Though I was still not able to stay consistent with posting after every "hike," the space between these posts will start to become shorter and shorter as I have pretty much fully committed myself to getting back out west on the Pacific Crest Trail this year. I read once that if you have a monumental goal you want to accomplish in life there are two ways to go about it, both with their advantages and their faults.
The first way is to keep it primarily to yourself and just keep plugging away at it. The benefit to this method is that if for some reason you do not succeed in accomplishing what you set out to do, you are pretty much the only one who knows about it and can try again in the future without anyone being the wiser. The disadvantage of this method is that if nobody else knows about it, and there is nobody else to push you, psychologically it is easier on a person to give up because nobody knew what you were trying to accomplish in the first place, and you could always try again later.
The second way is to tell EVERYBODY what you are trying to accomplish. The benefit of this method is that the more people you tell, the more support you have to get to your end goal. If people are constantly inquiring about your goal, it makes it a lot easier to stay focused on the finish line and getting there by whatever means necessary. The disadvantage of this method though is a social one. The more people you tell, the bigger the goal gets and the farther the fall if you are unable to reach it. Setting a goal is a personal thing. If you want to accomplish anything in life you have to do it for you and only you first. However, other people can become invested in your goals as well, and if you fail to accomplish them, you may feel like you are letting those people down as well.
I am choosing the second method.
This summer I will be setting foot back on the Pacific Crest Trail. I have not seen the trail since I was forced off of it in 2008. That year I started from the Mexican Border and hiked 558 miles (with some fire detours) to Tehachapi-Willow Springs Rd. This is where an infected blister forced me off of the trail for 10 days. When I was all healed up, I skipped ahead to Kennedy Meadows as so I could continue hiking with the people I had hiked all the way through the desert with. Kennedy Meadows is roughly at Mile 704 of the PCT. Once back on the trail I was able to hike into the Sierra Mountains, summit Mount Whitney, and make my way through Forester Pass which is the highest point of the trail. My next resupply was out through Kearsarge Pass and into the towns of Independence and Bishop. This is where my hike ended. By this time the medical bill had rolled in from my little trip to the ER for my infected blister. I had the money to pay the bill, and I probably still could have made it to Canada, but not hiking the hike that I wanted to. I didn't want to have to penny pinch, and forego anything on this adventure. So I decided to call it quits and try to get back out and try it again another year. Meanwhile 8 years have gone by.
My goal this year is not as grandiose as it was in 2008. My goal this year is to finish California. For me this means a total of 1077 Miles. This includes the 146 miles I "skipped" in 2008, and then hitching around from Kennedy Meadows to Kearsarge Pass and heading north all the way to Ashland, Oregon. If I get to Ashland, and I have the time, money and weather window to keep going, I will. Otherwise Oregon and Washington can wait for another year, and I will be OK with that.
I hike these long trails for me, and nobody else. There are many people who think I am crazy to just quit my job to go hiking with no real plan on what to do when I am done. All I tell people who ask is that I will figure it out when the time comes. I have never felt as free and alive in the real world as Todd, as I do in the outdoors miles away from civilization as Patch.
Right now my tentative start date is June 11th from Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road. There are still a few possible changes that could come before then. If the snow pack starts decreasing pretty rapidly over the next few weeks, I may even move my schedule up a week and start of June 4th. The other possibility I am going to consider is instead of hitching from KM to Kearsarge, I may jut re-hike the 90 miles in between. The main reason for this would be to get my body acclimated to the elevation over a few days.
I feel like this was a good enough update. I will try to keep everybody up to date soon with my pre-hike activities including hopefully finishing up another long trail as I train.
Thanks for reading, and I will see you on the trail...
Patch
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