Start Date

We have a hard start date: Earth Day, April 22nd. It seems auspicious.

The Kick-Off begins on the 26th, but recollecting my experience of similar events in the past, I preferred to skip it, and leave early. I'm happy to meet my fellow hikers on the trail. Indeed, looking at this year's snow report, I imagine that many hikers, more ambitious or more experienced than I, intend to go haring out the gate much sooner, probably starting about now. My theory is that I'd like to allow my body a relatively gentle first couple of weeks, to build strength and adjust to a new lifestyle; but while there are many words to describe my personal failings, lollygagger is not one of them, and once I find my legs I expect that my hiking style will follow suit. And I'm no mountaineer. No point getting to the Sierras too early.

As soon as I'd bought a ticket I emailed Boomer, since he'd mentioned, months ago when I first asked his advice for planning this trip, a network of folk in San Diego willing to put up prospective hikers and ferry them to the trailhead. He forwarded my information to Scout and Frodo--former thru-hikers, now trail angels heading up the southern California hospitality brigade--and within 24 hours I'd been promised transportation from the airport and to the trailhead, lodgings, dinner, and any other assistance a humble pilgrim could ask for. If they don't have enough floor space at their house for the incoming wave of hikers, they'll call up another trail angel and find room at someone else's. They do this for literally hundreds of hikers every year. They say simply, "We enjoy helping you start on your adventure." No fee, no PQ, no interview, no background check, no questions asked. Just people helping each other. It's...incredible.

While I'm here I may as well address the elephant in the room: as anybody who's been paying attention will by now have divined, Paul is going, too. I can't say why or when, exactly, he decided to embark on a thru-hike, and I don't think he knows, either. That's for him to elaborate if he so chooses. It works out pretty brilliantly for me, since Paul's the only person I know who'd be interested in this particular brand of madness, and his backpacking experience might prevent me from dying of my own stupidity in the first week. It works out for him to store his belongings at my parents' house, and my mom will oversee our maildrops. We'll be flying south and starting together at Campo, and I'm delighted that he decided to join this adventure. That said, there was never a minute when I thought it would be a good idea for us to thru-hike together. Paul's a full foot taller than I am, for one thing, so we travel at very different speeds. He's got a bum knee, a bum ankle, a bum shoulder, and the attention span of a fruit bat; in turn, I'm about as even-tempered as a hornet, and as social as an oyster. It's kind of funny, because I think we are each more likely to finish because the other is going, but there's no way in hell we'd survive five solid months of one another's company. We'll hike in tandem, independently.