Smart phones, whiskey and 2,600 miles of trail | Sidebar

For five months and 2,650 miles, Anthony Sanelli and Dustin Cramer hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.

With a backpack parsed down to the necessities, Sanelli and Cramer still managed to stay safe from the elements, post videos to an internet site devoted to their hike and endure the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

What’s in the bag?

Sanelli and Cramer both said the first thing they remember from the hike is the need to cut weight from their packs, which they did by roughly half from 70 pounds when they began to 35 after the first two weeks.

“In a storm or in case of injury, you want to be protected from the elements,” Sanelli said.

Only the necessities remained: a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent, water filter, camp stove with cooking pot, food and utility supplies like rope, duct tape and ibuprofen. And once in awhile, a little taste of the Wild West.

“On the occasion, I would pack a bottle of whiskey.”

The smart phone hiking era

One of the surprising elements for Cramer was the proximity of the trail to towns and civilization. That, along with the week in Lake Tahoe and jaunts where friends joined for a period however brief made for stark contrasts where the pair would go from being completely alone to back in civilization.

When the hike took them deeper from the company of others, Cramer and Sanelli filmed video correspondences from the trail shot with a smart phone that they then uploaded to a website they started for friends and family to follow along with them and eventually even make donations to help fund their trip.

They also posted photos and even had a section where readers could comment with new ideas for what the pair should undertake during the journey.

The videos appeared on an embedded google map with a line showing their path through nearly every National Forest in California, Oregon and Washington before posting a final time from EC Manning Provincial Park in British Columbia.

 

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