Why I Thru Hike with a Stove System
Tommy Corey is an outdoor portrait photographer from Redding, California. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon, working as a freelance photographer for various outdoor companies. His passion for photography started at the age of twelve, when his Dad gave him his 35mm Olympus. From the start, his only interest was portraiture.
Coming out at the age of sixteen, the years leading up to that time was difficult for Tommy. Being a closeted gay pre-teen in a small conservative town meant he had to hide who he truly was; photography was his only source of expressing himself emotionally. While the other kids were at their football games and pep-rallies, Tommy found solace in photographing his friends outdoors.
In his early twenties, he created a humanitarian photo project called “The Self-Worth Project”. In these works, subjects would write their deepest vulnerability somewhere on their body and Tommy would create a story through their portrait. Inspired by a rash of gay teen suicides in late 2010, Tommy took inspiration from his own adolescence to bring light to bullying and mental health.
He decided to hike the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail; a hiking trail spanning from the border of Mexico all the way to Canada. Tommy quit his bartending job, didn’t book any wedding clients and started on a journey of a lifetime in April of 2018.
Along that journey, he created an editorial style photo projected he dubbed “Hiker Trash Vogue”. It featured long distance hikers pretending to be high-fashion models. For the first time in his life, he felt he found his purpose as a photographer. He was integrating the things he loved most: being outside, self-love and photography.
By: Tommy Corey, aka Twerk (@twerkinthedirt)
I thru hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2018, and on top of carrying a 5-lb DSLR camera, a lot of extra clothing and sometimes obnoxious amounts of Top Ramen. Another “luxury” item I carried, and possibly my most prized piece of gear was my Jetboil stove. Surprisingly enough you don’t see a lot of thru hikers carrying stoves along a multi-thousand mile journey. If hikers are carrying stoves, you see tiny pocket stoves or small canisters you fill with your own alcohol. The perk of these is that they are very lightweight, but the biggest flaw is they take a lifetime to boil your water or heat your food.
I am not an ultralight hiker. I would rather carry the few extra pounds to be comfortable, take nice photos, stay warm and have hot food, fast. I carried a Jetboil the entire 2,650 miles of the PCT and had no regrets. At one point I carried a large fuel canister and it lasted me over 800 miles. That’s with boiling water for coffee in the morning and making ramen before bed.
Sometimes other hikers would poke fun at the fact that I carried a “heavy” stove. Ultralight culture revolves around carrying as little and as light as possible. However, I seemed to always be the last one laughing as they waited 20 minutes to warm their dinner at the end of a 25-mile day. I would especially feel smug as I watched others eat their cold-soaked ramen on a chilly evening. With my Jetboil, it was just under two minutes to boil two cups of water, two minutes to soak my ramen in the heated water, and two minutes to scarf it down. The efficiency of my stove was unparalleled to any others I saw on trail or have seen since.
Carrying a Jetboil on a 5.5-month journey changed the course of my life as a thru hiker. I had hot coffee almost every single morning for 175 days which fueled me to hike, sometimes over 30 miles a day. I had hot food, sometimes three times a day, as I traveled farther north and the months grew colder. When I think back to some of the happiest times on the trail, some of those cherished memories were waking up before the sun and drinking hot coffee as I packed up camp - or the nights where I ate my hot ramen in the warmth of my sleeping bag, finally resting my aching feet and sore legs. And while thru hiking is no easy feat, I would fall asleep warm and happy, dreaming of doing it all again the next day.
