Bibbulmun Track Unsupported FKT
As far as I know, for reasons that are now apparent to me, no one had even tried to hike the Bibbulmun Track in an unsupported style prior to my attempt. It was the hardest thing I’ve done on two feet.
Before the hike.
While hiking the PCT our group came across a hiker who was intentionally going heavyweight to spite the now dominant ultralight crowd. When one ultra lighter told him that he wouldn’t make it, he went out and bought the biggest can of gas he could find, just as a fuck you. It weighed about a kilo and he already had about half a kilo of gas on him at that time. His pack was 70 pounds (31 kg). He was slow, injured and skipping massive sections of trail. That might have given me pause for thought. We joked about how long we could go without resupplying while carrying the same weight. It would be about a month. It was about then I started wondering how far you could go without resupplying and without really knowing it, the seeds of my stupidest idea yet were sown. And when I found that an unsupported hike of my home trail the Bibbulmun Track had yet to be completed… well, that was too tempting to deny for long. Doing something that no one had ever done, nor probably even tried and maybe even thought about was a big part of the inspiration for actually trying it.
Such a hike is not unprecedented. The AZT is 1,300 km and has been hiked unsupported first by Ben Broady in 28 days (46 km/day) then by Heather Anderson (Anish) in 24 days (54 km/day). I’m just going to stress here briefly how much harder these two hikes were than what I did. Not only the extra time on trail, much heavier starting weight but the AZT has an extra 10k m elevation gain and some nasty water carries (unsupported hikers can’t use water caches that most other hikers rely on). It was nice to know that I wasn’t trying the obscenely impossible.
Preparation
Before this trip I was in relatively good hiking shape. Within the last two years having ticked off the Te Araroa, Bibbulmun, and the PCT covering roughly 8000 km across these hikes. None of these trails were completed particularly fast, I was mainly hiking with other people in a fairly typical fashion. Enjoying long breaks, plenty of rest days and a very light pack. With my camera I usually hike with a kit that’s about 4-5 kg base weight. Still I think coming right off the PCT and starting this endeavour after a few weeks off was as good a base of training as I was likely to get any time soon.
I did something of a training hike a week before starting. I filled the pack with spare clothes and around a dozen tins of beans until it got to 17 kg and went on an overnighter. I covered just under 100 km over the two days but it was near relatively flat Dwellingup. While I felt fairly good on this hike it was quite a bit harder than I expected. It was actually just a slog and every step felt like I was hiking uphill. But I didn’t injure myself so my confidence actually grew. I do confess however I did honestly get a little bit scared. It was the first time it became apparent just how much pain I would have to go through. And that was quite daunting.
Planning
Once I had decided to take on the Bib unsupported it was time to bring out the spreadsheets and scales. This hike required a fairly high level of planning and logistics. It wasn’t as simple as loading up with a bunch of food and going for it.
On the Bibbulmun there are large swathes of trail that are situated within areas that you cannot camp in, outside of the official shelter/camp areas which are excepted. Specifically, the Bibbulmun Track Foundation notes that camping in Public Drinking Water Source Areas, National Parks, Conservation Reserves and Nature Reserves is not allowed. This is just in keeping with the state policy regarding allowed activities within these legislated lands. These shelters are roughly 20 km apart, although this does vary and the distance is much shorter towards the ends of the trail, particularly in the north. The trail also goes through towns, which presumably were treated as ‘shelters’ by the foundation as the usual 20 km between shelters also applies to towns. But the towns don’t have free and public camping options, so for the unsupported hiker there are 40 km or so gaps on occasion where you simply cannot sleep anywhere. If planned poorly this could mean you’d be forced to decide between a 40 km day (much too short) or a 80 km day (much too long).
So I mapped out everywhere along the trail where free camping was and was not allowed and put together an itinerary that was as close as possible to the distances I wanted to be doing while avoiding the camping dead zones around towns.
The shelters themselves are three sided AT style structures made specifically for Bibbulmun hikers. There are always rainwater tanks here (there is very little reliable water elsewhere), a drop toilet and camping areas.
Food
Food is obviously a massive deal in general when hiking but for an unsupported hike it’s everything. How much you bring determines how long you can take to finish a given trail and therefore how fast you have to go. There is some wiggle room, you can ration if you need to but that sucks. The more food, the more manageable the daily mileage can be and your pace can be slower. But conversely the more food you bring the higher the impact on your muscles and joints from the extra weight, the more energy you expend per mile and the slower you’ll move. So it’s a balancing act.
