Mexico Vacation Destinations - Adventures In The West - Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike

So I will mostly hit a few highlights and share some thoughts and feelings. That is the main reason it has taken me so long to get around to writing this - it seemed like an overwhelming task. Most of my daily journal entries are about a page each. How do you put a five-month hike into a trip report of a few pages?

One trip and I was hooked on that too. I had been brought up camping but had never done any backpacking before. Including to the Grand Canyon, jason also organized a few camping trips and backpacking trips. This was the start of my love of hiking. So became a regular on the hikes as well, and enjoyed the mountains and the other group activities, and rock climbing; roller blading, i was already mountain biking. Just north of Los Angeles, usually in the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains, started leading monthly hikes for the group, one of the class members, jason. A suburb of Los Angeles, for me it started when I was active in the singles group of my church in Manhattan Beach. Why do you climb mountains, it's like asking a mountain climber. Most thru-hikers get asked that question over and over. Why would anyone want to spend five months walking from Mexico to Canada?

And some money in the bank from selling my house when I went to Peru, no mortgage or other expenses, no job, the timing all came together. I started making plans to thru-hike the PCT, knowing that my term would be up in January of 2006, in 2005. That turned into a three-year stint the following year. In the summer of 2002 I went to Peru on a two-week hiking mission trip. Harder and more frequent, i joined an adventure racing club and the outdoor activities progressed to longer, in the years that followed. When I found out that it went from Mexico to Canada I thought that would be something fun to do someday. And hike on part of the Pacific Crest Trail, we would see signs for, on many of the hikes in the Angeles National Forest.

Most of the way to the Oregon border, the other one, but I hiked with go-Big, two of them were section hiking and one had to stop due to injury. I did slow down and started hiking with four other people, cA, after leaving Big Bear. Which was one of my goals for the hike, i also realized that I needed to slow down and spend time with other hikers if I wanted to make friendships. After two weeks I had to take a few days off to let the blisters heal. And wasn't making any friendships with other hikers, i was also hiker faster than most of the others so I was passing a lot of people but not spending much time with them. And then I started getting blisters, the first week went well. I was trying to finish in four months and I had already purchased my return ticket to Peru based on that schedule. I started my hike on April 28 at the Mexican border.

The town stops were frequent and gave us time to relax with other hikers as well. They were also broken up with the snowy mountains and beautiful trees. And they provided bonding experiences, they didn't last forever, and yet they had their own beauty. And many times carried three to four liters of water, we had to constantly be aware of where our next water source would be. I told myself then that I never wanted to hike them again; the desert areas of Southern California were hard.

But the teamwork was amazing and we did it together, we had a few close calls and some struggles. They turned out to not be as terrible as I had expected. Icy cold rivers, my greatest fear before starting the hike was crossing the rapid flowing. And to help and depend on each other, and we learned to work together as a team, each of us had strengths and weakness. So it became a very international experience, and half were from other countries. Half of us were from the U.S. A group of 12 of us left Yosemite together - The Dirty Dozen! I spend varying amounts of time with other hikers as well, along the way. I hiked together with them the rest of the way to Canada. We met Swiss Miss and Pang, just after we started the High Sierra.

Without bothering to treat the water, we often drank directly from springs and the snow melt streams. We got spoiled by only having to carry a liter or two of water. One thing we didn't have to worry about was water. I had crampons at the beginning of the Sierras but soon lost them off the back of my pack before I ever used them. And to confirm which was the right pass a few times, mostly we did it with map and compass but we did use a GPS some to pinpoint the trail location. And no experience navigating when the trail was covered with snow most of the day, i had very little experience hiking in deep snow. Sometimes only getting down below snow level in the evening to camp, so we spent about a month hiking through snow, in a very heavy snow year, we entered the Sierra Nevada on June 11.

When you can actually walk on the trail, i would like to go back and hike the John Muir Trail (most of which is the same as the PCT) in the fall. We did get tired of the snow and needing to be constantly on the search for the trail. But surprisingly it wasn't much of a problem, and much of Washington from the rain and new snow, we had wet feet the whole way through the Sierras from the snow and river crossings. Except the Europeans who wore mountaineering boots, almost everyone used trail running shoes. Along with post holing in the soft snow in the afternoons, the sun cups were one of the biggest problems. They were used mostly for digging cat holes, we carried ice axes but after the first couple of passes.

Similar to when a mountaineer reaches the top of the mountain, that is the thru-hiker's "summit" moment. And get our pictures at the border monument, we were able to finish at the official terminating point, unlike some just ahead of us. But the final section before the Canadian border reopened just before we got there, we did have to skip a section in Oregon due to fires. For the last month we weren't sure we would be able to finish the trail at Manning Park. And closed trails and detours, beautiful sunsets, causing hazy skies, shasta on we had numerous forest fires. From Mt. But I never got tired of the continually changing and always beautiful scenery, it took three months and one week to reach Oregon, you realize how long California is when you hike the whole way.

But our minds keep wandering back to the trail, at least our bodies were, now we were home. Eating and sleeping, when our main concerns for so long were just walking, and then came trying to go back to a "normal" life. Five months going by in fast reverse in a couple of hours, it's hard to describe the feeling of watching the mountain peak landmarks pass below on the flight back to L.A! Not wanting to say goodbye and go home, we spent a couple of days there. No descend time to unwind, with nowhere to go, the hike ended on an emotional high, who still has to get down the mountain after the summit, unlike the mountaineer. Except for the very emotional goodbyes, and then it was all over, oregon was only three weeks and Washington took four weeks.

It's easy to forget the hard times and only remember the good, but rewarding experiences, of course like most difficult. Just writing this and thinking about it causes me to get emotional and longing for the "simple" life on the trail. I wish I could grab my backpack and head back to the trail, and every time I do, or watching someone's slide show, it's been 11 months since I finished the hike and I can still spend hours looking through some of the thousands of photos. But I'm sure it will happen, when and where I don't know. It is only alleviated to some degree by going on another long hike. I have the disease and there is no cure. There is a common disease that affects many long distance thru-hikers. I understand what they mean but I have a problem with that. Many people have commented on it as being "The trip of a lifetime".

And then to each one that He provided to make the hike such a wonderful experience, i give thanks to God first. Even through the difficult times, others added a rich dimension to the experience and made it a delight. I could not have completed the hike without the help of many of those I spent a lot of time hiking with. Hardships and dangers of the trail made for deep and lasting bonds, the shared experiences of the joys, the friendships made on the hike are very special. God showed me His faithfulness and provision every step of the way. It was an experience I will never forget. Took 151 days, canada, british Columbia, from the Mexican border to Manning Park.

Please click on the following link: there is one available at Summit Post, if you would like to see a photo album of the hike,

http://www.summitpost.org/album/288745/Pacific-Crest-Trail.html