My discomfort had distracted me from looking around much until that moment, but that view commanded my attention. We rounded the top of the peak, and the view exploded in all directions. Photo by Alex MaierĮventually we came to the trail’s first named point, simply called Scenic Point. One of the most spectacular sunsets I saw on the trail. I wasn’t even sure if it was adjusted correctly. My shoulders were soft, and my pack was full of unnecessary things. I had a 32-pound base weight, which might not seem like much but by thru-hiking standards that’s about twice as heavy as it should be. Day 1ĭespite my seven months of planning, my pack was still obviously way too heavy. That slowly put me at ease during the 24-hour train ride. I was amazed by their nonchalant attitude about it all. They were all Appalachian Trail veterans and seemed extremely confident about the upcoming adventure. Their trail names were Marathon, Spaceman Spiff and Fitty Shrimp. I had arranged through the PNT Facebook page to meet a few other hikers on the train, and I found them as we departed for East Glacier in Montana. The self-doubt was almost crippling, but things were already in motion and quitting before I even started wasn’t an option, so I got on that train. Not only that, I was carrying a bunch of extra weight in the form of camera gear. On the PNT I’d have to be covering 20 miles a day. My longest hike to date had only been 18 miles and it had taken me three days. I had never even hiked in the mountains before. A century-old fire lookout cabin on the aptly named Lookout Mountain. Even then, they tended to struggle with the challenges to be found on the PNT. Most PNT hikers had already cut their teeth on a five-month 2,000+ mile trail like the AT or PCT. Who was I to think that I could take on the PNT? People don’t recommend doing that trail as a first-time thru-hiker. All I could think about was being hopelessly lost in the mountains. I had been consumed by the granular details and now that the time of preparation was over and it was really happening, the big picture of what I was actually about to do began to sink in. My excitement had been building over the final weeks of preparation. The scale of the hike didn’t really hit me until the car ride to the train station in Milwaukee. It provided the opportunity to learn exactly what I needed to know-once and for all-if I should take myself seriously as an outdoor filmmaker or if I should give up on that dream and find a “real job.” The Pasayten Wilderness. The trail extends for 1,200 miles from the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park to the Pacific Ocean in Olympic National Park. While the more established thru-hikes were well-maintained and blazed the entire way, the PNT was still wild and hard to navigate. While the popular thru-hikes on the more established trails see thousands of thru-hikers every year, the PNT was only seeing a dozen. Unlike its fellow National Scenic Trails like the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the Appalachian trail (AT), the PNT is still young in its development. I wasn’t looking for a well-defined path with plenty of help along the way, so I chose the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT). Just to be sure, I chose a trail that would be extremely remote, untamed and secluded. I would thru-hike a long trail and make a film about it-that seemed like a good test. I decided I needed to test myself, to figure out if I had what it takes to pursue that dream. I knew I wanted to make outdoor films for a living but I had no idea how to actually turn my dream into a career. I had just graduated college with a degree in digital cinema. I wish I could parse it down into a quick conversation but a lot can happen in three months. After all it was just a really long hike-how hard can that be to talk about? It turns out that hiking was only a small part of the experience on the 1,200-mile long hike. People say things like, “wow, that must have been fun” or “I wish I had time to do that.” They look confused when I can’t give them a simple explanation of what it was like. It has been five years since my thru-hike on the Pacific Northwest Trail and I’m still trying to figure out how to talk about it.
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