Cody and I embarked on our first un-guided backpacking trip to Catalina Island in mid-April. It pushed us near our limits while still being a fun (type 2) adventure. I’m grateful that we were able to experience it together!

TLDR: Here’s a video of our trip.

Pre-trip and Day 1: Long Beach to Avalon to Black Jack campground

Since we were already going to be in San Diego for a work conference, we planned our next escapade with this in mind. When the conference was over, we took the Amtrak to Long Beach. We stayed at a hotel near the ferry dock, rearranging our baggage and getting our packs ready for the 4 day/3 night adventure ahead. The next morning at 6 am, we got on our ferry and took off for Avalon. The ferry ride was about an hour long. On the way there, we saw dolphins leaping out of the ocean! Once we arrived at the port, we had breakfast at the Pancake Cottage and coffee/ tea and cookies at Catalina Coffee and Cookie. We were really living it up with tasty treats before the suffering would begin. We also went to Chet’s Hardware store to get matches and a fuel canister.

The trek started by walking through town: past island rental properties, a small golf course, a local park, and through Hermit Gulch campground to get on the dirt trail. Once on the trail, I tired quickly; the changes in elevation were already more than I expected. I was so excited to get to the first official rest stop, a playground with water and clean chemical toilets. We had lunch here: crackers and summer sausage. Then, we continued our hike seeing a bison in the distance and hearing bee swarms up above.

Cody commented that he felt like we were zoo animals. Every so often, tour vehicles filled with comfortable passengers zipped around the island. Sometimes they waved at us. We could only imagine the guides saying, “Backpackers and bison are common sights on Catalina Island. Be careful to keep your distance, they are hungry and smell bad.”

After 12 miles and 3500 feet of elevation change, we finally made it to Black Jack campground. We stayed at Site #1, which was quiet and secluded. I fell asleep immediately after our tent was set up. I woke up to eat dehydrated dinner, pork and rice for me, alfredo pasta for Cody. Then, I went back to sleep again. I usually don’t like to take medications, but “vitamin I (ibuprofen)” came in handy for my aching body. Later, I learned that Cody wondered if I would be able to finish our trek around the island after seeing how hard this day was for me.

*Come back, ferry. We’re questioning life choices.*

Day 2: Black Jack to Little Harbor

We left our campground around 7:30 am. I realized that Cody and I were getting sunburned on any patch of skin that wasn’t covered with our SPF 100 sunscreen. The weather was a very comfortable 70ish degrees Fahrenheit, but there was no hiding from the strong sun rays. We had about 8.5 miles to hike until we reached our next campsite at Little Harbor. The first stop, however, was 2.5 miles away, the Airport in the Sky.

The interesting part of this backpacking trip is that you aren’t completely submerged in the wilderness, and there is a little bit of civilization mixed in with every day. At the airport, we shared a breakfast sandwich with a side of hashbrowns. I love hashbrowns! We sat near a fellow backpacker (L) and learned that she was a solo hiker from Texas. She was much more experienced than us, and already had her next backpacking trip planned in just a few weeks. We replenished our water supply, used a glorious flushing toilet and continued on our way.

This day wasn’t as tough, with a bit less mileage and only ~1000 feet of elevation change. We arrived at our campsite around 3 pm. We were at campsite #12 at Little Harbor. We had a great view of the beach. The water was too cold to swim in, but it felt nice against our feet. For dinner, I had spaghetti with meat sauce and Cody had alfredo pasta.

Day 3: Little Harbor to Two Harbors to Parson’s Landing

My love for modern conveniences led me to being too ambitious when trip planning. Instead of being on the trail for 5 days/4 nights (which seemed to be the more common way to do it), I thought putting in the extra work to get it down to 4 days/3 nights would be worth it to enjoy temperature-controlled buildings, hot showers and flushing toilets sooner. If I were to do it again, I would opt for more time on the trail. Moreover, there are flushing toilets, hot showers, and restaurants at Two Harbors!! If I only knew…

Most of the people we met on the trail had mapped out their trip for 5 days. This was the day where we had to put in the extra miles (aka extra suffering) to get it done in four. Instead of hiking 5.5 miles and setting up camp at Two Harbors, we needed to trek on to Parson’s Landing, which was an additional 7-8 miles of work for the day. There are two ways to get to Parson’s Landing, a relatively flat road or a path with steep altitude changes.

For our long day ahead, we left camp at Little Harbor around 7am, sad to leave our beautiful campsite on the beach. There were elevation changes on our hike getting into Two Harbors (surprise), but also great views. We were aching, becoming delusional, and had conversations about how great it would be if we were Pokémon, to take magical potions that would enable us to “regenerate” and “restore full health,” in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, we are mid- 30-year-olds with minimal backpacking experience, who take more time to recover these days. We ended up getting into Two Harbors at around 11 am.

We stayed in town for a little bit to enjoy its amenities. Cody went to the visitor’s center to have firewood and water delivered to a locker for us at Parson’s Landing (worth the extra cost). I went to the camp store and replenished our supplies: a dehydrated camp meal, gold bond powder, naproxen for our aches and pains.

