations online.
So personally, I pride myself in being able to go backpacking very spontaneously without having to plan months or even days in advance. So actually my fiancé Everett and I usually plan for our backpacking trips around the Tuesday or Wednesday before we plan to go out, and we oftentimes check the the online reservation system. And I guess if you open up your mind to being just super flexible with where you end up and maybe going places that are less known, like going places that don't have quite as pretty views, going places that are maybe a little bit further than most people would want to go, you'll find that they're actually a lot of permits available out there.
And so staying flexible has really allowed me to be able to snag reservations on any weekend without having to plan very far in advance. And it's also taken me to places I really didn't think I would end up at.
Ivan: That's great. Yeah, making sure that you have that flexibility and you'll never know what you get to experience. You have an idea in your mind of like, "oh I want to go there", but there might be an equally beautiful place that maybe isn't as well known.
Sarah: Yeah
Ivan: For sure. Now this next question is always hard for hikers to answer when I ask it because there's a lot of different variables that come into answering it, but what's been your favorite hike so far? Let's say for this year, for 2022.
Sarah: Yeah, my favorite hike, I would say, would be the hike that I did to Dodger Point in Olympic National Park. It was something that I did really early season, but I caught it at just the right time of year, right as the snow was starting to melt and the wild flowers were coming into bloom. And based on trail reports I think I had actually arrived at the campsite the day or a couple days after the snow has melted out from the campsite, because all the trail reports a couple of days before then had said, "Couldn't find the campsite. We just camping the snow." So that was a really awesome experience.
The road that takes you to the primary trailhead to Dodger Point was closed off. And so, this is where "the being flexible thing" came into place because I was open to tacking on a couple extra miles to take an alternate trailhead from Hurricane Ridge to Humes Ranch, that I was talking about, and then to Dodger Point on my second night.
The views up there were absolutely incredible. And from the fire lookout at Dodger Point, I could see the entire mountain ridge where the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center was. And I thought to myself, "I just really couldn't believe that I had started all the way over there on that mountain ridge, and now I'm over here.
It was also a really good trip for me because it was the first time that I had hiked over 20 miles in one day. So, what happened there was, I had actually been planning to do a loop where, after ending up at Dodger Point, I would head south, take a river crossing, and then head back north, and then camp one night, then head back to the Hurricane Ridge Trailhead. But as I was heading up to Dodger Point, I talked to a couple of other hikers. And oftentimes when you're on a trail and you encounter other backpackers, you talk about your trip, your plans, things like that. And some other hikers had told us that they had also been thinking about that loop, but the ranger had warned them when they picked up their permit, that the river that I was thinking of crossing didn't have a bridge. It would require someone to ford the river. And at that time of year -- I think it must have been in May or June but summer starts pretty late in Washington state -- at that time of year, it would have all been really fresh snow melt, and I didn't have the gear to cross the really cold river that was maybe like knee to waist-deep. So I when I woke up from camp the following day, I decided, "It was bright and early in the morning. I was feeling great. Instead of trying to do the loop that I had originally planned, I would just backpack all the way back to the trailhead. And that was something like 22 miles.
Ivan: 22 with miles in a single day you were able to cover?
Sarah: Yeah. And it was it was hilly, too.
Ivan: Now how many total miles would you say was that trip?
Sarah: 44.
Ivan: 44. Holy cow! Over how many days?
Sarah: Three days.
Ivan: Three days? Wow! Oh, that's amazing. So now 44 miles in three days. Had you, kind of conditioned yourself prior to that trip to kind of, you know, reach those those limits? Or not limits, but reach those mileage points?
Sarah: Kind of yes and no. I feel like when most people think about conditioning, they think about, like, people hitting up the gym all the time and really working towards something. I would say that my form of conditioning was just really being consistent. So all of last season I had probably gone backpacking every other weekend, every chance that I was able to. And that really helped work up my endurance, my muscles. It helped my knees really get used to the shock of going a long distances downhill. And I think with all of that experience coming into this season was a lot easier.
Ivan: Consistency plays a huge role. I found, in my personal hiking experience, if I take like a month off, it's definitely a struggle that first time back.
Now, Sarah, we kind of touched base on it, but you did a pretty amazing trip to the southwest and saw some pretty amazing places. Can you tell us a little bit more about that trip? And all the places that you were able to hit up?
