Like many wild ideas, they rarely tumble towards reality from a single moment or event. However, there are often pivotal events that start the pondering rolling.
Thinking back to this moment, standing on Old Snowy in the Goat Rocks Wilderness at the end of July 1981 the summer I was 7 years old and the year after Mt. St. Helens erupted (which I’m looking towards here, still steaming out of frame while Mt Rainier quietly observes) the seed of this adventure was germinated. It was a scramble to get to the top of this peak just a shade under 8,000 feet during the middle day of a weekend backpacking trip with my Dad. I remember him saying (and the story was told over the years) that maybe I was the first 7 year old ever to make it to the top! Probably not, but I remember thinking “I really like this stuff, even if I get tired and dirty”. The PCT passes below this peak, the highest point it reaches in Washington state and I remember being curious about such a long trail.
Backpacking in alpine country in Washington was central to our family’s recreation and bonding growing up, and I took this into adulthood, solo, with friends, family, and eventually my own children. There are countless beautiful places, but most years I make I pilgrimage back to the Goat Rocks, and always a special visit on milestone birthday (which by coincidence of birth, is when the weather is most ideal). While contemplating on a ridge above Goat Lake during the minutes I turned 40 in September 2013, in the midst of some major life changes, I set a goal to structure my life path to do a full PCT Thru Hike and in 2023 and end up in this very spot as the clock turned over to age 50. It took a lot of work, some luck with career timing, and support of family (especially my parents, my two daughters, their lovely mother, and my exceptional wife) to make this happen. Or rather, the CHANCE to make it happen. I’m prepared to hike all 2,650 miles, or just do as much as my body, Mother Nature, or the whims of the wild world will allow.
But, while the inspiration for the idea is neat—WHY WOULD I DO THIS? Leaving a great life with incredible family, friends, and adventure, while putting a career on hold that funds that life? For all these wonderful things, I believe a life worth living has moments for great leaps where there is risk and fear involved to pursue a dream and do something that brings deep satisfaction. Some suffering is almost always the price, and this is the type of suffering worth (deliberately) enduring. The physical environment also a centerpiece to me – several times people have suggested: How about try the Appalachian Trail with the California weather this year? I like day-hiking there and short visits but my soul is tied to the American West. From the deserts to the forests to the sacred alpine environments were life exists on the edge, the places the PCT winds through.
No matter how far I make it, I’ll be grateful for each minute I can spend out in the unique air of this fabulous corner of Earth. I’m also most at peace when moving, and at a human pace, connected to the ground, whether walking to Starbucks from my house on a sidewalk, meandering the crowded streets of Hanoi, or walking on fresh lava in Iceland. This journey is the ultimate dream walk in my novel.
Finally, in a world full of so much good stuff, great people, entertainment, things to do and improve, and endless distractions, I feel a powerful drive to live with fewer clouds and distractions in my mind by the brute force of finishing long days of hiking exhausted and having to carefully limit any electronics time I do have to preserve precious battery life. I hope to come home with a few epiphanies to strike an ever better balance our modern distracted world.