Why I’m hiking the PCT

The Pacific Crest Trail is an approximately 4265 km hiking trail that runs from the Mexican border all the way to the Canadian border in the US. It winds through spectacular national parks in California, Oregon and Washington, varying between desert, mountains and rainforest. Hikers usually take around 5 months to complete this epic trek. And this year, I’ll be among the ranks of these brave and foolish souls.

After months and months of reading about the trail, buying a completely new gear setup and mentally preparing for the fact that I’ll be living in a tent for almost half a year, I’m ready to set out on April 22. What possesses me to trade the comforts and conveniences of home for the stinky (and often miserable) existence of a thru hiker? Honestly, I don’t have a clear singular answer that can be put in words and I don’t think I need one. When people ask me for my motivation, I often tell them different things. For one, I simply love hiking, so it only makes sense in my head that I at least try to take it to the extreme one time (and hopefully more times if this venture ends successfully). During my exchange in Australia I discovered that there is something magical about being outdoors for multiple uninterrupted days.
Slowly but surely, your body adapts to the cycle of walking, eating and sleeping, footfalls in step with the rhythm of the land. The constant background noise of society recedes and your senses sharpen. Rain makes you grit your teeth and doggedly march on along the path, while sun is greeted with a burst of joy. The gap between human and nature closes and the everyday miracle of the abundance of life on this world becomes something special and tangible again. I always felt completely at peace when I was on the trail. Every time at the end, after 5-10 days, I felt like I was yanked away from the place I wanted to be, only to be put back in a way of living that, for all its complex constructs and rapid pace of progress, seemed to have forgotten something very essential. Being in this state of mind for a longer period of time is something that attracts me, something I feel I am very much in need of at this point in my life.

Besides that, the romance of leading a nomadic life, carrying all my necessary belongings on my back, is very enticing. Moving every day, noticing the slow change of the landscape, passing by people and hearing their story.. Although I realize this might be a naïve thought and that there will be weeks that I’ll curse my foolish past self for abandoning the safety and warmth of a house.

Lastly, there’s the unexplainable gut feeling that this is simply something that I have to try and hopefully, grow from. And I don’t mean going on a whole spiritual, ‘finding out who I am’ kind of journey. No, more that the combination of the weird and wonderful people that I’m undoubtedly going to meet, the immersion of living in the wild and the many unexpected things I’ll come across along the way will change me and help me find my path in life.

I think ultimately, there can be no good, rational reason according to our society’s norms for why one might want to do this. I’m abandoning a stable, good job and will have no income for a significant amount of time. I’m at the age where peers buy a house, start a family and get promoted in their jobs. I’ll have none of those things at the end of the year and I couldn’t care less. Going on the trail and trying to live off the bare minimum is my answer to an increasingly urbanized society that seems completely enamored with a destructive form of consumerism. I won’t change the world, I might not even convince a single person to change their mind, but I can choose to say no to it all in my own way. I can’t put into words what it means to wake up in the morning in the bitter cold and see the sunrise over the mountain peaks. I can describe the species of trees, the types of rock and the hues of light that pass over the surroundings and completely miss the point of what makes all of it special. Nature, just like any good piece of art, needs to be experienced to be understood (certainly not read about in blog posts of dubious origin). If you know what this means, then you need no further words from me to understand why this is a journey worth taking and if you don’t, then I have no means of explaining it better.

In a way, it is a little sad that these ‘why I’m doing long distance hike x’ articles are so prevalent (and I’m certainly not helping in that regard). Should the idea of being out in nature for extended periods of time really come across as that outrageous? Do we really need long justifications on why we want to get away from all the noise, stress and endless streams of useless information in our daily lives?

In an ideal world the only right answer to the question ‘Why do you want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail?’ is ‘because I want to’.

And that should be all there is to it.