Why I’m Hiking the PCT?

Hello, my name is Diego, I’m 35 years old, and in 2024 I will be hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the great challenge I set for myself about 5 years ago. I’m an electrical engineer and I work as a government employee in the electrical public utility. I have a deep connection to my homeland, Uruguay. I have been passionate about sports since childhood, and I practice them competitively. In 2016, my love for trekking began after hiking the Inca Trail for 4 days to reach the legendary Machu Picchu.

I’ve asked myself more than a hundred times, why do I want to do thru-hiking? Why invest 6 months of my life, distancing myself from my family, loved ones, friends, comforts, work, and the “achievements” of everyday life? Yet, why do I want to walk countless hours a day, enduring cold, enduring heat, feeling hungry, feeling thirsty… what draws me to risk myself in uncharted places?

I’m the type of person who likes to have control over things around me, a safe place, a good job, avoiding unnecessary risks… but, nevertheless, here I am, willing to traverse 4200 km through a trail in a foreign country, which I haven’t even visited yet. So, what makes me undertake this challenge… honestly, I don’t know, I can’t give a reason. What I can tell you is a set of life experiences from which the idea of ​​walking the West Coast of the United States was born.

Huge step in my life and also a time of crisis that begins

I became aware of the existence of the PCT in 2018, in that passionate quest of hiking enthusiasts to find new adventures; that Diego was very different from the one writing these words now. Recently graduated as an engineer, in an 8-year relationship, pursuing the dream of owning a home, leading a fairly stable life for my age and achieving the foundations my parents instilled in me since childhood. For that Diego, facing an activity like the PCT was unthinkable; it never crossed my mind, it was not part of my life plan, nor my partner’s… but as everything in life… things change, and life gave me a good shake that affected the foundations I was standing on.

In 2019, I had an injury to my right knee when I was playing volleyball. I had been playing since I was 17 years old, and due to my constant demand for improvement, I had a progressive deterioration of the tendons in my knee. The injury was a ruptured patellar tendon, which involved 6 months of recovery, disrupting all my sports plans and my usual trekking vacations. In addition to this physical event, there was also one related to my emotional sphere, which was the breakup with my partner of 9 years, and this was indeed a great challenge because it directly affected my foundations and my self-esteem.

PCT appears again

At that time, the COVID-19 pandemic began, which caused isolation from emotional ties, so I chose to move to my parent’s summer house. That decision was right because even though I was alone, I could enjoy the outdoors to rebuild myself. On one of those lonely and tough nights in 2020, an Instagram story led me back to connect with the PCT. In this case, a Chilean, Romina Mena @aventuras_de_coyote, was walking the trail at that very moment. This was very unusual, given that the PCT is not well known in South America, and until that moment, I saw it as something only North Americans, Europeans, and Asians could access.

I began to follow her PCT, eagerly awaiting her weekly updates on her journey. One night, I remember seeing a very sad story from her, in which she had to separate from Tom her trail family because he had an injury that marked the end of his adventure that year. This event impacted her greatly. When the physical pain engulfed her entire body after long days of hiking, the emotional support provided by her trail family was essential. Losing that support was a milestone on Romi’s PCT, an unexpected obstacle in her planning. It’s one of those life challenges thrown at you to see how you handle it.

Tom injured his dominant hand when he fell while walking through the rocky and snowy terrain of the PCT. Before abandoning his PCT adventure, he wrote on a piece of paper with his non-dominant hand the words ‘We did it!’ and gave it to Romi. That paper would become a charm for Romi, more than two months later of that, she reached the Canadian border and completed her trail. With this tremendous gesture of greatness, Romina achieved several things:

• Overcoming the emotional crisis and continuing her hike.
• She managed to keep Tom connected to the PCT until the end.
• Giving immense value to such a simple and everyday object as a sheet of paper.
• Made us empathize deeply with her story and gain a better understanding of what a person can experience while traversing the PCT.

I was tempted to write to Romina, to send her my strength from a distance so that she would continue on the trail. In my head, it seemed childish to write to her, I told myself, “What if she reads what you’re going to write? You’re nothing!” but in a moment of courage, I did it… and to my huge surprise, she replied. From that moment on, I started writing to Romi every week, trying to send her the best energy possible, I researched more about the PCT, and read the book “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed.

The experience of Romi in the PCT turn into a source of energy for me, it gave me motivation again, it made me think that I could also try it. I thought to myself “my foundations were broken at that moment, what could I lose now? What could I risk?…” My answer was nothing… I have to rebuild myself, and the PCT seemed like a good plan. True to my style and way of being, I began to plan my preparation for this activity, that preparation involved many things that I want to share with you in this space… the moment is here! I’m ready to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail.