On March 1, Justin Lichter and Shawn Forry — trail names “Trauma” and “Pepper” — arrived at the southern terminus of the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail. With their final steps to the Mexican border, they became the first people to complete the PCT in a winter thru-hike.
In the process, the duo faced deep snow, harsh temps and strong winds for weeks on end. GearJunkie contacted Lichter to learn about the gear that made the epic hike across the United States in winter possible.
“We thoroughly tested and researched all of our gear before the trip,” Lichter said. “As a result we greatly minimized our gear failures. We went into the trip with a good feeling that our equipment would succeed. We had two failures and they were both because of our oversight.”
This is Lichter’s explanation of the 13 most important pieces of gear used on the trip. The team’s oversights are listed at the end.
See page 2 for a couple failures encountered during the hike, and page 3 for a complete gear list.