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So I went to Utah, which has five national parks and I was able to at least set foot in all five national parks while I was there. So, my trip started off actually a couple of days with friends, then it was followed by three almost back-to-back, backpacking trip.
The first couple of days with friends, because I had been to these national parks before when I was a kid like I mentioned, I took them to see the sights in Canyonland's Island in the Sky District, which has a lot of day hikes close to the road. And I also took them to Arches National Park, which again is just a really accessible national park as long as you can score a permit. And this season, there was a permitting system which was not there previously. So for anyone that's interested in heading to Arches, make sure to snag that. So we were able to explore a lot of the the sites and Canyonlands and Arches.
And then they go back home. And that's when the backpacking trips really got started, and the long-distance hikes really got started.
So, the first backpacking trip that Everett and I did was in Canyonland's The Needles District, which has just a lot of hiking routes available for backpackers. It's a really awesome place. You end up in the valley between these really huge red rocks spires that come up. The way that Everett and I usually plan or backpacking trips actually isn't from looking at trails necessarily on AllTrails, or for Washington things, Washington Trails Association. Sometimes there is inspiration taken there, but most of the time we find our trails just by looking on a map, drawing things out. And we actually almost start with snagging a campsite first and then drawing the route to figure out, "How are we going to get to the campsite".
And so we routed out a trail that I call The Western Loop of the Needles District on my blog post. But this route takes you from Elephant Hill, sort of west and south to a junction to Druid Arch, where we were able to drop off our backpacks just on the side of the trail, and then take a little day hike to Druid Arch which is quite frankly one of my favorite arches in all of Utah, despite having gone to Arches National Park. It's really awesome. It's very geometric and angular. So that was a really fun little side quests that we did.
We picked up our backpacks again, headed west through Chesler Park, which is a really iconic portion of the Needles District of Canyonlands.
And then we went through a little section of trail called The Joint Trail which I thought was unlike any other section of trail that I've ever done before, because it was through a slot canyon that got just incredibly narrow, and I ended up in other slot canyons later on my trip in Utah but this one was actually very very narrow. So narrow that at some point, my backpack was too wide to fit through the canyon. And on both sides of my backpack I had two hard-shelled Nalgene water bottles, and in order to squeeze through, I had to take one of them out of my backpack side pocket. That's how narrow it got.
Ivan: Oh my!
Sarah: Yeah! Yeah, and when when I was going through that section, I was thinking back to my sixth grade geology class and I was thinking to myself, "Does Utah have any fault lines? Am I at risk and getting crushed in case there's an earthquake?" But it was a really fun, but anxiety-inducing experience.
We had camped at Devil's Pocket, and it was a really nice campsite in the middle of the desert. Utah has this really great Dark Sky Initiative that a lot of its cities have. And what this Dark Sky Initiatives does is it encourages businesses to reduce the amount of light pollution that they produce. And this makes it so that when you're camping out in Utah in the middle of the night, the sky just really opens up, and the Moon is almost like a huge light bulb in the sky. Definitely next time I go to Utah, I'm going to try and study the moon cycles a little bit closer, because as our trip progressed the moon went from a half moon to a full moon. And then by the last night, the stars got washed out again because of the moon.
But yeah. So my trip in Canyonlands was really amazing. We got out of there before 10 a.m. the next day and drove across the state, stopping by along Capitol Reef where we did a short little maybe half-mile to one-mile hike just to get up and move after three to five hours of driving. Then we ended up at Bryce Canyon right around sunset. They have a Sunrise Point and a Sunset Point at Bryce Canyon. So we had stopped by Sunset Point appropriately around sunset, watched the sunset there, and then we took a rest day.
We woke up bright and early the following day to go to Zion National Park, picked up our permits from the visitor center. And then we had hired a shuttle to take us from the visitor center, to Chamberlain Ranch, which is the trailhead for the full Zion Narrows Trail. And so people who have gone to Zion before are probably already familiar with the Narrows. It's one of their most iconic hikes. If you do the full hike and you're not really scared of water, you're able to go about knee deep down the Virgin River Narrows for really good distance before, it's recommended that you turn around.
But the national park recommends that you don't do the full hike from south to north. And that you instead to the school hike from north to south. They require permits in order to day hike or backpack the full trail from north to south which I feel like is somewhere around 17 miles total. And the reason that I think they do permitting is because the first couple of miles of the trail are actually outside of national park on a ranch. And the first probably one to two miles is entirely on land. You're going to be passing by some cows grazing in a pasture before you end up in the river. And then once you get in the river and get used to the shock of being cold, you're just walking down the river, and it's just like walking down any other sort of trail.
