How my 100-Mile Backpacking Trip Convinced Me Not to Be a Thru-Hiker

A Dream is Born

When I was 19 I moved to an apartment outside of Burney, California that was 1.09 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). I had never heard of the PCT, thru-hiking, or National Scenic Trails. 

My first introduction to the PCT was on a morning hike to Burney Falls where I crossed the trail and saw the sign that, pointing left, said “Mexico 1,418 MI” and pointing right, said “Canada 1,232 MI.”

I was immediately intrigued.

It turns out that the Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,650-mile continuous hiking trail that starts at the Mexican border, travels through California, Oregon, and Washington, finally concluding at the Canadian border.

I learned that a continuous hike of the PCT is known as a thru-hike and usually takes a hiker about 5 months to complete.

Over the coming weeks, I became more and more fascinated with the idea of hiking the PCT. Locals told me how they would pick up thru-hikers hitching a ride into Burney to get food, and how water was left on the side of neighborhood roads for hikers. 

I learned how hikers had to be shuttled around the Hat Creek Fire that had devastated the area the previous month. 

I was fascinated by the hikers’ box at the local post office where hikers could leave or take items for free.

I longed to meet a thru-hiker and was transfixed by their stories when I finally did. 

I even did some day trips on the trail.

I was hooked. And it quickly became a life goal of mine to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. It was the life I wanted—the life I craved.

Working Toward a Dream

It didn’t end there:

Over the next six years completing the PCT was always in the back of my mind. 

Two years after learning about thru-hiking I did my first 50-mile backpacking trip with Ned and Paul in Glacier National Park. 

Hiking and backpacking become more and more a part of my life. I started a hiking blog (now defunct), hiked hundreds of miles, made rough thru-hike budgets, worked at a national park, and almost became a wilderness guide in the Utah desert. I dreamed of the months that I would one day spend doing nothing but walking in the Sierra Nevadas. 

I could physically feel the urge and drive to be a thru-hiker.

So in 2019 when Paul threw out the idea of doing a 100-mile backpacking trip I jumped on the idea. This was the next big step.

Put to the Test

Paul and I spent the next year planning our 100-mile backpacking trip—both of us thinking about how it was our first steps towards a through-hike. Him for the Idaho Centennial Trail and me for the PCT. 

I trained hard for the trip and often thought of my future as a thru-hiker.

Our trip was fantastic. It was everything I hoped it to be. 

Hours a day spent walking in the mountains. 

Nights around the campfire. 

Fronting “only the essential facts of life.”

The thrill of putting on a heavy backpack after five days of walking knowing you were only halfway done.  

I loved it. It was one of the single greatest experiences of my life.

But something happened I didn’t expect.

The End of the Trail

Sometime within the last day or two of our trip, Paul asked me the question that had hung over us our whole journey, ”how do you feel about doing a thru-hike now?”

I told him I didn’t want to answer the question until we were all the way done.

But I think I already knew the answer. And it scared me.

I was scared that if I admitted to the answer, I would be losing a fundamental part of who I am. Or that I was giving up on a dream and letting myself down.

Satisfaction

I finally answered Paul’s question on our drive back to Moscow, somewhere along Idaho Highway 7 between Orofino and Kendrick.

I didn’t want to be a thru-hiker. I was satisfied.

Why I No Longer Wanted to Be a Thru-Hiker

Exactly why I no longer want to do a thru-hike is difficult to put into words, and I’m still understanding it myself.

Backpacking was, and still is my favorite activity in the world and I had an amazing trip with Paul.

But the desire to thru-hike is gone.

While training for and during our trip I learned a lot about what drives me to be in the outdoors.

Yes, I love the simplicity of backpacking and the stripping away of life’s complications. And this is the main reason.

But I also love to push myself physically and mentally. To train hard to be able to accomplish a goal that requires physical stamina, mental knowledge, familiarity with the outdoors, and being comfortable in difficult situations. 

Backpacking is a great way to do all this. But it’s not the only way.

I love to learn new things, and there are so many ways to explore the outdoors that I am not proficient in. I want to learn these.

I want to start mountain biking. I would love to explore wild and scenic rivers by kayak. And I’m dying to learn to paraglide.

Other Lives to Live

Our experience backpacking 100 miles gave me a lot of time to reflect on one of my favorite quotes by Thoreau: “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”

That quote resonates with my experience backpacking.

As Paul said, “we earned the merit badge.” Most backpackers won’t ever do a 100-mile trip.

I’m comfortable backpacking 100 miles and I’m decently confident in my abilities.

But you know what I don’t feel confident in? Canyoneering. 

And I love canyoneering nearly as much as I love backpacking. 

And if I spend all my time hiking thousands of miles on a single trail, when am I going to go canyoneering? Or do any other outdoor activity. 

It is one thing to spend weekends backpacking. Or even go on nine-day trips. But being on the trail for five months means there are no other lives to live while I’m there. No other activities to be explored.

And I have other lives I want to live.

This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hike trails anymore. I’ve gone backpacking since our trip in August, and I would love to do another 100-mile trip with Paul (though it took a good 44 days before that sounded appealing again).

I also like the idea of a smaller thru-hike like the AZ trail. Though to be honest, mountain biking the trail sounds more fun. 

Why? Well, I haven’t bikepacked 800 miles before, and it sounds pretty awesome. Right now, I’d like to give more time to that than to walking.

That’s not to say my opinion on thru-hiking or other outdoor activities might not change. But as of now, I’m satisfied. 

There are more trails to see, there are more methods of exploring the wilderness to experience, and there are more things to learn.

For years I yearned to thru-hike because “when I came to die” I did not want to “discover that I had not lived.”

I learned that for me, there is still more discovering I need to do. But it’s not on a thru-hike. 

And that’s okay.