Excursion: Trans-Catalina Trail

In February, Rad husband-and-wife team Justin and Murray flew out to California and hiked the Trans-Catalina Trail!

Here’s some background info:

• Catalina Island is off the coast of Los Angeles, CA.  It’s 75 sq miles, has only one actual town (Avalon, population 4K), one “outpost” (Two Harbors) and is owned by the Wrigley family (as in, chewing gum & Wrigley Field).
• The Trans-Catalina Trail (TCT from this point on) is 37 miles from the start to the terminal … HOWEVER, there’s no viable way to “leave” the trail when you’re finished – you have to backtrack 12 miles to the Two Harbors outpost so REALLY the trail is like 50 miles! Also: it’s actually pretty hard!  I wouldn’t call it a technical hike, but you should be in okay shape and have done at least a 3-day hike previously.

  

• Ferries run from various near-LA locations to both Avalon & Two Harbors multiple times a day.  We left from San Pedro but returned to Long Beach.
• Super simplified map below, details on permits etc here 

There are a million websites out there with GREAT info on the TCT, so we won’t regurgitate that.  Instead, we’ll give you our ProTips.  First, let me say:

THIS MAY HAVE BEEN THE BEST VACATION WE’VE EVER TAKEN

Possibly it was better than our honeymoon (although our time in Bocas del Toro, Panama, was AMAZING … but we could’ve skipped Panama City).

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• We chose to hike the TCT “backwards”.  MAJOR PROTIP THERE!!
  1. Day One: arrived via ferry in Two Harbors, stocked up at the grocery/liquor store.  Hiked to Parson’s Landing, camped there. 6 miles (a small start is a GREAT WAY to introduce your body to hiking – it always takes me a few days to get my trail legs)

     

  2. Day Two: hiked out to the actual terminus at Starlight Beach, ate lunch, then hiked back to Parson’s.  Camped there a second night. 9 miles.

     

  3. Day Three: hiked from Parson’s back to Two Harbors, ate lunch & bought more supplies, then continued on to Little Harbor.  Camped there.  12 miles.

     

  4. Day Four: hiked to Airport in the Sky for lunch, then continued on to Blackjack Campgound, aka BISON TOWN.  Camped there. 7 miles.

     

  5. Day Five: the big finish hike to Avalon.  Got a fancy hotel room there (what an AWESOME way to finish a hike) and had a fancy dinner.  15 miles, which sounds long, but it was probably the easiest hiking leg of the trip.

     

• The TCT has a TON OF ELEVATION and one section in particular is sort of scary.  We were the only people hiking west-to-east and the people we ran across agreed that they would rather have gone “up” the steepest part rather than “down”.  Secondary hint: BRING HIKING POLES.

• February is the PERFECT time to go.  Temps were upper 50s at night and soared to 80 during the day – doing such a strenuous activity, had it been any hotter we would have died.  Also we were stunned by how few people we encountered – I guess Californians still consider 70 degrees to be “winter”.  Here’s proof:

• We brought a few of the expensive freeze-dried pre-packaged meals with us (first time ever using them – they tasted pleasantly okay and I’m watching amazon for deals to stock up) because we were a) flying to LA and b) were REALLY conscientious of our pack weight.  But otherwise, we were able to have a food-purchasing pitstop every day!
  1. Two Harbors has a grocery store, a restaurant, AND THEY SELL BEER.  It’s $4+ for a can, BUT IT’S BEER.
  2. Airport In The Sky was a GREAT picturesque, beautiful stop for us.  Our food was fantastic, the beers were good, and we sat there playing Magic: The Gathering for a few hours (to the amusement of bus tourists).  Meanwhile we were in stitches over the tourists’ argument about whether they should feed the skinny foxes because they were “so malnourished” despite the numerous “DO NOT FEED THE FOXES” signs. (um hello – they are so thin because they’ve learned to be dependent on you for their food.  Stop feeding them and they’ll figure it out!)
  3. Avalon has dozens of restaurants, but the BEST was The Lobster Trap.  SO GOOD.
• I mailed myself a box with sandals and a clean outfit for each of us to Avalon via general delivery.  I can’t believe I’ve never done this before – it was soooooo good to put on truly CLEAN clothes after taking a shower.

  

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  Some other random things:

I realized during this hike that my pack wasn’t … quite RIGHT.  Afterwards I had a professional pack fitting and discovered that my pack was TOO BIG for my body, so I doubled-down and bought the Osprey Ariel. We had such a good time on this trip and we’re so motivated to do another one, so the hefty price tag should be worth it.

I convinced Justin to tack on three extra days in LA (one day prior to the hike and two days post-TCT) because I had never been.  LA is weird!  I LOVED Venice Beach.  Such EXCELLENT people watching!

If you go, you MUST eat at Poke-Poke.  I shouldn’t even say “eat at” because it’s not a restaurant – it’s like a pick-up window.  This was the BEST meal of the trip, and one of the cheapest to boot.

Another lesson learned: LA and Catalina are EXPENSIVE.  We cut costs by only taking public transportation or bike-renting, staying in a hostel, and oh yeah CAMPING for four days but we still went 30% over our planned budget.

I don’t think we ordered a beer in a restaurant cheaper than $9, which I hadn’t anticipated.  The Catalina restaurants and grocery stores can charge a bunch because where else are you gonna go on an island?!  Our lunch at Airport in the Sky was about $70.

I’m someone that likes knowing ALL THE DETAILS, so I’ll just give you the numbers: our trip was about $2200 total for 8 days, 7 nights, one couple.

• Airfare was free thanks to my credit card miles
• Ferry rides were $150 total
• Hotels were about $450 ($75 for San Pedro, we splurged on a $165 hotel in Avalon, and the hostel for two nights was $210.  Yes, for a HOSTEL)
• Camp fees and firewood was $220 (a little beef I have with the Catalina Conservancy – you pay per PERSON to camp, instead of paying a set fee for the whole site.  It’s different in Minnesota)
• $90 for the museum and aquarium
• $30 TOTAL for transportation (buses, bikes)
• All the rest was food and drink.  We bought a six-pack at the Two Harbors general store (let’s be honest: we would have bought more but remember we had to CARRY IT 6 miles) that was $30 because we drink craft beer, not Miller Lite.  (I acknowledge Lime-A-Ritas are not craft beer but they ARE like Gatorade because of their saltiness so that practically makes them a vitamin).  That’s an average of $150/day!!  But we ate WELL because we were on VACATION.  I wouldn’t do it differently; I would just plan ahead better.

So what WOULD we do different?  For the hike – I’d maybe pick a different campsite for the first two nights because it was really hard to get the campfire going in our wind-tunnel cove, but that’s about it.  Otherwise it was PERFECT.  For LA, I could’ve cut a day off and I’d skip the Museum of Natural History (it was conveniently right on our bus line) because it was really shabby and just made me feel … bad?  I wish we had gone to the Museum of Jurassic Technology instead but it’s hours just weren’t compatible with our free time.