One of the other reasons that they recommend that you only take the trail from north to south is because there are a couple of sketchy waterfall areas, about two of them. And there were some instances where I would just be walking down the river, and I wouldn't be paying attention, and all of a sudden there would be a big 5 to 8 foot drop in front of me. And yeah, I guess following the river downstream helps you not get tempted to climb the waterfall. But there are a lot of overland routes that you can take around the the waterfalls for anyone who's a wimp like me. Yeah, so that was a really awesome experience.
We got to camp on one of the overland areas in the Zion Narrows. I will say though that waking up the next day and mentally preparing yourself to get back in the river was very hard, especially because the special socks that we brought, the neoprene socks, were still kind of damp at that point. Yeah. So it was it was mentally really tough.
Once we were back in the river, we were back in the river. All of our experience from the first day of backpacking down the river the first day made us a lot more confidence, just trudging through the water at a really good pace. So much so that when we started to get into the area that day hikers were allowed to be in, some people had commented about how confidently we were walking, how quickly we were walking, while they were still sort of getting used to balancing on the rocks and being careful about their feet and not slipping. So that was the second backpacking trip.
And then the third backpacking trip I had done was also in Zion National Park but in the Kolob Canyon region, which is on its northwest side, much much less popular than the main portion of Zion National Park. So this is going to be a relatively short story.
But I had backpacked down to La Verkin Creek. When I picked up my permit for this one, the ranger had told my fiancé and I that there was a good side quest next to our campsite to Kolob Arch, which he said was the seventh largest arch in the world, but he did warn us that the view was not good. So when I got to camp, I set up my camp setup and took a little day pack out to go on some side quests. I went to Kolob Arch and when I got to the end of the trail, I saw these two British guys who are eating lunch, and they were like, "Oh, it's over there." And they pointed, and I like followed where their hand was and it was this little arch way out in the distance. It was really hard to get a good shot of it on my phone even with zooming in because it was that far away. And it just wasn't like any of the arches that I had seen in Canyonlands or Arches National Park, because you couldn't get close to it, you couldn't get under it. And so you, yeah, you just really didn't get a good sense of the fact that it was the seventh largest arch in the world. And one of the one of the British guys, when I told him that it was the seventh largest in the world, asked me like, "Did the ranger have a long nose?"
Yeah, I had also gone on a little other side quest while I was in Kolob Canyon to the Hop Valley region, which really made the entire trip a lot better. Frankly the entire routes to La Verkin Creek and to Kolob Arch didn't feel particularly special. It was a lot of hiking in forest, surrounded by mountains, and I'm used to them the Pacific Northwest. If I had if I wanted mountains and forest I wouldn't have gone all the way to Utah. But it wasn't until I ended up at Hop Valley that the entire area really opened up to this really large pasture surrounded on both sides by these really large red rock cliffs. And it really felt like I was in the heart of Zion National Park without all of the crowds. So that area made the trip just 100 times more special.
Ivan: Yeah, that sounds like a remarkable trip, Sarah. Now on that last hike did, did you have to get a shuttle, or was that accessible by your vehicle that you were in? Because I know that in Zion most times out of the year, you have to use the shuttle because the trailheads are just packed.
Sarah: Yeah, no. Kolob Canyon, you can drive right up to the trailhead.
Ivan: And how long was this trip? How many days did it take to kind of visit all these spots?
Sarah: So in total it was 10 days. So it was bookended by two weekends. We only had to take something like five days off of work.
Ivan: Nice. And for the seventh largest arch in the world, could somebody that's like a rock climber be able to get to it, or is it really something that's not accessible?
Sarah: So I didn't explore that much, but it seems like in order to even get close, it would require first a lot of bushwhacking to cover the horizontal distance to get there, but it was also really high up compared to the view point. So there would have to be someone comfortable spanning a long distance free climbing.
Ivan: Yeah well I'll have to look that up. And I'll put it in the show notes, so people can kind of see that arch. I've never heard of it. I've heard of Arches and Canyonlands having some gorgeous arches, but knowing that Zion, because The Narrows is so popular, that they have other features that you might not even think of, that's pretty sweet.
Sarah: Yeah.
Ivan: Thanks Sarah for sharing about that.
