Yes.  That was absolutely nerve-racking!  As expected, about a thousand thru-hiker wannabes rushed the PCTA website all at the same time.  The mosh pit grounded the website to a near halt.

The way the process works, now that I have seen it, is that when you first select your date, they give you exactly thirteen minutes to complete all the pages of the application.  I would fill out the form and click next and it would take nearly a minute before the next page would appear.  I would frantically fill out the form and then sit there watching a flashing “Processing…” message.

The final page before hitting the submit button required me to enter my credit card if I wanted to make a donation and to purchase a permit to climb Mount Whitney.  I had one minute to do it.  I typed as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough.  When I hit the submit button, my application timed out and I had to start over.  I did that right away only to find that 32 of 35 slots of April 6th were taken!

The second time I skipped making a donation.  I have already given before, so hopefully it will not make a difference in my application approval.  I clicked the submit button.  Processing…

My phone beeps.  I received a new e-mail from the PCTA with a confirmation notice that my application has been successfully submitted.  Now I wait for the formal approval which should be in about three weeks.  As I gave myself a window of April 6th to September 15th, I do not expect for it to be declined.  The first major step of this hike has been successfully completed.  Now I pack for a three-day, two-night section hike of the Ice Age Trail to celebrate.  It is supposed to be cold and rainy.  It is ideal conditions for a shakedown of my gear.

 My heart can now stop beating so fast.

Believe it or not, the very first step you make hiking the Pacific Crest Trail does not take place outside, but behind a computer. It is only fitting for me, I guess. You see, you need a permit from the Forest Park Service and the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) if you plan on hiking for more than 500 miles. That permit grants you permission to pass through every National and State Forest you pass through all the way to Canada!

The reason for this process is to protect the fragile ecosystem. At noon-thirty my time today, the system will release thirty-five permits for each day from March 1st to May 31st. If I fail to get one today, they will release an additional fifteen permits in January for the same window.

The date you aim for is a personal decision. Hiking the PCT is like a race with some gates. The finish line in Canada must be reached by October 1st. The weather in Washington gets sketchy quickly after that date. Even though I am an experienced winter camper, I don’t want to be trapped in the snow in the middle of nowhere. So, starting early would seem to be the best choice as that would give you the most time to complete it. But, there is a catch!

After hiking some 700 miles of desert, you eventually reach the town of Kennedy Meadows South near the base of the Sierra Mountains. This is the town where you swap your desert gear for your mountain gear. The snow pack in the Sierra Mountains is measured in yards. In general, you do not want to attempt this high-elevation section until June 15th. For the average hiker, it takes 40 days to complete that seven hundred miles.

Now, I may be slow, but I’m not March 1st slow. So, I have decided that I want to start my hike on one specific day — April 6th. This is the one-year anniversary of my best friend, Dennis, passing away. It gives me enough time to walk at a relaxed pace.

Once you complete the Sierra Mountains, it is a race to the end. It normally takes about six months to complete this hike. Of those six months, four of them are in California.

So I sit in an empty house waiting for 12:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time, when every like minded crazy person dreaming about hiking north is going to sign up for a limited number of permits.  It is going to be a mad rush!  I’ve heard horrors about this process.

Wish me luck. Yes, I am nervous.

 

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.