Preparation Care Timing

Along with thousands of others my wife watched the inspiration of Cheryl Strayed’s story in the film Wild and went crazy. “I think I want to walk the PCT.” What? “On my own.” Hey?

For about two weeks she was going without me. If she’d set off right away she’d have been 250 miles ahead of me and nearing Big Bear by now. But I caught her up and she said “Ok, as long as Austin comes as well.”  Austin is our eleven year old son so suddenly it was a family affair.

Preparation began in earnest!

Ready for next year?

No I think we need longer than that.

2019?

Once we had sorted through the issues of Austin being at school and Samantha waiting until she’d retired, the date got pushed back slightly to 2025.

That’s 2791 days away. So we weren’t rushing into it.

Saturday April 26^th 2025 

This is probably a date too far into the distance for most people to comprehend.   After all fair chance a number of people reading this might be dead by then, including me, so what’s the point in planning at all yet?

You’d be surprised, nay shocked, at how much there is to think about. These were the first things that came into my head…

I really needed to learn sports massage so I could practice it on my wife and I every evening after the days twenty miles; first aid classes; wild food classes; singing classes, so that my a cappela in the valleys isn’t too annoying to others and at the right pitch to warn bears I am coming but not to madden them into attack; learning a few pieces on the guitar, really well, just in case there is a guitar at hand, at a Trail Angel stop; deciding whether or not to grow the beard, which by then will be grey, or if to cut it at any barbers we should chance on (So I have been practicing with a pretend Trail one. No not a stick on, although that might be a quicker way to make my decision); learning to eat meat again after thirty years (which my vegetarianism will be by then), so that I never turn down food; deciding what style my journal/story/novel should take to stand out from all the others; which novels to send to collect at which post offices.   And of course, looking into the possibility of finding novels printed on toilet paper, to cover two vital issues on the hike.

And you thought you could just turn up!

The years also give me hope for other reasons. By then the increase in numbers (which the film and book have helped with) might have made even more places available for food and lodging. Or perhaps the opposite so it goes back to feeling remote and Trail Angles have come back out of hibernation after the overwhelming influx of Wild inspirees; of which, by then, we can pretend we are not one.

I’m hoping the equipment will be featherlite and the shoes blister proof. I’m particularly taken by the coat that is also your tent.  Brilliant!

So I start this blog with thousands of points to pick up on and only 600 words to tell them. (A page in Calibri 11 seems enough for you busy walkers) But what I can tell you is that only a month in to thousands of days, leading to thousands of miles, we have already had enough fun and danced along enough paths to know the journey to the journey is going to be of sonic sized more importance than the destination: Canada.*

 

*Please note my love of Canada and Canadians is by no means diminished by my last statement. I love you all eh!