Marika Pelham ’13 (Groves’) - A Walk on the Wild Side

Posted 2/5/2020

Shawnigan alumni Marika Pelham ‘13 (Groves') recently completed a 4,200-kilometre, five-month hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from near the Mexican border to B.C.’s Manning Park. We asked the intrepid hiker to tell us about the experience for this edition of Alumni News.

About Marika

Marika attended Shawnigan from grade 10 to 12, graduating in 2013. She earned an undergraduate degree from Queen’s University in public health, and then a Masters degree in health informatics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Marika now works in Calgary at a technology startup, focusing on decision intelligence and structured reporting within cardiac diagnostic imaging.

She was brought up in Banff, Alberta and grew up skiing, hiking, and camping. “My dad used to be a mountaineer and my mom is a world traveler and she loves to cycle. So it runs in the family, for sure.”

Marika is currently training for a 24-hour attempt on the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island this July, planning to run the entire 75-kilometer trail in one day.

The athlete is also preparing for The Canadian Death Race, a 125-kilometer single-track trail run with 17,000 feet of elevation gain. Other summer plans include the Wild Horse 50-kilometer race in Kelowna, the Berg Lake ultramarathon, and the Grizzly ultramarathon in Canmore, Alberta!

About the Pacific Crest Trail

The Pacific Crest Trail Association has been in existence since the 1920’s and is run by the Pacific Crest Trail Association and volunteers.

“The Pacific Crest Trail spans 2,650 miles (4,265 kilometers) from Mexico to Canada, through California, Oregon, and Washington... It reveals the beauty of the desert, unfolds the glaciated expanses of the Sierra Nevada, travels deep forests, and provides commanding vistas of volcanic peaks in the Cascade Range… Thousands of hikers and equestrians enjoy this international treasure each year.” Source: PCTA.

Fast trail facts

2,653.1 miles, equivalent to 4,270 kilometers.
Approximately five million steps.
The trail crosses 26 National Forests, seven National Parks, five State Parks and four National Monuments.
Total elevation gain/loss for a northbound thru-hiker is 489,418 feet of climbing and 488,411 feet descending, with an overall change of 1,007 feet.

Q. Marika, how do you get permission to walk the Pacific Crest Trail?

The Pacific Crest Trail has been around for a really long time but it's really gained in popularity the past couple of years. The intention for pretty much everyone is to get to Manning Park in B.C. – to do the whole thing from Mexico to Canada.

You have to get a permit. There are 50 people starting every day, from the beginning of March until mid-May. You can't go too early or you run into problems with the snowpack.

I got my permit through their lottery system back in November of 2018: you just enter and they give you a random number in the queue. There were over 15,000 people in the queue and I got spot 3,768.

Q. When did you start the trail?

April 24, and I finished on September 24. I basically lived out of my pack for five months.

Q. What did you carry?

Your base weight is considered all of your essentials of your pack, not including your food or water. So, going into trail all my gear weighed just under 14 pounds.

I had a 50-litre backpack and a minus-12-degree sleeping bag, and my one-man tent, which I often describe as being like a coffin with a ceiling! Also a lightweight sleeping pad and a stuff-pack with spare clothes: basically an extra pair of socks and a pair of underwear, sleeping tights, a lightweight fleece, a rain jacket, and my insulated puffy jacket. But other than that, all I really had was the shorts and T-shirt I would wear on a daily basis. To save weight, I bought a toothbrush and cut off the handle: it saved 11 grams. Also, lots of mosquito spray and a little bit of body glide to prevent chafing, especially in the desert.

Q. Is it true that people form little ‘families’ on the trail?

On trail, I got to meet other hikers who were pretty much just as crazy as I was. I met a great group of people there and we would form these groups called 'tramilies,' which is your trail family. You also get a ‘trail name’ that you use the entire time. Mine was R2 and my final hiking partner was Anita [real name, Carson].

Your family grows as you continue, and then some people separate. And then we kind of dropped down into 12, and then six, and I ended up meeting my hiking partner, and we hiked 2,100 miles together, and we ended up finishing the trail together over more than four months. I turned 24 on the trail, the same day I hit the 2,400-mile mark.

Q. So that brings us to the big question: Why?

I have a really hard time explaining why, because it's a lifetime of choices and events that lead you to this one moment.

I had always grown up with my mom [Barb Pelham] telling me amazing stories about her post-university travels. And while I was in grad school, it was my first term of grad school, and I was like, that term was really terrible, like, really terrible! So I thought, if I’m going to get through the next year and a half of grad school, I need something to look forward to. I always thought the trail would be cool, but I never really had the time. So I decided it would be my graduation present to myself, to kind of go out and explore and adventure.

Q. How did you get yourself ready and condition yourself?

Well, I started by tearing my Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL)! I was supposed to be physically training all winter. But instead I was in a full leg brace up until March, and I started my trek in April of 2019.