I decided I really didn’t want to carry more than 19 kg. I could get my base weight safely and comfortably below 4 kg in the spring season I was going for. Which meant 15 kg of food and other consumables. At around 830g of food per day that worked out to a hike duration of 17 days. That would be about 58 km per day which I thought would be easy with a normal pack weight. I didn’t know how much the weight would impact my hiking but decided I’d find out the hard way. Yes I was indeed naive.
As far as what I ate. I am vegan at home and vegan on trails as well. It’s always worked well for me and I’ve never had too hard a time finding suitable food on the hikes I’ve done while rarely having to mail anything ahead. Other than this requirement I’m not fussy. This trip though I focus specifically on higher calorie or easy to eat foods.
I cold soaked dinners for the weight and time savings. Being local it was easy for me to cook and dehy some meals which worked extremely well. Id never cold soaked before but it was so convenient and the meals were delicious. Definitely the right call. I had a a pasta with marinara sauce, zucchini and tvp which I topped with olive oil of course. I cannot begin to adequately describe how good this was as a backpacking meal. The other main meal was a red curry I made with a fat free paste, lentils, sweet potato, fried tofu, fried onions, cashews, coconut cream and rice. Super high calorie and super freaking tasty. Dinners were a huge morale boost. The last water before camp I’d take extra for dinner and eat while I walked around 6 pm, about 2 hours before reaching camp.
The rest of my food I snacked on throughout the day as I walked roughly having 50g of nutrition per hour. This included things like Oreos (4.9 calories per gram), Kookas (4.8), Woolworths granola cookies (4.7), sesame snaps (5.1), BBQ shapes (4.9), muesli bars (4.3), dark almond Whittaker’s chocolate (5.5) and sour patch kids (3.6) to name a few key picks. Anything over 4 calories per gram I considered suitable. You can’t deny the energy boost from the sour patch kids though so despite only being a 3.6 a fair few of them made it into the pack. They’re also maybe the only candy I can get down in bulk. On top of this I also had 150g of electrolyte which I barely used because the flavour was trash and about 100g of instant coffee, which I almost ran out of prematurely. I tried no doz too but only had a few because coffee just worked much better for me.
Gear
The gear I took was fairly minimal but with a focus on prioritising sleeping comfort. I was going to try and rely on getting some very solid sleep to stave off cumulative fatigue. 17 days is a bit long to go 4 hours a night like Tom did on his self supported sub 12 day push on the Bibbulmun. I also just didn’t need to and wasn’t interested in going into that kind of depravation. I ended up sleeping like shit anyway as you’ll find if you read on, but the strategy I don’t think I’d want to change.
The pack I used was borrowed from my friend Brenden who I hiked with for around half of the PCT. It was a SWD long haul and it was absolutely phenomenal. Despite having 4000 km on it before this hike it carried the heavy load like a champ and weighed only a touch above 1.1 kg. Massive thanks to you Brenden. Between sending me the pack from his holiday in Ireland and sending me podcast length voice messages right when I needed them most it was as much support as I could have received without breaking any rules of the unsupported category!
The rest of my gear I’ll link here
LINK LIGHTERPACK
Day 1
After a pretty decent sleep my partner and I woke up at 5 am. I said a fond goodbye to the espresso machine tried not to injure my back transporting the bulging pack into the car.
The fate of this journey was going to be decided one way or another by a war of attrition. I would either slowly devour the beast of a pack or it would slowly or maybe not so slowly pound my body into submission.
After getting a hint of what I was in for on the training hike a week earlier I was not particularly looking forward to this at all. But I was determined to give it my best go and just see how it went. I knew I could make it at least two days, probably three so I’d do that and take it from there.
We got some photos, pressed start on my watch and was off.
Something that became immediately obvious was just how much harder any change in elevation was with the heavy pack. Going down steps one step at a time was out. I was leaning on my poles so much I’m surprised they didn’t snap. My knees were sore and quads were burning in no time. Last year on this hike I didn’t even notice any significant grades. This time I was just getting absolutely wrecked. After about 20 km my feet started to get sore. Id get sore feet normally on the PCT but usually after around 40 km, not a mere 20 km! It was a relatively cool day but I was expending way more energy than I was used to and running super hot. I can usually get by without much water just fine but needed a lot more than I expected despite the cool temp. I ended up taking 5-10 minute breaks every 60-90 minutes just to stave off the fatigue. By 30 km I was well into the pain cave and not enjoying myself all that much to be fair. I wrote one line in my notes for the first day and it was just “got fucked by the hills”.
