Welcome to Azul’s 2024 Trek: About Me

Hello all!

I’m Renee, my trail and blogger name is Azul. I thought I would start with a short introduction post as I prepare to hit the trail in 2024.

I am from the high desert of Northern Nevada. I grew up hiking and playing in the Sierra and the mountains of Nevada (did you know that Nevada has more mountain ranges, 314, than any other state?). As life would have it, the last 10 or so years took me away from my playful mountain ways and had me focused on other “life” things.

When the Pandemic hit, I definitely got into a funk and like many people, felt downright awful. In August 2021 I went on a weekend backpacking trip with some girlfriends and it felt amazing. Nature is a happy place for me and being on trail, even for a short period, felt so healing. I told my friends, “I need to do this on a larger scale.” We discussed the JMT, but I felt like it needed to be bigger, longer, more life changing. I said, “how about the PCT?” My friends thought that the PCT was little over the top and so did I, but a seed was planted.

Over the next few months I started updating my gear, my gear was 20+ years old. I figured even if I don’t do a big trip, my gear could use the upgrade. When time came to apply for permits, I got in the long, queue and waited, and waited, and waited. By the time it was my turn, permits were out. I had missed them by about 15 minutes. Damn! I was heartbroken. I realized then I really did want to try to hike this trail. So every few days I would check in and see if anything had opened up and within about two weeks something did. It was for March 2, way earlier than I was thinking, but I grabbed it. I figured I could change it in the future. The more I thought about it, I liked the idea of an early start date. I was out of shape, hadn’t done any training or any serious planning. So starting out slow would be good for me.

Driving to the terminus with my husband and pups was surreal, especially since I had only started thinking about hiking this trail 7 months earlier. At the terminus I was embarrassed to take my photo because I didn’t feel like a real thru hiker or like I was really hiking the PCT. But I went through the motions and took some photos. The PCTA greeters were so warm, welcoming and excited to help take photos, they helped ease the nerves. I was out of shape and felt really unsure of how this was all going to go. “I am I really going to do this?” I told my husband “I might last two days, two weeks, two months or I may just do the whole damn thing, I have no idea.”

Well, it was the last one, I ended up hiking the whole damn thing and now I’m hooked. In 2023 I hiked the Arizona Trail and the Tahoe Rim Trail. In 2024 I’m attempting to hike the Continental Divide Trail and I hope to share that journey with you here. Wish me luck!

Happy trails to all!