I was 19 years old doing trail work on the Pacific Crest Trail for the Forest Service just north of Crater Lake when the idea of an extended trip on the Pacific Coast Trail walked up to me. The hiker approaching us had tennis shoes on, he walked in long strides, and he had a deep tan. He had begun in Mexico and made it 1,800 miles north of the border — his only vice was a hand-held radio.
Seven years later, my hiking vice was a 12-pound guitar I made in the EMU Craft Center and finished in San Diego on the beach before picking up the trail five miles north of the Mexican border in California. I took a Greyhound bus out of San Diego to El Cajon. My Greyhound driver in San Diego told me that eight years ago he had taken a backpacker to El Cajon with a large walking staff just like the one I was carrying.
“The difference between you and him — he was blind,” he said.
I felt my apprehension ease a little.
All 2,650 miles of the PCT are routed on or just off the crest of the mountain chains that run from Mexico to Canada. Short sections of the trail are easily accessible and can make nice day hikes or weekend forays. With its dramatic elevation changes and formidable length, the trail passes through six out of seven of North America’s ecozones. It zigzags along quiet ridges, skirts towering peaks, meanders along quiet streams and rushing rivers, plummets into desert valleys, chases high alpine lakes and brushes past secluded, quirky towns and small communities.
June 19 — It was late in the year for a thru-hiker to begin the PCT. In other years it is unheard of, but I had read
reports that Southern California had received plenty of late-season precipitation so I was optimistic. But when my neighbor dropped me off in Barstow with 70 pounds of unsorted gear, I became uneasy and started to wonder if I was more naive than ambitious.
The flames were licking at my toes. It was 105 degrees that day. I mailed my sleeping bag 500 miles ahead when I made it to San Diego — beginning my trek with a stupid calculation.
The southern section of the trail rarely holds its elevation for more than 20 miles, which means a sometimes unnervingly high number of slow-paced uphill grinds and downhill coasts. I was fine at night when I was in the chaparral and the foothills, but anytime I had to camp above 7,000 feet, my sleep was fitful. I learned to crawl into my guitar bag at night, and with dirty socks on my hands and a thick sweatshirt, I stayed warm enough. I bought a lightweight blanket at a second-hand store, which made the remaining nights more bearable until I was reunited with my sleeping bag.
The terminus of the PCT sits on the border one mile south of sparsely populated Rancho Del Campo. After absorbing three days of urban myths in San Diego about bandits and robbers ambushing unsuspecting recreationalists on and around the border, I decided Lake Moreno was close enough.
I studied the first 100 miles of the trail on the map to Warner Springs, the first resupply access point, where I picked up my first food drop at the post office. Water is the biggest concern in the desert for backpackers, second is food, third is blisters and fourth is rattlesnakes. It’s a simple life. That’s part of the allure. Most backpackers mail food ahead to post offices in small towns off the trail.
I stepped off the bus at Lake Moreno, close to El Cajon, and all my worries evaporated. There was a slight late afternoon breeze blowing in. I found the signature PCT trail marker and made my first steps on the celebrated trail.
It was incredibly easy to wander off the PCT in the desert section of Southern California. There are hundreds of Jeep roads, ATV trails and spur trails that crisscross the PCT. The first time I lost the trail, I continued on a gravel road that eventually led me back to the trail 10 miles later, smack dab in the middle of the annual 50-mile PCT race at the refreshment tent. It was 95 degrees, and my pack straps were digging into my shoulder blades. They filled my water bags with ice.
The trail is routed from water source to water source. I was carrying about two gallons of water a day for drinking and cooking and was easily using as much along the first leg of the trail. There were water caches in some of the hottest and driest parts of the trail. They would usually consist of a dozen or so gallon jugs of water strung together with long pieces of twine. On more than one occasion I found these caches at crucial hours of the day.
