Swope - Pacific Crest Trail Journal - 2010

Finished... Now what?

Here I am, sitting in the lobby of Manning Lodge and Resort, waiting for the Greyhound Bus to arrive and take me to Vancouver.

I'm feeling very out of sorts. The hike is over. I feel like I finished it strongly with a 43 mile day. I started at Hart's Pass in Washington (35 miles), I reached Monument 78 (the northern terminus of the PCT) at 5:03 PM. Farmboy, who might be surprised to hear that he's my closest friend on the trail, (I did most of this thing solo) and I ate our final dinner, and I did the last 8 miles alone in the dark. Farmboy didn't have the papers to travel in Canada so will be backtracking to Hart's Pass from which he'll find his way to Portland.

Anyhow, like I said, I'm feeling out of sorts. I woke up at 430 this morning with nothing to do and nowhere to go. This is going to take some adjustment.Fortunately, Michelle will be flying in today to help me with my transition back to civilization. I feel like I'm in some kind of hiker purgatory right now. I'm not a thru-hiker anymore. I'm a tourist. It feels strange, but not unwelcome.

I'm pretty certain that my giardia is back. The symptoms are all there except for the lack of appetite/nausea. I have the medication to deal with it, but I'm going to hold off taking it until I have a spare 24 hours to be pukey sick. I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for a week after taking it either, so there's another reason not to take it right away.

I'll be filling in the gaps in my journal over the next couple of weeks/months, but I'd like to put my gratitude towards some into words now, while my emotions regarding the hike are still fresh:

Capella University and my colleagues there: I doubt I would have been able to do this without Capella's allowing me the time to do so. I don't give loyalty to a publicly traded company easily, but Capella's earned it. All the people that signed my guestbook, encouraging me, asking me questions, and staying in touch with me made a difference. It really made me want to finish, and not quit when it got really difficult.

Postholer.com: I've said it before, but as far as trailjournal sites go this is definately best of breed. Not just as a journal site but all the mapping and other communication tools were/are very useful.

Trailangels: there are too many out there to thank individually right now. You're role in my hike was huge for me. I don't know whether or not I could have done it without you, but I do know that I wouldn't want to.

Trail maintainers: there wouldn't be a Pacific Crest Trail without you. The breadth of the task of keeping this trail open is astounding.

Dad: you did so much to facilitate this... Too much to list.

I could go on all day like this, but his ain't the Academy Awards and I'm no good at this anyhow. So I'll leave it there for now.

One last note to anyone considering a thruhike of the PCT. The hardest part is the decision to do it. Do it. You won't regret it much and any regrets and hardship (which there will be) will be greatly outweighed by the benefits.

Entry 114 of 114
First  :: Previous  :: Next :: Last