The Pacific Crest Trail

The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is a National Scenic Trail that travels from the U.S./Mexico border through California, Oregon, and Washington to the U.S./Canada border. This 2,650 mile trail runs through forty eight wilderness areas, twenty five national forests, six national parks, five national monuments, and five state parks. In 2017, the Pacific Crest Trail Association issued 6,069 permits for people to use the trail. This year two friends and I will be a part of those 6,000+ visitors on the trail.

Hiking the PCT has been a constant idea since about sophomore year in college. I first heard about the PCT from my mom when she read Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild. My mom thought hiking the trail was something I would love to do and after looking up the trail myself, I instantly agreed with her. I brought up the trail to two of my friends and while they’ll both tell you different versions about how we decided to go, hiking the PCT eventually became an idea we intended to make a reality.

The two people I’m going with are some of my very good friends, Nick Schierl and Charles Starr. We’ve known each other since freshman year of college and thus we’re fairly confident that we won’t kill each other by the end of the trip. They have both read this paragraph and are convinced we will kill each other.

That being said, this blog will follow along with our adventures, mishaps, and many pictures as we attempt to hike the entire PCT. We are leaving April 9^th and we must be finished and off the trail by October 1^st. If we hike without any rest days we would need to hike 15.1 miles per day. Once underway, we plan to hike 20+ miles for the majority of our hike. There will be many towns to stop at along the way, so this trip will really consist of multiple trips that are five to nine days.

Why Even Go?

As our start date approaches, this is a question of which I constantly ask myself; some days I’m confident in my answers and other times I’m not sure my reasons are enough. I have a few reasons, but this quote a friend shared with me sums up my main reason:

“I don’t like either the work [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’ Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which the passed asked where they were going they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre’, ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.” -John Muir

I love the outdoors more than I could possibly explain and because of this my experiences outdoors are the closes thing I can relate to having a religion. This whole trip for me is bordering on a spiritual walk and to be in “awe” as many times as possible of a piece of land that I love so much. There will also be days that I will hate everything about being outside, but knowing the potential opportunities of places I will see makes it all worthwhile.

Counting Down the Days

While I still haven’t really accepted that we’re leaving yet, our final preparations and planning are starting to make the trip feel a bit more real (but only a bit). With our start date less than two weeks away, we’ve been meeting more often to make sure we’ll be set to go. My next post will be a compilation of all my gear (sort of a last minute, peace of mind check for me) right before we leave for our trip.