I came into camp after having struggled on through the last half of the day feeling worn out but accomplished. It was before daylight and maintaining high effort had still managed 3.8 km/hr trail pace for the day (included all breaks). So I had earned plenty of time for sleep. In theory. In reality I laid in bed, all the muscles in my lower body burning in sharp agony for over 3 1/2 hours. I had thought that having used not a small amount of energy throughout the day I’d pass out as soon as I laid down. Instead I groaned in pain and frustration as I furiously tried to sleep. Not a great method for drifting off to sleep but I’d lost my cool after the second hour of being denied any rest. It was also about 10-12 C as I was trying to sleep. It should have been a perfectly comfortable temperature for me in my 5 C quilt. My legs however had lit their own metabolic bonfire and I was sweating uncomfortably all night.
It was at around 11:30 that I was finally allowed to sleep. Five hours before the alarm was due to wake me up.
Just got fucked by the hills
The heavy pck meant I was burning way more energy and was therefor sweating a lot despite the cool temperatures
Coming into camp everything in the lower half of my body was in pain and sore
Got into bed and just lay there unable to sleep for about 3 1/2 until at 11:30 I finally fell asleep. Really should have made a full bug bivy to manage temperature better. My body was very hot.
Day 2
Monodocks and especially Mt cooke made the morning really slow. Was averaging 3.2 kmph after the first 5 hours. Ended up on 3.8 kmph for the day. The rest was a trudge on tires and sore legs. Finished feeling relatively ok.
Day 3
Morning 20 mins in foot felt injured. Massaged and kept going. Got worse. Taped it and it slowly got better over the course of the day. Was slow due to hills and foot
At this point any pretence about getting in front of the schedule or pushing myself was completely out of the window. I was going to do my best to survive and that was it. Every day in theory would be closer to the day that it became easier. I think at the end of this day I wrote in the last shelter log book “tomorrow is a lighter day”. This was more a hopeful plea that maybe tomorrow the lower impact from the slightly reduced weight would finally outpace the cumulative fatigue. But it was not tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.
Day 4
Started with the ant attack at 3am
DBCA had also lifter another diversion the day before
Again hills really effecting my pace. Took a few longer breaks because of the early start
Ended fairly well. A few rubbing spots but body now in a good shape.
Long slow day 15 hrs finished around 7:30
52.6 far out km
Ended up at mt enylm or what ever. Think that make it 200 km for the first four day. It was the hardest four days hiking I’d done unsurprisingly.
Charged my devices overnight so I could charge the power banks tomorrow morning going through town. From here I’d be going through towns every day or two.
Spent three hours groaning in pain and shifting every 2 minutes instead of sleeping. Was too hot and mosquitos destroyed my left hand while it was touching the bug netting and it swelled up.
Day 5
Woke up tired and still in the pain cave.
Both forefeet joints hadn’t fully recovered overnight. It was 11 into dwelly not the 8 I thought so had to delay coffee so I didn’t poop before the public toilets (saves time)
Bad sleep finally catching up to me
Only thing that gave me energy was behind these hazel eyes. What a banger.
Feeling ok till about 30km in and hit a few hills which wrecked me. Legs and feet really sore. Couldn’t deal with the pain mentally so took ibuprofen. Feeling tired from poor sleep
Didn’t like the feeling of ibu. Trudged till after dark. Couldn’t sleep for a couple of hours due to pain, mainly glutes.
Day6
Oh boy. Somehow went the wrong was for 5km. What the fuck. Felt good this morning anyway. Was an actually cold ish in the morning but bag was covered in condensation from sweating. Had to do the extra 10 plus the normal 8 km on about 500ml of water.
Also feeling hungry now.
Did really well for the first 40km thanks good the feet and legs did well. The last 20 were hard and painful still but I’ll take it. Ended with a 15 hr day at 4 ks. Last break before camp I sat down with my pack on and looked at my feet and they looked like they were moving towards me.
Took two iby and a tylenol before camp to help sleep but still was in too much pain to sleep for 2 hours. Got in at 8, bed by half past and sleep after 10:30 pm. First night in shelter and it was busy. Didn’t speak to anyone and didn’t see them in the morning
Day 7.
