'Twas the Night Before Campo
It's late at the McIntosh household and unfortunately, contrary to the Christmas poem that you're glad I'm not rhyming to, all of us are stirring. We're checking and re-checking gear, packing food, charging batteries, and writing a blog post, and all for good reason. Tomorrow morning we are driving down to the California side of the Mexican border where the Southern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail is located. Part of my responsibility in writing these blog entries is to make painstakingly clear anything that may not be for every reader, so I will start that practice now.
The Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT as I will refer to it from now on, is a "wild and scenic pathway from Mexico to Canada" (from the Pacific Crest Trail Association website). The PCT covers about 2,654 miles of the most beautiful and rugged terrain in the western United States, and for a number of crazy reasons my dad and I are going to attempt a thru-hike of it this summer. A thru-hike of the PCT is when an individual hikes the entirety of the trail in one season, from the border of Mexico to the border of Canada, although not necessarily in that direction.
I will be going into more depth about my motivations for taking on this monumental challenge in a future blog post, and I hope to get my dad to do the same. For now, I just wanted to get some housekeeping (blogkeeping?) things out of the way for anyone who is following along at home.
If you have made it this far I must thank you. Thank you for taking the time to check out the site in its infancy and to read along as we take the first steps on this journey. My goal for the entire Pacific Crest Tale website is to unify a TON of the information that is out there into one concise and easy to navigate website, so others that follow us will have an easier time taking their first step. This will ideally include in-depth and brutally honest reviews of all the gear we use, effective strategies for resupplying and navigating, and ways to win the mental battles that come with an undertaking of this scale. Hopefully in doing this the effect will be twofold - visitors to the site will be able to take this all in more effectively, and by being forced to teach it in such a way, our own knowledge will be strengthened in the process.
*Disclaimer: A lot of that content hasn't been created just yet, but it's coming very soon. I promise.
*Secondary Disclaimer: Just ignore any stock language or photos you may come across for now too. It's a work in progress people. :D
My goal with the blog is to extend all of that knowledge from the site to a more granular and more personal level. I will be writing to help you share in my journey, but also so I can look back and reflect on the hike myself. Because of this deeply intimate connection (and for both your current and my future reading pleasure), I promise to write about all aspects of the trip in the most engaging and honest ways possible. I am not a writer by profession, so the engaging aspect of that promise may take some polishing, but you can bet your ass I'm going to work mine off to get there. The honest aspect of that promise is perhaps the most important part to future me. I know the PCT is largely going to be an amazingly positive experience to look back on, but it won't be without its downright terrible days too. However, as in life, these dark times provide an important contrast and give the good days that much more glory in perspective.
That wraps up all the time I have for writing tonight, I sincerely appreciate you stopping by for Blog Post #1. Many more to come and they'll only get better from here!
Tomorrow, the Trail.
