The Journey Begins - Day 1 | PCT Day 1

PCT Southern Terminus, Mexican Border (I am on the right, Keith Jones at left)

4/17/85

I walked away from civilization today. Trash along the highway dulled the natural rush of beginning our six-month trek into nature. In Moreno Village, we visited the first in a series of small town diners. A young wife in a ball cap juggled grill duty and register ringing as a rag tag collection of customers stand about patiently. Never in the city… Meredith and Charlene, our first PCT groupies, guide us through a green maze, give us hot chocolate. Fields of wild lilac, akin to scenes from the Wizard of Oz, lead us to our campsite, just off the lake in the midst of a manzanita stand. An oak tree towers by.We leave them for camp.

A minute on months of planning down to:

-day-by-day itinerary

-dinner menu

-water filter: $45 so we can feel safe from giardiasis, an intestinal bacteria they say could be in any water we find (and apparently took its toll on me in 1987 in Southern Colorado). It’s a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into when you can’t drink water out in nature.

In the time before we left Albuquerque, so many people thought we had already gone. It was six weeks from the end of my job to the start of the hike, a time in limbo, much of it spent planning.Spending, thinking, wondering over the coming adventure.We’re through day one, 164 to go.I no longer delight in weekends, 5’o’clock; but the steady hum of my stove warms my demeanor. The quiet makes me want to stare off into the candle all night.