Woke up and quietly grabbed stuff and left. Had to stop an hour in to grab breakfast out. First no doz of the trail instead of coffee mai my to trail it and see if it has the same butt effect. Seems maybe not. Woke up not injured to couldn’t expect to be better. Rain is coming today though. But at least I started going the right way this morning!
More tired feet and muscles today. No dos isn’t al that. Have a long water carry around collie. 30 km or 38 km between huts. Ugh
Day 16
Day 17
I woke up at the usual 4:30 am. I checked my sleep and only had managed 5 hrs but I didn’t care. I could dose up on caffeine and not suffer any negative effects from sleeplessness. Well at least it wouldn’t impact the hike. There had been no dew overnight so it was a dry pack up, but again I couldn’t have cared either way. My goal today was simply and explicitly, no matter what comes, to just not step on a snake. That was the only thing short of a horrifically broken bone or similar freak accident that would take me off trail. A minor break would have probably been manageable.
I set off at 4:50 am and immediately downed an ibuprofen as my first step on my slightly wounded left forefoot elicited a sharp stabbing pain. Coffee soon followed. This is of course the true breakfast of champions after all.
After an epic sunrise it was a short 5 km or so till the next hut. I topped up on water as the residing hikers dozed on. It was a relatively cruisy morning. The sand felt firmer and the trail seemed like it wasn’t trying to hit every dunal peak and valley. Rounding the headland I had a moment as I saw the wind farm in the distance. This was the last horizon, the end was just behind those turbines around the harbour.
It was high tide but the last beach was firm by southwest standards and I was pleasantly surprised that the Torbay inlet was closed by a somewhat recently formed sand bar. Actually, truth be told, I was fucking ecstatic with that small win. I had just lanced and taped my first blister and this turn of luck also meant I wouldn’t have water seeping into my taped wound.
Clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped as I left the beach and climbed the coastal cliff to the wind farm. In classic Albany fashion it was looking like rain and I watched the weather roll in while making good time across the cliff top. I stopped and chatted to four other hikers finishing their end to end hikes the next morning before leaving sand patch shelter. The last shelter, I realised belatedly a little way down the road. The next shelter I’d sleep in would have four walls and be in a city, that much further removed from the outdoors. Was I missing this suffer fest already? No definitely not, a bed sounds fantastic. But also maybe yes.
I backtracked 2.4 km along the princess harbour footpath (I needed to make up 4.6 km more to balance out the residual difference in detour route lengths to get back to the offical trail distance). In hindsight this was not a good place to do the extra kms. The paved pathway was a hammer to my tender feet. And walking away from Albany as it was in view was disconcerting and sapped my momentum not a little. Somewhere here I ate the last food I had. A packet of sour patch kids. I realised that it was the first time in two and a half weeks that the next thing I ate wasn’t going to have been carried in my pack from Kalamunda. It was silly but I felt a little insecure about this. Did I remember how to acquire new food? Ah yes there’s shops for that.
The new route into town was longer than expected but after a final sunset and short night hike I was beating a fast walk (maybe hobble is more accurate) down the Main Street of town and I found myself standing at the southern terminus. The end of the trail. Huh.
After 16 days, 13 hours, 37 minutes, 982 km, 22,631 m gain, 14.5 kg of food and not nearly enough sleep for this precious pea, it was done. Composure gone, I had an emotion or two, and got some photos of me holding my now comically empty pack. My partner had met me there and made some vegan sausage rolls and procured a celebratory beer, both were summarily devoured. It’s was off to bed but my retrospective excitedness, residual pain, emotional confusion, a bit of shock and copious caffeine meant I slept not at all. But I didn’t really care.
I had given myself a realistic 30% chance of competing this hike. And it was more challenging than I expected. Everyday I felt like I was going to bed and just hoping naively that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning, take a step and realise I was injured and couldn’t continue. After the first day I was thinking of lists of other things I could be doing and even should be doing instead of this ill advised pack haul for when I would inevitably call my partner to bail me out at some far flung dirt road. But somehow, one day at a time, I had made it. I don’t know if I can say I am happy about doing something I am so relieved to be done with. I wouldn’t call a single day of it enjoyable on the whole. There were moments but it was just a bit of a slog. I guess I believe in myself a bit more, know I can push through a reasonable amount of pain and persevere. It was the hardest thing I’ve put myself through. By not a small margin. For whatever value there is in doing hard things for the sake of doing them, I can at least say that I’m proud to have done it.
Detours
