This starts before the trail.
I’m writing this before I’ve stepped onto the Pacific Crest Trail, before a permit is secured, before a start date is locked in. That’s intentional. Preparation is part of the journey, and pretending otherwise turns a long walk into a performance instead of a process.
On paper, the outline is simple. Prepare through winter. Start walking in spring. Move north through summer. Try to stay ahead of fall storms and early snow where possible. In practice, none of that is guaranteed. Trails don’t respect calendars, and conditions don’t cooperate with tidy narratives.
Late April looks optimal for me, not because it’s idealized, but because it balances competing risks. Earlier means more snow. Later means heavier runoff and more dangerous stream crossings. I’m swift-water rescue certified, but that training mostly serves as a reminder of what not to push. Cold, fast water doesn’t become forgiving because you understand it better. It just becomes easier to recognize when not to step in.
Recent years add another layer of complexity. The 2024 and 2025 water years were recovery years. Reservoirs are up. Grass and brush have returned across much of the West. That recovery is welcome, but it comes with a tradeoff. More growth means more fuel. Whether this year ends up wet or dry, fire potential is increasing, and with it, uncertainty. That reality shapes everything from route choices to timing to the simple question of whether a given section will still be open.
Last year, I intended to walk this trail and had a permit in hand. The plan felt complete enough to be reassuring. It was also fragile. Fire damage, flood impacts, and ordinary life reshaped the conditions under which the walk would have happened. The result wasn’t dramatic. It was decisive. The walk didn’t begin. What remained was a useful lesson: certainty is often the least reliable input in any plan.
This year begins from the opposite position. I don’t yet have a permit locked in, but I intend to start and solve that problem as I go. I’ll pivot based on whatever permit I obtain rather than waiting for an ideal alignment that may never arrive. I’m trading precision for adaptability and accepting that as a constraint, not a flaw.
There’s also no guarantee of a seamless trail. Sections altered by last year’s fires and floods are still evolving. This year’s fire season will write its own edits. Reroutes will exist. Closures will happen. Some answers won’t be available until I’m already walking toward them.
When the walking does begin, the mechanics will be simple. One foot, then the other. Eat when hungry. Stop when it’s time. Adjust when something stops working. But the simplicity is deceptive. Long-distance walking is built from hundreds of small decisions, most of them made before the first mile is logged, and many of them revised after.
That’s what this space is for.
There’s a mythology around long trails that leans heavily on grit, resolve, and transformation. I’ve never found those ideas particularly useful. Endurance, in my experience, is mostly logistical. It’s about noticing early, choosing conservatively, and being willing to change your mind without turning it into a referendum on identity.
If you’re reading along, I’m not here to promise outcomes. I’ll take you along for the discoveries as they happen. I’ll show you what I find—in preparation, on trail, and in the adjustments that follow. Some of it will be practical. Some of it will resist being tidy. All of it will be honest.
For now, I’m still before the first step. That counts.
The rest will have to be walked.
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