There are lots of items that require power on the PCT these days. The biggest one is a cell phone, which most people use as their primary navigation assistant and as their camera. Other items include head lamps and watches.
Components of our PCT Power Strategy:
- Power bank: TQKA Myriad 10,000 mAh
- Cell phone: Moto X4
- Head lamps:
- Tim: Black Diamond Iota
- Renee: Streamlight Bandit
- Watch:
- Tim: Garmin Fenix 3 (used to record our hike)
- Renee: Garmin Forerunner 230 (used only for telling time)
- Accessories:
- 1 micro USB cable for headlamps/power bank
- 1 USB-C cable for phone/power bank
- 1 cable for Tim’s watch
- 1 cable for Renee’s watch
- 2 wall plugs (1 with quick-charge) for charging power bank and cell phone in town
- A ziplock bag for the power bank and cables to keep them dry and organized
Power bank:
For us the most important feature of a power bank for the PCT was how quickly the power bank itself charges. A quick charging power bank allows you to get in and out of town quicker. When we got to a town, the first thing we always did was plug in our power bank and cell phone. A lot of power banks that are marketed as “quick charging” refer only to their ability to quickly charge devices plugged into them. Such “quick charging” power banks charge themselves slowly when plugged into a wall. We knew many hikers who thought they had bought quick charging power banks, only to find out they required 10+ hours at a power outlet to recharge the power bank. Also, note that any quick charging power bank can only quickly charge items that are compatible with quick charging. If not, they will charge the items slowly.
A note about capacity: The TQKA Myriad 10,000 worked great for us. It was small and lightweight enough and charged quickly (8 oz, about the dimensions of a cell phone). We were able to get two full charges of our Moto X4 cell phone (3,000 mAh battery) with our TQKA Myriad 10,000 mAh power bank, in addition to several charges of our Garmin Fenix 3 GPS watch and charging our head lamps when needed. Everybody has different capacity needs depending on their use of cameras, cell phones, and other electronics. We knew hikers who had success with 5,000 mAh power banks and hikers who used 30,000 mAh power banks. Anker power banks were the most popular brand on the trail and seemed to work well for people, as long as they had bought the correct quick charging version.
Cell phone:
The largest power consumer for us was our shared cell phone. We used the cell phone for navigation, water reports, and taking photos. Like most thru hikers, we did not carry paper maps — they were not necessary. We did not carry a camera — our cell phone took good pictures. We used the Guthook app for navigation.
A note about the Guthook app: The Guthook app works by putting your phone on Airplane Mode, but turning Location on. You save battery by having Mobile Data turned off, but the app knows where you are by having Location on. Almost every hiker used the app. It shows a map of the entire PCT with your current location highlighted. It also highlights potential campsites, water sources, and resupply information. Hikers comment on waypoints, so you can learn about what’s to come based on the experience of those ahead of you.
A note about sharing a cell phone: It was nice to save weight on the PCT by sharing a cell phone and therefore power bank also. For future thruhikes we would both carry a cell phone, despite the weight penalty, because of navigation. This would allow us to more easily hike separately.
Head lamps:
We used rechargeable headlamps for the PCT. We did not want to deal with batteries on the trail. It was much more convenient for us to just charge the headlamps with our power bank. They do not require much power to recharge. Tim’s Black Diamond Iota had a great battery life and strong beam. Renee’s Streamlight Bandit on the other hand had a weaker beam and shorter battery life. We would have to recharge them about once a week. We did not do much night hiking though, so we mainly just used them at camp and in the tent for a bit every night.
Watches:
Tim used a Garmin Fenix 3 on the PCT to record our daily route (check out the current Fenix 7). He had to charge the watch every night. It does not require a lot of power to charge though, and now we have an awesome map of our entire hike! Renee used a Garmin Forerunner 230 on the PCT for telling time. She had to charge it every week or so. Having rechargeable watches did not impact the size of our power bank.
A note about step counting: Both of our watches recorded our daily “steps”. We realized after a while that because we were using hiking poles, the watches were actually recording our arm swings.
A note about the Garmin Fenix 3: The Fenix 3 features an “UltraTrac” mode, which improves battery life but decreases the quality of the GPS-track by recording data less frequently. After two days on the trail, we stopped using this mode because it was overestimating our daily mileage by about 20%. We ended up charging the watch almost every night, but this was not a problem because it really does not require much power to recharge.
Accessories:
Other power strategy we tried:
- Solar panel – Goal Zero Nomad 7
- Power pack – Goal Zero Venture 30
We started our thruhike with a solar panel. We quickly realized that even in the desert, there is not a good way to use a solar panel while hiking all day. Also, we thought that we would spend less time in each town than it would take to charge a power bank, but after replacing our Goal Zero power bank with a quick charging power bank, this wasn’t a problem. We ended up mailing our solar panel home on day 7. We upgraded our power bank within the first month.
A note about Goal Zero: Goal Zero does a great job marketing their brand as the go-to company for outdoor power. That’s about all they do well. Their power bank performed much worse than those sold by other companies, despite costing five-times as much money.
