The Trail

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‘Jaimie Cuzens-Sutton is a passionate hiker who grew up on a farm in rural Victoria. Despite a challenging early camping experience, she developed a love for hiking after reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Her adventures include hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, where she learned about the interconnectedness of the hiking community, and the Overland Track in Tasmania, known for its stunning landscapes and social environment. She shares insights into her preparation, gear choices, and the challenges of long-distance hiking. Looking ahead, she plans to explore more trails with friends while considering another long-distance hike in the future.’

Background

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I grew up on a farm in rural Victoria. My childhood was spent very much outdoors, and we did go car camping during the holidays, but I didn’t really start hiking until I was in my 30s.

In fact, the only time I had camped overnight with a pack before then, was on a compulsory school camp when I was 16. We spent ten days hiking and white water rafting and it was an absolute horror show. We were carrying tinned food, sleeping in tents that weren’t waterproof and someone had packed a hair straightener. At one point my group’s raft got stuck on a rapid and was punctured– we were in the middle of the river for hours, and everything packed on our raft was wet and ruined. I hated that trip.

What sparked your interest in hiking and backpacking?

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It’s a cliche, but I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed when it was released in 2012, and I knew then that I’d hike a long-distance trail someday. It was ten years before I got the chance to do it, but it was always in the back of my mind.

You’ve hiked and backpacked to quite a few places so far, can you share some of the places you have visited?

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In 2022 I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in the U.S. It’s a 2650m (4264km) trail that traverses the country from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, with 489,000f (140,000m) of elevation gain.

It takes most people about five months, and it’s an unusual experience. Hiking is often about spending time away from other people; from towns and cities– experiencing the wilderness.

Long-distance hikes let you access some incredibly remote and beautiful landscapes, but they’re also very much about the other people on the trail, and about the towns you pass through to stock up on food and dabble in hygiene.

Backpacking is often presented as very much about self-sufficiency and independence, but on a long-distance trail you’re actually very dependent on other people, especially on strangers who go out of their way to help hikers (we call them trail angels). You’re part of this big ecosystem of hikers, trail angels, trail maintenance crews and local businesses that are all interdependent and dedicated to the trail and its community.

Before the PCT I had only been on two solo hiking trips, and by the time I finished, I’d spent more time hiking and sleeping in the dirt and snow (by choice) than most people have the opportunity to do in a lifetime. The sheer volume of hiking and camping pushes you to do things you might not have otherwise considered.

I look back on some of the sketchy log crossings I did over insane white water, and some of the snow traverses and I’m a little horrified. 50km days with over 2000 m of elevation gain became routine.

You lose your fear of a lot of things: bears, rattlesnakes, hitch-hiking, hiking in the dark… everything you thought you needed starts to feel a bit superfluous. I stopped setting up my tent in the desert and just slept in the dust in my quilt. One night, I woke up with a snake snuggled in next to me. It did scare me, but I went right back to sleep and it didn’t stop me cowboy camping again the next night.

I got lost in a snowfield at one stage; my GPS stopped working and the visibility was bad so I couldn’t see any landmarks. I was frustrated, but not really that worried. I knew I was carrying everything I needed to wait until another hiker came along or visibility improved.

If you do anything for five months straight, it gets a little tedious. I was hiking solo, and although I did stay with groups for stretches, I also spent a lot of time alone. For eight days I hiked alone through Yosemite. The landscape is shockingly beautiful, I often felt literally overcome with awe.

But I was incredibly lonely– I didn’t talk to another person for over a week, and the mosquitos were so bad that I was often hiding in my tent, just staring at the ceiling, rather than watching a sunset.

There was a snow storm that week and I didn’t want to cross a high, technical pass until it stopped, so I set up my tent in a sheltered spot to wait it out. My tent is only big enough to sit upright in, with my shoulders touching the sides. I spent 16 hours straight in my tent, most of it in the dark, drinking peppermint tea and peeing into a nalgene, hoping my tent didn’t flood.

During another long stretch alone, I was pulling up my pants after squatting down to pee and a wasp got stuck in them. It stung me four times before I managed to get it out. That’s An Event on a long trail. Your routine is eat, walk, sleep, repeat, so little deviations are important.

In that moment I thought I was about to cry, and then another hiker came along and I didn’t even say hello before I pulled down my pants to show them my swollen butt, covered in huge welts. Suddenly it was funny. They took photos for me, we laughed about it, and then it became a story we shared with other hikers for days. Type two fun is much easier to achieve when you’re not alone.

Photo of Jaimie Cuzens-Sutton wasp sting.

At present you’re doing the Overland Track in Tasmania, can you share with us why you chose this particular track?

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I hiked The Overland Track in May 2024 with one of my oldest friends. We’d actually planned to hike it together in 2021, but covid-related border closures meant she couldn’t come with me, and I ended up doing it solo. At the time, it was the longest solo hike I’d done, and it was also my shake-down hike for the PCT.

The Overland Track is really special. It’s a beautifully designed and maintained trail that requires a permit and has strict limits on the number of people who can start the track each day. It’s in a world heritage area and the track and huts have been constructed to protect the environment as much as possible.

It’s a great track for people who want a challenging climate, and a range of difficulty options. It’s also a very social track, because the huts bring people together to eat and share bunk rooms. Although you can also choose to do your own thing and use the tent platforms at each site. We did a bit of everything this time, spending a few nights in our tents, a few nights in the huts, and I even convinced my friend to try cowboy camping on the porch.

The track is vastly different depending on the time of year you visit, and after living and hiking in Queensland for the last few years, I was really looking forward to some cold-weather hiking.

