Since I have last written, I finally got a permit close to my intended start date! The day after the January 8 release, someone cancelled, and I grabbed an April 3 permit. I think this is close enough, and so I’m going to start on April 3 instead of April 6.
I think now that it’s officially 2025, and I have a real permit and a real start date, the PCT is starting to feel real. Instead of saying “I’m hiking the PCT next year“, I am saying things like “I’m hiking the PCT in 74 days”, and now I’m starting to freak out a little bit. What did I just sign up for? Am I crazy? What if I can’t do this?
I’ve been training and trying to go on lots of hikes to test out my gear, gain strength hiking with a pack, and get my feet ready. I went on a snowshoe backpacking trip with the Mountaineers a couple weekends ago and that was possibly the first time I really doubted myself and whether I could really do the PCT. The first day of the trip at least.
We only went 3 miles, but it was one of the most strenuous hikes I’ve ever been on. We weren’t on a trail, we were just hiking through feet of powder, up 1000 feet of elevation gain. I fell down a few tree wells, and pulling myself out with my 33 pound pack was exhausting. By the time we got to camp, I was DONE. But setting up a campsite in snow may have been as exhausting as the hike itself. You have to walk around in circles with snowshoes pounding down the snow, then do that with boots, then dig out a site, then set up your tent. Did I mention it was snowing the whole time, quickly undoing my work. We had dinner, and I went to bed at 6pm, exhausted, but I didn’t sleep well. We were camped only about 100 feet away from the PCT, and I stayed awake doubting myself, wondering if I was cut out to do the PCT at all, wondering if I would ever make it back to that point on the trail, wondering if I’d be able to walk all the way home to Washington.
LOL. Forgot to turn off my GPS track while setting up my campsite.
I didn’t write about this in detail, but when I first decided to hike the PCT, I reached out to someone to ask for advice. This person was not a thru hiker, but is experienced in backcountry trekking, climbing etc. He told me, and I’m not paraphrasing here, these are the exact things he said to me:
It would be impossible for you to hike the PCT. You’re not a good hiker. You don’t know anything about backpacking. You don’t have the right gear. You don’t know how to stretch your ligaments properly and you’re going to get injured. Your neck injury won’t let you do this. You aren’t in good enough athletic condition. You’re going to be too slow to finish the trail. You’re going to be too slow to find a tramily and you’re going to be all alone, and you won’t have the mental fortitude to keep going when things get tough. You’re going to fail, and you’re going to fail early in the desert before you even see anything cool and you’re going to be so disappointed in yourself and you’re going to regret it.
Those words have been in the back of my mind for months, and I didn’t believe them until the first day of the snowshoe trip. What if this asshole person was right? But the next day, hiking downhill on our trail from the previous day was WAY easier. We made it back to the trailhead in half the time, and my doubts from the previous day disappeared over beers at a bar in Packwood, where the leader of the trip told me I had done so great for my first snowshoe trip. He joked that my pack wouldn’t be as heavy on the PCT and the conditions would be so much better so if I could do this, I would have no problem. So maybe this trip wasn’t actually a good indicator of whether I could do the PCT or not.
I became Instagram friends with another PCT hiker, “Lava”, who previously hiked the Appalachian Trail and is now doing a southbound (SOBO) PCT hike this year. She offered to do a virtual shakedown, AKA looking at my pack list and “shaking out” unnecessary gear. She told me that “you pack your fears”, and suggested cutting some of the extra first aid and emergency items I had listed. At first, I couldn’t fathom cutting out an emergency sleeping bag, but she said that if I had a 10 degree sleeping bag, did I really need another one? I guess not. I shaved off a few pounds from my pack after that conversation.
On a training hike last week, I went for a 13 mile hike with a 34 pound backpack, which is at the upper limits of how heavy my bag would ever be, but I had to know that I could do it. I packed my fear into that bag and started hiking. By the end of the hike, my left hip was really bothering me. I panicked that my labral tear would take me off the trail before I could even begin. I have a rip in the cartilage in my left hip – a common injury for people with Ehlers Danlos, and a common injury for people who spent years doing ballet, figure skating, soccer, running, and skiing. Did my hip hurt because I am damaged beyond all hope because of this disease? Is my hip just a mess from playing sports my whole life? Or was it understandably just sore from a backpack that was too heavy and poor posture? The day after that hike, my doubts started creeping in again. What if I’m damaged beyond repair? What if I can’t do this?
The person who told me that it was impossible for me to hike the PCT and was going to fail doesn’t know this about me, but I have a superpower. My superpower is that I can keep going. I can keep pushing myself, I can keep getting back up over and over and over again, even when I doubt myself. Even when I fail. Even when I feel like such an imposter. Even when I feel like giving up. Even when a tiny part of me doesn’t believe that I can keep going, I can do it anyway.
After a rest day, my hip felt fine. I have no idea if I will fail. I have no idea if my hip socket will self implode and I’ll finally need surgery. But I can only control the things that I can control. I can control my fears, and I can decide not to pack them and take them with me, metaphorically, and also very literally. I decided that as much as I love my REI backpack, I have to get my pack weight down. I decided to buy a completely new backpack, tent and another lighter weight sleeping bag that I can swap out during the warmer parts of the trail. My base weight is now under 17 pounds. I didn’t want to spend this kind of money on gear, but I think it’s worth it. Maybe I’m a gram weenie now?
I have felt this heaviness on me for the last 10 years, grasping at anything I could control, trying to alleviate the things I was carrying, but it’s time to let go now. Shed my unnecessary items, shed my unnecessary gear, unpacking my fears.
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