Day 5 - Switchbacks - PCT SOBO 2024

[@rickkaylor8554]

I enjoyed your video. Looking forward to watching your SOBO trip. I'm an old guy who is looking at doing the same in 2026. I live near the southern terminus so I'll be essentially walking home.

[@DavidWisehart]

Thanks for watching. I'm 58, and I met a lot of thru-hikers who were older than me. The oldest, I think, was 73, and he'd hiked the PCT many times in his younger days. I hope your plans work out for 2026. The PCT is an amazing adventure!

[@drp551]

Curious about the 5+ month hiatus from Day 4 to Day 5?

[@DavidWisehart]

Yeah, sorry about that. I had high hopes of posting daily from the trail, and that didn't work out. I spent those 4+ months hiking the PCT and recording footage. Too hard to edit and upload from the PCT. I'm not sure how other people manage it, other than to take a lot of zero days in hotel rooms with decent WiFi. Editing each video takes me two or three hours, which was cutting into my hiking and sleeping time. I'm not a fast hiker. To make my daily miles, I needed to hike all day (10-18 hours), then fall asleep. Rinse, repeat. Also, I had very little cell service on trail, especially in WA and the Sierra. I took only a few zero days in hotels, where the WiFi was usually decent enough for uploading large video files. I uploaded the first batch of videos during a zero day in Snoqualmie, using the hotel's WiFi, which was pretty good. I uploaded the Day 4 video during a zero day in Trout Lake using the general store's WiFi, which had very little bandwidth. It took 26 hours to upload just the one video (about 6gb). Spending more than 24 hours uploading one day's video was not a sustainable pace. I needed to prioritize hiking over waiting in town for uploads to finish. After Trout Lake, I decided just to record my daily videos on trail and edit them when I got home. I'm off trail now, and back to editing and posting. I completed the trail in 142 days, so there will be at least 143 videos in the series. If I can get into and sustain a good editing rhythm, I'll be uploading a new PCT video each day for the next four and half months.

[@drp551]

@@DavidWisehart Understood. Actually, I was concerned that you may have had an injury or other calamity. I am glad that you made the entire trip! Bravo.