Now, we're going to be switching switching gears a little bit. I feel like most hikers and backpackers have an "I made it" ritual. Maybe it's a favorite snack or meal, possibly some trail brews or even just a moment of zen. What would you say is your "I made it" ritual.
Sarah: So, I feel like this question can be interpreted one of two ways. I feel like I don't really have an "I made it" ritual once I get to a camp or a viewpoint on a trip just because I usually pack really light. I don't have the ability to pack extra snacks or whatever, and I'm always in like a go go go mentality when I'm on these trips. So once I get to camp, then I'm immediately going into setting-up camp mode.
But after I finished a full trip, I do sort of have an "I made it" ritual, and that is just pig out. So oftentimes, Everett and I after a big backpacking trip would go to some form of all-you-can-eat, like hot pot or Korean barbecue. Or we will just get something really unhealthy like going to Five Guys and ordering to their largest sizes of Cajun fries. So it's really just packing in the calories after ending up with a little bit of a deficit.
Ivan: Definitely. Do you track your calories on an app to kind of get an understanding of, well not calories that you consume, more calories that you burn on a trail?
Because I just started tracking it, and when I was in North Cascades, I don't know if it's true or not, but it was saying like I burn 3,500 calories. And I'm like, oh, I'm getting a pizza to myself.
Sarah: Yeah so I do have a tracker. So my Google Fit app on my phone tracks calories that I bur., I don't know what it's algorithm is, but I also had a Fitbit for a short period of time, and the Fitbit was also tracking that I was burning around the same number of calories. I think that the algorithm is wrong.
Remember that hike I was telling you about where I had gone 22 miles in one day? It said that I had burned for roughly 1900 calories that day. So, short of what the the average person burns. The app takes into account something like your total distance covered but also your weight. And the way that, the algorithm focuses on my weight, I think keeps it so that I'm always only burning a fraction of the calories I think I really do burn.
Ivan: Yeah, and I feel like it it changes from app to app, like AllTrails will give you a number. Google Fit or Apple Fit will give you a different number but your stomach is your best meter of how hungry you are, especially after a hike.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Ivan: Any Korean barbecue spots that you would recommend people to try it in the NorthWest?
Sarah: There's one in Renton, and I'm terrible with names, I think it's called Exit 5 Korean Barbecue. That's the one. It's a very standard Korean barbecue spot but I really love the decor inside. It makes you feel as though you've just entered like a little village in Korea, and they seat you in one of like their little neighborhood areas. It's super cute.
Ivan: Awesome! Well I'll have to check it out. If I can find it on Google Maps, I'll also share it on the show notes for for people to check it out if they're in the Pacific Northwest.
Sarah: Awesome.
Ivan: So Sarah you've kind of talked about it already, about how when you're backpacking, you like to carry light. So in that pack list, what would you consider to be like your MVP of hiking gear? Like your most valuable piece?
Sarah: Yeah 100% my phone which is a Google Pixel 6. I would say that most modern phones these days are just incredibly powerful. Like they've come so so far in the last 10 years, and they almost take the place of a couple of your 10 essential items. So my phone works as a very powerful GPS and is able to track my distance down to the tee, very very accurately. Instead of having to bring a book like people had to do in the woods ten years ago or so, I have a couple books downloaded on Audible that I'll read if I have some extra leisure time at camp. It is also a very good camera. Again, camera technology on phones have really come a long way in the last 10 years or so. And they're almost comparable to really good professional cameras with the exception of getting close-ups of animal shots. There's still room for improvement there. It also tracks my distance. I use it as a credit card holder. I'm going to have my phone on me, regardless, on a backpacking trip. So it has all of these functionalities.
And the battery life has also improved quite a bit in the last couple of years. So when I set my Google Pixel on Extreme Battery Saver mode, and I apply a couple of tips and tricks to extend the phone's battery life, I can access all of the couple of apps that I had mentioned and still have my phone have battery to last something like four to five days.
Ivan: I'll have to do that. I have a Pixel as well. And you know, doing AllTrails or just tracking definitely consumes your battery, but that's a good trick, doing Extreme Battery Saver. I didn't know you could get that much battery life out of it.
Sarah: Oh yeah, yeah, it's great. Another trick I have is at night, stick your phone into the the foot of your sleeping bag. So that way, it keeps the battery just a little bit warm and that helps extend the battery life a little bit more.
Ivan: I see, because the cold definitely drains it. Yeah, good tip.