Can you share with us the details about this track? I.e. how far is it, how steep it can get and what sort of terrain you are expecting?

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The main track itself is fairly short (only 65 km) but there are lots of side-trips to lakes, up mountains of various grades, and out to Pine Valley– which is always my favourite part. You’re allowed to stay at the huts for more than one night if you want to wait out some bad weather, or climb a more difficult peak as a day trip, so many people choose to spend a few extra days on the track.

The main track is beautifully constructed - there’s a lot of boardwalk to protect the more delicate grasslands, and some gorgeous stone pathways and staircases. But the track is also famous for its mud. Both times I’ve walked The Overland there’s been ankle-deep, sometimes knee-deep mud. In 2021, I fell into a small sinkhole up to my hips and got stuck for a little while. I was lucky that I wasn’t badly hurt, but I did break the hipbelt on my pack and bend one of my hiking poles.

How long will it take you to complete this particular track?

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We spent eight days on the track this time, which included an extra night at Pine Valley. It snowed on the way out there and we decided to climb up to The Labyrinth even though the conditions were really poor. It was one of those wild-weather days where it can be miserable or it can be an adventure.

The track is quite steep in that section and it was basically like climbing a rushing waterfall in a cloud. Sometimes I think more challenging weather is more exciting, especially when you have a hut to dry off in afterwards.

How have you prepared for this track? Can you share with us a list of items you have taken with you?

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Temperatures on the track in late April can get down to -10C, so we both took kits more aimed at winter conditions, with full sets of waterproof clothing, including jackets, pants, gaiters and over-mitts. Hiking the PCT made me very comfortable with a lightweight set-up, but we both wanted to be as comfortable as possible on this trip.

The pack I took is my favorite pack: a 40L pack made by Dan Durston that was originally sold as the DD40L. It’s made from a water-resistant nylon, weighs about 900g and has an aluminium U-shaped frame. I had it altered last year by an Australian company called Remote Equipment Repairs to add a net front pocket and replace the existing small shoulder-strap pockets with water bottle pockets.

It’s also the pack I broke on my first trip to The Overland, so I’ve repaired the hip belt as well.

My down quilt was made by a Tasmanian company called Tier Gear. It weighs 790g and it keeps me comfortable to about -2 C. For colder trips I sleep in down pants, down booties, a beanie and a hooded fleece, which is pretty good down to -6C. If I add my down jacket and my rain pants, it can manage -10C in a pinch.

My inflatable mat is a Thermarest xlite, and I use a 3mm closed-cell foam pad under it for extra heat retention and to protect my pad from punctures.

It’s nice to have a back-up too if I get a puncture that I can’t repair. It’s not comfortable to sleep on by itself, but it’d keep me from freezing. The pad only weighs 100g and I also use it to sit and lie on during walking breaks, and to stop the metal benches in the huts from freezing my butt off.

My tent is a single walled, one-person hiking pole tent called the x-mid pro, also designed by Dan Durston.

I use a pillow that I made myself from some foam off-cuts and an inflatable bladder because what I wanted didn’t exist as a retail item. My stove and cookpot are a Jetboil Stash; I have a titanium spork and I also like to take a plastic screw-top container to cold soak food in. Cold soaking doesn’t really work in temperatures below 5 C, but I still like to pre-soak my food to cut down on cooking time.

Photo of Jaimie Cuzens-Sutton using Jetboil

I take two sets of base layers: one for hiking in and one for sleeping in. Two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, and a merino bra that I usually don’t take off for a whole trip, because the fastest way to dry it is on my body. I rinse out my underwear and socks every day and rotate them.

If there’s no sun to dry them in, I put them in my pockets while I walk to let my body heat dry them out. For this trip I had a lot of warm layers: a fleece, a down jacket, down pants, down booties, wool gloves, a beanie, a wool buff and a complete set of rain gear.

My toiletries are very minimal. Sunscreen of course, a 15ml bottle of lotion for dry skin on my hands and face, lip balm, dental floss, a toothbrush and toothpaste tablets that you can swallow so there’s no chemical waste getting spit out on the ground.

I don’t use deodorant– nothing stops you from smelling terrible after eight days, and deodorant just sticks to your clothes, making it impossible to rinse the sweat and bacteria out with water if you get the chance. I always carry a poop kit even when I’m day hiking. It includes a titanium trowel, hand sanitiser, biodegradable soap, a pee cloth and a bidet that attaches to my water bottle. Once you learn how to use a bidet in the backcountry, you’ll never go back to toilet paper.

I never use soap in or near waterways. Despite the branding, no soap is truly biodegradable and should always be used minimally, and rinsed onto soil, not into water sources.

I also have a first aid kit (including snake bandages), a headlamp, a battery pack and charging cables, a PLB, a water bladder and filter, my hiking poles, and a pair of light-weight foam slippers for camp.

For this trip my pack weighed about 7kg without food and water. Some people think that’s insanely light and other people think it’s heavy. Everyone is different in what they consider luxury items, but mine are a pack of cards and some dice, a folding bluetooth keyboard that weighs 100g so that I can write during the trip, and a tiny air pump for my mattress.

I hate blowing up my air mattress so much that after about 30 days on the PCT, I decided I would either carry a pump, or leave it behind in the next town. I’ve never regretted carrying it.

Looking into the future Jaimie, what’s the next big adventure after this one?

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There are so many hiking trips I’m hoping to take! I am considering another long-distance trail in the next year or so (probably The Arizona Trail) but at the moment I’m prioritising shorter hikes that I can do with friends in Australia. I still enjoy hiking solo, but I’ve spent enough time alone in the wilderness for now.