Before I begin, I want you to know that I am not crazy, but I’m going to attempt to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in one year.

So… I am going to put a very small amount of gear into a backpack, fly down to the Mexican border outside of San Diego, take a picture at a monument and walk north some 2,650.1 miles until I reach another monument that looks remarkably similar. To do that, I will pass through some deserts, forests, mountains, and who knows what. I will be hungry, tired, and sore most of the time. I will be covered in dirt and bugs. I will smell absolutely awful. I will be lonely and miss my family.

The worst part is that I know that the odds are really against me. The PCT has a failure rate of about 90%. I am too old and too out of shape to pull this off. The most likely outcome is that I get hurt — or die. A couple of people die trying this every year. It is not for the feign of heart. Still, I have a raging wanderlust.

I also know that I am pretty fortunate that I have the opportunity to do something so crazy.

This is not something I dreamed up one night. I don’t do anything without a well though out plan with contingencies. It actually started nearly twenty years ago. After I graduated from college, I asked my girlfriend to marry me and she said no, so I packed my bags and moved to California. She changed her mind and called to tell me that she was flying out to see me and if I didn’t have an engagement ring, I’d never see her again. Soon after, I flew to Wisconsin to pack up my fiancé’s car and drive back to Southern California.

My career was going well and she was going to start law school at UCLA in the fall. With back-to-back sixteen hour drives, we spent most of the time talking about our future together. We talked about school, money, children, and the like. Nothing was left off the table.

Eventually, we started talking about how long we would live in California. Just a day into our drive, my wife admitted that she longed for Wisconsin already. She was fine for now, but once we had children, she said she wanted to be closer to family. So, we negotiated. I promised to pay for her law school. In return, the person who made the most money would decide where we lived. As she was going to a top law school, we knew who was going to make the most money eventually.

In return for all that, I would have a grand adventure for our twentieth anniversary.

Moving the clock forward sixteen years, she asked if I has considered what I was going to do. I sheepishly said that I wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I was reading the blogs hikers, and I found what they we doing to be both crazy and transformative. I would be gone a while, but it would be an adventure that met every definition of Grand. Amazingly, she agreed!

So, here I am, a could of months from applying for a permit. The butterflies in my stomach keep me up at night. If the way is made clear, I will go.