Now, on the flip side, Sarah, has there been a piece of gear that you thought would be a game-changer but ended up being a bit of a flop for you.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So about a month ago ahead of my trip to Utah, Everett and I splurged on a hammock tent that happens to be on sale. It was Kammock Sunda 2.0. It's a convertible setup that would convert between a ground tent and a hammock setup with with a tarp shelter. And when we made this purchase, we really actually did think it was going to be a game-changer. And we had talked about potentially trying out a hammock sleep system for a very long time before then, because we had had good experiences bringing a hammock on really short backpacking trips or at car camping sites. And being able to sit in a hammock or nap in a hammock for an hour or so can be really, really comfortable good.
And the problem that we had found with normal ground tent setups is that both of us are side sleepers, and a lot of ultralight pillows that are on the market don't really give you enough loft and support when you're on your side. And so you feel like your head is always flopping over versus in a hammock, because of the way it sort of bananas, your head theoretically should be more supported.
So we took with us to Utah and tried it out something like three or four nights. And half of the nights, we slept like babies, just perfectly, and then the other half of the nights were just awful. So it's a two-person hammock set up, and probably the worst thing about a two-person hammock set up is the other person in the hammock with you.
So there was this one night that we spent in the hammock tent, where about an hour after getting into the hammock, I felt like I needed to pee. And in a normal tent setup like usually I'm like, "Okay I can hold it in till morning", because I wear contacts most of the time, and in the middle of the night, I don't want to get in my contacts and put on a headlamp and go outside in the middle of the woods to pee. And when I was in the the hammock, my fiancé kept rolling over onto me and getting his leg on my bladder. And so I kept trying to push him off. I was uncomfortable, he was uncomfortable. Finally, I got out of the hammock, pee'd just blind in the woods and then hopped back into the hammock. And we were able to sleep like babies again.
Ivan: Interesting. They almost need like one of those divider walls just in case so you can stop yourself from rolling onto the other person. Oh, interesting. Yeah I do know the hammock idea's definitely been something I've thought of, but you know you don't really know what you're getting into until you actually experience it. And I would have never thought, you know, that could happen, but it's definitely something that you have to think about. And especially if the other person is sleeping, like, how do you get in and out without disrupting them? Or do you have to move? It's a lot of different variables, you gotta consider.
Sarah: Yeah, I think with a one person hammock set up, it would definitely be a lot more comfortable. You have fewer variables to deal with.
Ivan: Now Sarah for hikers like myself that want to get into backpacking, what kind of advice do you have to kind of make sure that they have a safe and rewarding experience on the backcountry?
Sarah: I would say, going back to an earlier topic: just staying consistent. Really consistency is key. Its what's going to help you improve.
And I think having sort of a Marie Kondo philosophy is also going to help, because a lot of beginner backpackers are really conservative with what they pack. And they kind of should be if it's their first time, because you don't really know what it is that you're going to run into. You don't really know what your body needs. But after every trip, just sort of reconsider, "Okay, like what did I use? What did I not use? And for the things I didn't use, is there something that I can cut out so that way I don't have to carry it on my back the next time?"
And I can show you pictures from one of my first backpacking trip [See the Appendix] in Washington State. But I had this gigantic backpack, and I had snowshoes on the back. I had an extra set of boots. I had so much food with me, and I was only backpacking, maybe three miles in Mount Rainier. And there were a couple of day hikers that passed by, and they were like, "Oh, wow, are you hiking the Wonderland Trail", which is their premier five day backpacking trip that goes around the entire mountain. And I had no clue why they had asked me the question at the time, but now in retrospect, I realize I was packing extremely heavy.
Ivan: Do you remember how much potentially that backpack weight? Compared to the pack that you're packing down now?
Sarah: No, I don't have a number for you.
Ivan: Do you think it was possibly double or triple the about a way that you carry now?
Sarah: Yeah, maybe.
Another trip shortly after that, Everett and I were thinking about, like, how to reduce our pack weight. And so we brought a couple of, and you're going to laugh, a couple of physical textbooks with us in our backpacks while we were on a backpacking trip. And when we were reading at camp, we came to the sudden aha moment that this book that we had with us, should not have been with us.
Ivan: That's wild. Now, Sarah for all of your hiking and backpacking trips has there been any close calls, whether it's getting lost, maybe an unexpected wildlife encounter, or maybe you just ran into maybe a creepy person, or Mother Nature just didn't want to play along? Have you had any of those experiences on the trails?
