Like a Raindrop

Preparing to Hike the Pacific Northwest Trail

The Pacific Northwest Trail Calls

In 2012 I walked the 2,700-mile Pacific Crest Trail. I tell the story of that hike in my book Bliss(ters): How I Walked from Mexico to Canada One Summer. As I faced the bittersweet emotions of that hike’s end approaching, I came to a trail intersection. While my path continued north for a few more days, the Pacific Northwest Trail stretched from the Washington coast to the west and to the glaciers of Montana to the east. My hiking companion and I looked at each other and for a brief moment we each contemplated the idea of turning left or right instead of continuin ahead, thereby extending our journey for a couple months more.

After I finished the PCT, I did a few more long hikes over the years (in Turkey, Norway, and Minnesota), but mainly I returned to a typical American life. Job, home, friends, family. Most significantly of all, I married the right person for me and we started a family.

As I entered my 50s, I began to look for another truly great hike. I remembered that scraggly little trail that intersected my path thirteen years ago and began to make a plan.

The Trail Idea

Each long trail has its own concept. The Pacific Crest Trail keeps hikers high on the spines of the mountain ranges running through California, Oregon, and Washington. Europe’s Camino de Santiago follows ancient pilgramage routes. The idea of the Pacific Northwest Trail is to make like a raindrop that falls at the Continental Divide in Montana, and, like all water on the western side of that divide, eventually make your way to the Pacific Ocean.

This idyllic concept makes it sound like you need merely drive to the top of a very tall mountain and start walking downhill for the next couple of months. In reality, from where the trail begins in Glacier National Park to where it ends at the westernmost point of lower 48 states, it means traversing multiple mountain ranges, engaging in a bit of bushwacking, and deploying a fair amount of common sense about bears, navigation, and weather.

How I Hope to Do It

My spouse Shane will drop off my friend Jessica and me around June 25. (You’ll hear more about Jessica in future posts.) We’ll spend the first week taking it slow and then recuperate for a couple of days in Polebridge. From there we’ll gradually increase our pace and decrease our recuperation time and hope to have the whole thing finished by the end of September.

About This Blog

I don’t plan to blog from the trail, but whenever I get into a town with some kind of public computer access, I’ll post an update. By my reckoning that will usually be once every 7-12 days. I’ll also post once or twice more before we depart to share more information about our preparations. Thanks for reading!

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