Q. Was it hard at the beginning?

The desert heat was hard because I was coming from a Canadian winter to exposed desert. But in terms of my knee, I was okay.

Q. The longest day?

We would walk anywhere between 30 and 50 kilometers a day: once we walked about 83 kilometers, the longest day. It was going into the Mount Hood area in Oregon. My hiking partner and I decided to try for a big day just to see how far we could get, and we did it in just under 17 hours. So that would be like walking from Shawnigan to Victoria, and back.

Q. What did you do for water and food?

My biggest water-carrying was eight liters of water one day. I had my little camp stove and, at the start, I would cook a hot dinner every evening – usually a package of ramen, Mr. Noodle, with instant mashed potato, or my favorite was a handful of stovetop stuffing. Sometimes we put a spoonful of peanut butter in there, and some hot sauce, and mixed it all up.

It became logistically challenging to pick up a fuel canister in towns. So, in Northern California, I decided to ditch my stove. I sent it off in the mail back home. Mainly, we were averaging about 7,000 calories a day. So I ate double-stuffed Oreos, and Rice Krispy squares, Fruit Gushers, Snickers, cheese, and beef jerky. I ate pretty much junk food. But it's OK: we needed the calories and it was quick fuel, and the nice thing about processed food is that it's really cheap and light and non-perishable.

Q. Spring trekking means a lot of snow. What are the challenges of traversing in snow?

One of the challenges is what we call ‘postholing.’ A winter hiker steps on what you might first think is hard-packed snow, and your leg sinks and creates a post-hole in the snow. It takes a huge amount of energy to get your leg out and take the next step.

The snow would become softer throughout the day, as the sun hits. You also can't cross the rivers too late in the day because the snow melts and river levels become higher and higher. So we would often wake up at three in the morning so we could travel when the snow was frozen.

Q. Worst on-trail experience?

One of my trickiest experiences was in the second section of the Sierra Nevada, where they had above-average snowpack, meaning every single pass was covered in snow, and it was pretty crazy. We did about 250 miles of snow travel. In average years it should be 100 miles, total.

This day, we had just left a town called Bishop, in California, and my pack weighed 49 pounds, with food. Heavy. We got a little bit later start to the day and we had to cross over the mountain. You're following a lot of other people's footsteps and a lot of animal tracks and it becomes navigationally challenging.

Not a lot of people with me had snow experience and we were traveling on new types of terrains that were constantly changing, with sun exposure and heat exposure, along with carrying very heavy packs with food: 50 pound packs. We also had snow gear, so we had ice axes, and crampons on our feet. Our ice axes were used so we could self-arrest if need be: so, basically, stop yourself from sliding down the mountain.

One of my friends was really hesitant about going down a path. I had taught her how to use an ice axe just a couple days prior. So she was nervous, and I decided I would show her the way down: she wanted me to go first.

So we had summited Glen Pass, and I started descending and one of my feet slipped. I started going down, falling uncontrollably with a 50-pound pack on my back, and an ice axe in my hand, so I tried to self-arrest, but the snow was very soft, so I ended up falling about 50 feet down and there were some cliffs below, but, thankfully, I stopped myself in time with the axe, so I got very lucky. The joys of mountaineering. We were on the trail in snow for nine more days after that.

Q. How much money do you need?

Everyone's trail is your own trail: we always would say hike your own hike. I mean, it's not going to be the same for everybody, but around $1,000 a month is kind of what we would call our rent for being on trail.

Q. Favourite gear?

My Garmin inReach Mini, a two-way satellite messenger which I used to navigate via GPS, track my progress, get weather updates, and communicate with friends and family when out of cell range.

I went through five pairs of trail runner shoes. I started with one style of shoe but it gave me tendonitis in my feet so I was actually in agony for the first 400 miles. Your feet also grow on trail, just because of the amount of time you spend on your feet, but also swelling and blood flow. So I went from a women's size 10 and a half to a men's size 10 and a half.

The runners I liked the best were the HOKA Speedgoat brand. And my backpack was like my MVP. That was a Hyperlite Mountain Gear 3400 Southwest, so it weighed just under two pounds.

Q. So, why do you like ultramarathons?

It's an opportunity to push myself both physically and mentally. After completing the PCT, post-trail depression becomes a reality, but is manageable with the more time I can spend training, being outside, being surrounded by supportive like-minded individuals. And what better way to test my potential.

Q. Is there anything you learned at Shawnigan, or anyone in particular who inspired you?

I remember the Rev, of course! And Mr. Bomans, my rowing coach, is still one of the most awesome people. He prepped me really well for life's challenges.

One of his go-to’s was always this quote: “Be a turtle. Let it roll off your back.”

Final thoughts?

The trail was hard, but it is a lot of fun. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Back