Sarah: Yeah. So a couple of those all at once, all of the above, on a single trip. So this was the Olympic Coast. I had actually not been planning to head to the Olympic Coast that weekend. I had a trip planned out for a little section of the Pacific Crest Trail, but on Friday evening before I was about to drive to the trailhead, I popped the trailhead onto Google Maps and Google Maps was like, "Are you sure you want to go there? There's a massive wildfire going on in that area." And so Everett and I pulled out our map, we pulled up the reservation systems, and figured out what other options there were. And we were able to find a campsite available on the northern part of the Olympic Coast.
So that evening we took the three hour drive from where we live in Issaquah to Ozette Campground, which was right at the trailhead of the backpacking trip that we wanted to do. And we didn't arrive at the trailhead until it must have been around 1 a.m. at night. We were super surprised to find a campsite available at all. And as we were setting up, someone started to approach us. And we were a little bit surprised thinking, "Oh no, I am making a little bit too much noise?" Things like that.
But as this man approached us, there was something off about him, a lot of beer on his breath. He was a little bit maybe shaky, I guess, and he introduces himself to us as a new ranger in these parts. And he and my fiancé have a little bit of a stare-down, and he asked us like "Make sure that you respect the land and respect nature." And my fiancé says, "Okay, we can do that. How would you like us to respect the land?" And the guy says, "Oh, just look up at the stars." And we all turn our heads and look up, and we sort of nod. And the conversation kind of goes like this, all weird, for probably 30 minutes or so before he finally takes off and we think we're done with it. We finish setting up camp. It's almost 2 a.m. at this point.
We had to head down the road a little bit to put in our camping fee. And as we're heading down the road, we see a truck starting to drive down the road, and we hear a voice in the woods shouting, "Get out of there! that man's crazy." And so we ducked into a wood, just completely confused out of our mind. And we find out that the two people that were in the woods were people who had come to the Ozette Region to to do some hunting. They were they're planning to hunt black bears, which you can get permits for, and turn the meat into bear sausages or something. I'm really not sure. But in any case, this crazy man that we had an encounter with was the scariest thing that they had encountered on their trip; hunters who were there hunting black bears.
Apparently this guy had gone over to their campsite earlier in the evening and they started having a conversation, but because they were just trying to get this guy out of their campsite, the man became really aggressive and like told them that he would come back in the middle of the night and slit their throats in their sleep. And they stayed up all night long just watching their backs, right? So that was just an insane encounter.
I was able to sleep through the night. Everett was not.
But we woke up bright and early the next morning and headed out on the Olympic Coast. The real encounter with Mother Nature on this trip was that on the Olympic Coast, you have to really be cognizant of the time, because there are certain sections of the trail that you just can't cross when when the tide is high. So we had tide maps printed out. We had miss-timed one of our things and so we had to wait a couple of hours in order for the tide to come down.
And that wasn't too terrible to manage until we were on our our way back. The second day, we were probably about a mile or a half mile away from the the campsite that we had permitted, and the tide was quickly rising, and it was just about sunset. It's getting really dark, and all of a sudden, this bear rushes out of the woods onto the beach in front of us and just sits down decides to have some nice potty time while watching the sun set. And we decide then and there we can't wait for this bear to finish and stop watching the sunset, because the tides coming up, it's about to get dark, and even worse while we were waiting for the tide to go down earlier in the trip, when we had taken our backpacks off, we had lost our bear spray, and so we were relatively unprotected. So we had to turn back and camp somewhere that we didn't have a permit. So lots of different strange encounters on that one.
Ivan: Wow, wow, wow. Wow, yeah. Props to you and your fiance for handling that situation correctly. Like I think your guys' answers definitely helped defuse the situation, where I think the hunters were probably more, not aggressive, but you know, a little bit more curt with their answers, I should say. And maybe that's what caused their their issue. But yeah, props to you guys for handling that situation.
I wish, and you probably didn't have a chance to take a picture of the bear squatting and looking at the sunset, but that would be a perfect picture just to see a bear squatting, chilling on the beach, looking at the sunset.
Sarah: It was magical.
Ivan: Now Sarah though, the one thing that I was really interested in learning about you is that you have set off on a really remarkable goal to visit all three of Washington's national parks but hike every designated trail in those parks. Can you share with us how you kind of came up with that goal and how it's going so far?
