Before

Jeff and I met in the summer of 2012 working as tour bus drivers in Alaska for Princess Cruises. It was my second summer as a tour bus driver and it was Jeff’s first. We were based out of different cities (Anchorage for me, Fairbanks for Jeff), but had the good fortune to overlap at the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge one day in late June. Jeff’s tour was going to the port and mine had come from the port. We became inseparable after that first chance encounter and lucked out with 6 more overlapping trips that summer. We also made an effort to see each other every other chance that we could. I think what brought us together was our shared love for the outdoors and hiking. Our first visits together outside of the tourism world were outdoor related. We took our first overnight backpacking trip together in August of that year. I hadn’t done much backpacking before I met Jeff, and I didn’t grow up in an outdoorsy family but at the time I was always day dreaming about meeting someone who would love to backpack with me! Jeff had done a lot of backpacking on his own before meeting me, but not much of very long distance. 

We spent that first winter together backpacking in Patagonia. We loved it so much that we went back for two more winter trips after that. During North American winter Patagonia is in summer, and much like Alaska, has long summer days since it is so far from the equator. This meant we got to spend most of the year enjoying long summer days and hours of hiking. We would continue this cycle of working all summer in Alaska, then traveling most of the winter, or at least in the fall and spring shoulder seasons. We have also spent some of our winters at ski areas. I never learned to ski in my youth though, and learning as an adult is pretty rough. I grew up in Southern California too, so I am not a big fan of cold and winter in general, needless to say, I don’t love working at ski areas. We were attracted to the idea of working at ski areas so that we could get into a cycle of working winters instead of summers. It was great traveling to Patagonia in winter, but we also thought it would be great to take a North American summer off, and do a long distance hike like the Pacific Crest Trail! Jeff didn’t need any “reason” to work at a ski area other than a love for winter sports. He grew up in New Jersey and was lucky enough to get to learn to snowboard in his youth.

For years we continued going back to Alaska because it is easy to just keep doing the same thing. It was a good job which allowed us freedom in the winters if we wanted it. But we continued to dream of taking a summer off and hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail. Every year we told ourselves, next year. 

In the winter of 2018-2019, while working in Aspen, Colorado for our second winter, we decided the next summer was finally going to be “the” summer. We had our season in Aspen to finish, which meant we needed to remain in Aspen until almost mid-April. Traditionally the trail is started from the South, in Eastern San Diego County, at the Mexican Border during the spring, specifically mid-April. We quickly learned that the Pacific Crest Trail had become way more popular than we had imagined and that getting a permit was not easy. The permitting system was new for that year, so we were surprised to learn of it. The Pacific Crest Trail Association is in charge of issuing permits and had began to limit the number of people who could start on any given day to 50. Wow! 50!! That seemed like a lot, and every permit was taken for dates between March 1st and May 30th (2019)! That meant that there would be 50 people starting every day for 3 solid months. That blew our minds and made us wish that we had taken a summer off years ago. 

Our only other options was to hike the trail South from Washington. About 90% of hikers go South to North, with only about 10% choosing to go Southbound. There are advantages to both options and the seasons vary slightly. What worked for us about going Southbound was that the permit was easy to get, we could start at the end of June and hike until Thanksgiving. Some other appealing aspects for us were that it wasn’t as popular so we wouldn’t see as many other hikers on the trail and wouldn’t have to compete for campsites and also that near the end when we might be tired and worn out we’d have my family to support us through Southern California to the end. We also have some friends in the Seattle area that could help us in getting to the trail and maybe even come for a visit at the first few resupply stops. It all sounded perfect. We secured a permit to start June 30th and counted down the days until our season in Aspen came to an end.

Fast forward to mid April, we had fulfilled our contract and worked until the official end date, but we were paid up with our apartment until the end of the month and our ski passes were also good until almost the end of the month as well, and moving sucks, so we decided to stick around and have a leisurely time moving out. I didn’t use my ski pass much that winter, I instead took up running and got my outdoor time in on the many paved and heated or plowed paths of Aspen that were snow free most of the time. Jeff did a lot of snowboarding and often went alone because there wasn’t always someone else around to go with, and even if I did go, my skill level was nowhere close to his. Near the end of the month on the second to last day that the resorts would be open and the day before we had planned to be moving out, Jeff went snowboarding alone and injured himself. We thought that he had sprained his ankle and we hoped that was all it was. We stayed in our apartment an extra week resting his ankle and finally I moved everything out and packed our car because he couldn’t really help. We took a mini road trip on our way back to San Diego that we ultimately cut short because his ankle wasn’t getting better. We then visited a doctor in San Diego 2 weeks after it happened and learned that he broke his ankle! We didn’t do much harm waiting to come in according to the doctor, he didn’t get a cast, was just told to rest and wear and immobilizing boot, which he had been doing on his own for the most part. 

Jeff held out hope of still starting the Pacific Crest Trail. He had 8 weeks to heal between the date of the injury and the start of our permit. I thought it was crazy but went along with it. We spent a lot of time on house arrest in San Diego, not even able to go for walks when we should have been training hard to be hiking miles and miles per day. By early June Jeff was starting to be able to walk on his own without the help of crutches or the boot. At this time we went to New Jersey to visit his family. 

In late June we flew to Seattle, as we had planned to visit our friends and hopefully start the Pacific Crest Trail southbound from the Canadian Border. About a week before we would be starting Jeff finally decided it probably wasn’t a good idea. We’d been dreaming about it for so many years, that it was hard to give up on at least trying for him, but in hindsight it was probably a good idea for his ankle’s sake! Luckily we were able to easily get our jobs in Alaska back for something to do immediately. We then booked a last minute cruise deal aboard the Golden Princess and about a week later we were back in familiar Anchorage, Alaska. This summer was my 10th seasonal summer in Alaska! But we told ourselves next year, next year will definitely be the year for the Pacific Crest Trail!!

The trail gets exponentially more popular each year. Now permits are released in two waves, some in November for the following year, and then the rest of them in January. We were ready on November 15th and we logged into the site and waited for the exact moment when the system goes live and were promptly put into an electronic queue of thousands and thousands of people. It took more than two hours for it to be our turn and each person has to apply separately and you get to pick just one date and hope that you get it. We honestly didn’t have high hopes, but in January we learned that we had secured a permit to start March 30th from the Mexican border in nearby Campo, CA.

We decided not to work all winter and not to make any major travel plans either. We instead remained at my Mom’s house in San Diego and focused on our health and fitness. We went on day hikes, beach walks, runs and bicycle rides, in addition to doing a few different workout videos. Jeff’s ankle has healed to be almost normal again, thank goodness. In early March 2020 we decided to venture out on a little road trip to get more hiking in to prepare ourselves for THIS YEAR and the Pacific Crest Trail. While we were gone some strange illness called the corona virus had hit the USA and we came out of the wilderness and back to that find civilization had nearly gone mad, that schools and businesses were closing to protect the population and grocery stores were out of food, cleaning products and paper products because people were already hoarding! We thought it was crazy but never considered that it would affect our hiking plans until the Pacific Crest Trail Association issued a statement asking hikers to call off their hikes. The worry was that hikers could potentially carry the virus and bring it to all of the small towns they visit to rest and resupply along the way, towns that mostly do without much infrastructure to handle the any sort of pandemic coming to them. Still we thought we don’t have to go to these towns, as we are lucky we have our my family to support us and we can still do this, at least until it didn’t feel right to continue anymore. On March 30th we started our hike as planned. This blog will be about our experiences on the trail and possibly in the future will include our other hiking endeavors.