Jackie, a school teacher in Washington, and Todd Sinclair, a gym teacher in New York, caught up with me 130 miles north of the border. Jackie and Todd had both hiked half of the trail in previous years and were determined to link up with where they left off in Northern California. Most thru-hikers will hike south to north to avoid the snow and ice of the mountains. Jackie and Todd had both walked the 2,167 mile-long Appalachian Trail on the East Coast.

“I’d walk straight through Hell if this trail took me there,” Jackie said.
Without the guidebooks, it would take months of dedicated research to chart the trail as it cuts across a checkerboard of private property and National Forest. It would be equally difficult to locate often obscured water sources on, around and off of the trail. Most hikers tear the pages out and carry the needed sections in plastic Ziploc bags to save on weight — every ounce counts. Lightweight backpacking becomes a way of life for most thru-hikers. Many PCT-ers will have ridiculously light pack weights of 25 pounds and under.
My first crop of blisters was just popping up then, on my heels, my toes and on the balls of my feet. Jackie was using duct tape instead of moleskin. I started using duct tape over my bandages. It worked surprisingly well. Bandages and moleskins have a
tendency to sweat and rub off.
One evening in the San Jacintos, the second mountain range north of the border, we were panting up a steep pitch on our way to Cedar Spring and came to a clearing where we could see into the distance. There it was — civilization — pulsing like the Milky Way, an orange river of light — Palm Springs. It was my first 30-mile day.
A thru-hiker will usually cover an average of 15-20 miles a day, the pace that needs to be sustained to finish the trek in the small window of time afforded in the summer season, with a day of rest once or twice a week. On the trail the less zero days the better.
I started out walking 12-16 miles a day. After meeting up with Jackie and Todd and lightening my load I was walking 20-25 miles a day. I walked 200 miles with them until I sprained my ankle. On the same day I slipped on a rock and smashed my guitar to smithereens. I spent four hours in the dark trying to mend it with chute chord next to Deep Creek, 10 miles south of Deep Creek Hot Springs. Smashing my guitar was a blessing in disguise, really — my pack was too heavy.
My ankle was badly bruised, but I could still walk. I stayed with a PCT host family in Wrightwood. There is a hidden support network along the PCT. Not only are there water caches, but there are families who host filthy, bedraggled hikers. I nursed my injury in their hot tub, open on the porch under the desert sky.
Todd had an old trail-worn pair of trekking poles sent to me in Agua Dulce, a small town 400 miles north of the border. I was a throwback to the 1970s with my wooden hiking staff. The trekking poles help sustain a pace and give extra support on hills. Practically all thru-hikers on the PCT use them.
The poles helped me sustain my longest day on the trail of 33 miles through the most dreaded section of the trail that crosses the Mojave Desert through Antelope Valley. It was on that day that I met the horse that starred in the movie “Seabiscuit” as I was crossing one of the largest cattle ranches in the United States.
I didn’t see a soul on the trail for the last 400 miles of my walk. I made it to Lone Pine, trail-beaten and weary. Mt. Whitn
ey is the highest peak in the lower 48 states of the U.S. I waited there, covered from head to toe in poison oak, for my dad and sister to arrive. My sister said I looked like Tarzan. A layer of dust and trail grime had settled into every crevice of my gear, and I had refined an unsophisticated habit of kneading my new beard.
We picked up the trail where I had left off and headed for Mt. Whitney, weaving through majestic natural amphitheaters concealing hidden lakes and creeks. Towering granite columns dappled with gnarled foxtail pines jutted above the afternoon shadows at the edge of the trail.
As I sat in Espresso Roma recounting my travels with a friend, I grew nostalgic for the mountains. Jackie said he liked the quietness and long conversations. Todd was addicted to the movement and the momentum that it takes to walk the PCT. I spent $600 on food for the two months I was on the trail but I only made it halfway to Highway 58, 1,700 miles north of the border — my ultimate goal. The top shelf of my pantry is still full of low-budget trail food, and my ankle aches occasionally, but I like the reminders. The slow, subtle surprises around every bend of the PCT will someday lead me back to where I left off.