He Had a Dream...
- Sherry
- Sep 23, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 30, 2019
It all started one morning earlier this year on the boat. Jim prefaced his conversation with some warnings about me not liking what he was going to suggest and that it may seem crazy, but asked me to hear him out. I warily agreed. He said that he had a dream last night (he did not say anything about the contents of his dream), and that because of this dream he wanted us to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail that runs about 2600 miles from the Canadian to the Mexican border through Washington, Oregon, and California. I agreed that it might be possible, but that I needed to do some research first.
Once we returned to our cabin in New Mexico this spring, I began doing some research. As it turns out, there are very large portions of the trail that do not allow dogs which makes the PCT undoable for us as long as Lily remains a part of our family. Jim, however, was not to be deterred from his goal of backpacking a monumental thru-hike. So we start researching the Appalachian Trail, a mere 2,200-mile long trail that passes through 14 states in the East Coast. There are only two small sections of the trail that do not allow dogs, which makes it possible for us to board Lily while we hike those sections.
So, guess what? We are hiking the AT next Spring…or at least we are going join the thousands of hikers who set out to do and hope to be among the 20% who actually complete it. For those who do hike the entire trail, it takes on average about 6 months. That’s 6 months, on the trail, walking 10 to 20 miles a day, and sleeping in a tent. I don’t mind admitting that underneath the excitement of planning an adventure of such enormous and overwhelming proportions, I am a little bit terrified! But as our research and planning continues, our commitment to hiking the AT grows stronger.
Worried about the physical challenge of hiking over 2000 miles, I felt that we needed to amp up our fitness routines. We typically do a trail run of 2 to 6 miles every other day with occasional day hikes as time allows, but have not done any multiple day hikes with fully loaded packs in quite some time. So our training regimen begins by adding a hiking day (carrying a light pack), in between our running days. Sure I’ve taken a few tumbles…yep, never had a splinter in my face before! And I learned a valuable lesson after tumbling downhill after tinkling, trapping my hand in my trekking pole (which I landed on), pants down, feet in the air. Besides superficial injuries (including those to my pride), no real damage has occurred, so the next logical step was to plan an extended backpacking trip.
I’ll be posting a blog summarizing our first extended hike soon…
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