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess it's less of a goal that, you know, I'm dropping everything to make sure that I accomplished as quick as I can, but more of a passive goal that just sort of makes sense and rolls into the rest of my backpacking philosophy very well. I do have a nine-to-five job where I work Monday through Friday and so I'm really only able to get out and go backpacking on weekends. I find that it's very interesting to visit the national parks because they are very well maintained and there's so much to explore just in the national parks already. But I find myself just going back to the national parks all the time.
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to accomplish the goal anytime in the next year or in the next two years, frankly, because I'm just really slowly chipping away at it every chance that I get, but this year I made really big headway into chipping away at the trails in Mount Rainier National Park. I covered a big section of the northern part of the park by going to Carbon River and doing the Northern Loop. I also covered a lot on the southern part of the park with heading to Camp Muir and heading to Maple Creek. And I did a little recap a couple of days ago where I assess how much this distance I covered on the map, and it looks like I may be 50% done with covering all of the trail in Mount Rainier, which is super exciting. Of the national parks in Washington though, I think Mount Rainier is one of the smaller ones. And so there's a lot more distance to cover in Olympic National Park and North Cascades. So, lots to do.
Ivan: You know, there was one point in time when I lived here before moving away, that I kind of wanted to just do chunks of the Wonderland Trail and not necessarily doing one go. But just to get out, that's really remarkable. I'll bet you're seeing stuff that you never thought you'd be able to see at like Mount Rainier. Just being able to chunk out those hikes especially 50%, that's amazing.
Sarah, outside of the that goal, do you have any upcoming hiking goals and backpacking goals for 2023?
Sarah: No, not really. Like I said, it's going to take me a couple of years to finish up this goal. I imagine that once I finish up the goal, I'm either going to focus on more of the trails in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, which is a huge area to explore, and on a couple of my backpacking trip so far I've discover a couple of secret trails that are not listed on any of the maps that I think lead up to really good backpacking destinations in cross-country zone, so I'm excited to try those out too.
Ivan: Awesome. Well thank you Sarah for answering those questions.
This next little portion is one of my favorite portions of of the episode. Have you ever done "This or That" questions?
Sarah: Yeah.
Ivan: So these are all hiking related. I'm just going to shoot them to you, and then you choose the one that that kind of fits you the best. All right, ready?
Sarah: Yeah.
Ivan: Okay, ascending or descending?
Sarah: Ascending.
Ivan: Waterfalls or summits?
Sarah: Summit.
Ivan: Switchbacks or straight up?
Sarah: Switch backs?
Ivan: Trek poles or free hand?
Sarah: Trekking Poles.
Ivan: Now fuel up before a hike or do you fill up after?
Sarah: Fill up after.
Ivan: Bushwhack or go around?
Sarah: Go around.
Ivan: Jump in or stay dry?
Sarah: Stay dry.
Ivan: Sunsets or sunrises?
Sarah: Sunset.
Ivan: Spring flowers or fall colors?
Sarah: Spring flowers.
Ivan: You tag a hike or do you not tag a hike?
Sarah: I tag it.
Ivan: Awesome. Thank you, Sarah. The goal this season is to compile everyone's answers, then just kind of show on a graph by the end of the season what those those things are. And those are really hard questions like the the sunsets and sunrises equally beautiful, same with spring flowers and fall colors. But thank you, thank you so much, really appreciate you taking the time out today to kind of speak with me.
I want to give you an opportunity to kind of tell listeners social media handles where they can follow your adventures and then also on your blog where you're doing trail guides and kind of given updates on on your goal. But yeah, this is your time. Feel free to plug anything.
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. I think I had actually plugged a little bit earlier during this but for any listeners out there, e sure to check me out on Instagram: it's @thewildcompiled or on my blog www.thewildcompiled.com.
Ivan: I'll make sure to add those to the show notes too so they'll be accessible as links. Thank you so much, Sarah. I had a really great time speaking with you.
Sarah: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Ivan: I appreciate it.
Appendix - How my packing style has changed over the years
From left to right:
First time backpacking (8 miles roundtrip). Yes I brought snow shoes and extra boots with me
My nominal backpack size. This particular trip was 30 miles and you can see that for 3x the mileage, my pack is 1/3rd the size of my first time backpacking.
My lightest ever backpack setup. I hung an Ursack outside of the backpack for exra capacity.
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