We had lunch here – fish and chips and a fish sandwich. It was so luxurious. I didn’t want to leave, but we had to get to our campsite before dark. We got a lot of motivation from the people we met on the trail. Two young guys called us “tanks,” and “crushers,” for tackling this long day. It gave us extra pep in our step, and we jokingly called each other these names as we continued onward! In case you were wondering, I’m the crusher. Cody’s the tank. Cody wisely convinced me that we should take the flatter, yet slightly longer trail to Parson’s Landing, rather than going the traditional route with more elevation change (we would instead take this route on the last day).

We took many “packs off” breaks, but we made it to our campsite (#3) at around 6 pm. This was my favorite campsite. It’s more secluded, and it was very peaceful watching the water crashing over the rocks on the inlet. Cody rehydrated our dinner for the night, chicken curry for me and mac and cheese for him. He had run out of gas mid-boil, but luckily someone had left a fuel canister in the locker that we could use. We even had a campfire this night.

*Cody! There’s smoke in my eyes! I can’t see!*

Day 4: Parson’s Landing to Two Harbors

Last day on the trail. We had a camp meal of biscuits and gravy (Cody) and breakfast scramble (me) and left our campsite around 7:30 am. We had multiple, very steep ascents on our way out. Many faster hikers passed us including a group from Los Angeles (who were surprised that people outside of California knew about this trail) and some older folks who had already done the trail a few times before.

As I mentioned, we were doing this trail a bit different than typical, as the final stretch is usually a 7.6-mile hike on a flat road. This road is typically referred to as the “victory lap,” because you’re finally free from the altitude changes that you had to tackle on the previous days. So, technically we already did the victory lap, just on Day 3 and in the opposite direction.

I’m glad we did the trail a little bit differently. The views were spectacular. And this felt like our victory lap because we started seeing our camp friends as they were hiking from Two Harbors to Parson’s Landing. First, we saw G and M. One of them was just carrying a full gallon jug of water as he hiked. Then, we saw L and she asked us about the steep descents into Parson’s. We got to tell them that they made our trip special and took selfies with them.

We eventually made it back to Two Harbors around 2pm. The best $2 I’ve ever spent was on a coin-operated, hot shower. We had lunch at the restaurant there. An older couple in their mid-60’s started talking to us at the restaurant. They were very enthusiastic about backpacking. The husband, E, shared that he had first fallen in love with his wife (then girlfriend) while hiking the Catalina Trail together. They also shared their other backpacking stories including trips to Montana (where he found an 11-carat sapphire that was cut down to make her engagement ring), the Lost Coast trail (timing their hikes to the tide levels), and others. The interesting thing that stood out to me was when he said, “now that we’re older, we take more risks.”

Post-trip reflections, aka "Cody sets the record straight”
Written by: Cody

Looking back, we definitely underestimated how much elevation change there would be each day, and how draining it would be to go up and down so much. Going up is obviously tiring, but when the trail is reasonably steep, going down is honestly worse. Your feet are tired (or in Alex’s case it was feet sore, and knees sore), and then each step down is a lot more force on the feet and knees compared to hiking up. Over the course of four days there is nearly 10,000 feet of elevation gain/loss. It didn’t feel like we walked much on flat ground!

About half way into day 1 I was genuinely concerned whether Alex was going to be able to complete our planned day 3 hike. She kept calling out “Cody, I need spa! Spa me!”....even though she’s never been to a spa LOL. I was probably underestimating her, but just in case I started funneling things out of her pack to try and even out the suffering a bit if possible! In the end we made it 14 miles to camp on day 3 with plenty of time to spare, and she motored along the last mile like a woman on a mission! I think she knew the quicker we got there, the sooner she could get her feet into the cold ocean, and sleep until dinner was ready. Takeaways - Make Alex hike in front when she’s tired (for some reason she legitimately goes twice as fast!), and don’t underestimate someone that has done a million hours of swimming, gymnastics, and burn boot camp!

A few other stray thoughts: When we did our backpacking trip in Pisgah (western NC), it was also a 4 day/3 night hike. We were almost completely detached from the outside world and anyone outside our 4 person bubble until the trip was over. Alex and I felt a little weird being back in civilization for a day or two afterwards. You feel on your own and in the wilderness a lot on the Trans Catalina Trail, but it was definitely a different experience. Most of the time you’re alone, sometimes with the ability to see for miles, and you do feel like you’re out in the middle of nowhere - but at some point on each day you come in contact with civilization again. Day 1 you start in town, day 2 you pass through the tiny airport, day 3 you’re in Two Harbors where they have a restaurant and a general store, then day 4 you’re back to Two Harbors. Neither version of a backpacking trip is necessarily better, and each was a fantastic experience in its own way, but we both commented on how different it felt coming off the trail on the last day.

I think we’ll continue to be selective with our backpacking trips and keep them relatively short, but becoming comfortable with multi-day backpacking does open up more potential hikes, sights, and adventures compared to strictly day hiking.

Trans-Catalina Trail backpacking

Old Rag Mountain 2024

Bryce Canyon National Park