Life update: I’m bald now! (+ PCT Departure things)
Day #: xx
Total Miles Hiked: 0
Miles remaining: 2650
I imagine y’all are probably intrigued as to why my head is bald, and the short answer is that today I’m starting the PCT.
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is a 2650-mile-long trail stretching from Mexico to Canada along the mountain ranges of the west coast of the US.
In about an hour, I’ll be starting a thru-hike of the full trail, and I couldn’t be more excited. I just wanted to share some updates around that, and basically write down now my thoughts behind starting and why in the world I’m doing this.
Back during peak-Covid in summer 2020, my dad and I backpacked from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite southbound on the PCT. I had the best time on the trip, and we intersected many thru-hikers (people hiking the entire trail) heading north to Canada. I thought that was honestly crazy, and something I’d really want to try and do one day.
Fast forward to junior year of college, I went on a backpacking trip to Santa Barbara with the UCLA Backpacking club. That ended up being the single most important college trip in terms of affecting my social life, because on it I met my girlfriend Brooke (who was co-leading the trip) and my three great friends Sasha, Dylan, and Alex.
Crucially for the purposes of this blog’s narrative arc, though, I also met Jess, Brooke’s friend and the other trip co-leader. She was in my graduating class, and had taken the previous spring quarter off to thru-hike the PCT. I thought that was insane.
And when I saw that I myself was graduating a quarter early and had a few months before my full-time job reality settled in, I realized the timing was perfect to do a long-awaited thru-hike of the PCT, too. Brooke and I got our permits in October, have been planning for months, and are starting tomorrow.
For those of you still scratching your (still) hairy heads as to what’s going on, I’ve prepared an FAQ:
“But Dennis, won’t you starve?” Hopefully not, I’ve packed food for a week in my wonderful Hyperlite bag. The general way this thru-hiking works, from my understanding, is that the trail is super remote but crosses some major road every week or so. When you get to the roads, you hitchhike into the nearest town, and get more food that you either buy there or mailed to the nearby post office ahead of time. You also enjoy a nice burger in civilization.
“Are you crazy?!” Probably a little. This whole thing is honestly crazy.
“How long will this take?” I’m expecting 5 months, and to be done around mid-October.
“How are you staying clean?” I’m not really. I have only 2 pairs of underwear and 3 pairs of socks (other clothes too lol), and will only be showering about once a week. I hope my nose will get used to the smell.
“Am you worried about starting? Nervous?” 100%, but I’m also feeling so excited for this epic adventure and probably (definitely) delusional that it won’t actually be that bad. I’m expecting it to be very hard, physically and mentally, but simple. You just get up, and go. The trail is there, and you just keep walking until you get to Canada. Can’t be that bad, right?
I’m also expecting that because of this simplicity in living the next few months, readjusting back to modern life afterward will be very difficult and strange. But that’s not a big enough reason not to go in the first place :)
A few logistical things:
I’ll be keeping y’all posted on Adventure with Dennis about every week or so when I’m back in town. I have no idea what these blogs will look like because 1) I’m trying to be super locked into nature and away from devices, and 2) I’m writing these bad boys on my phone and publishing them via the substack app, which I didn’t even know you could do until about 2 days ago. I’m not too sure what the quality or style of these trail-written blogs will look like, but I’m very curious to see how they’ll turn out. Definitely get the substack app for the best reading experience. I was thinking of bringing my laptop to write blogs on the trial, but vetoed that idea when I realized it was stupid and that my battery pack isn’t strong enough to charge my Mac. lol
And of course, I’m bald now! I had Brooke cut all of it off on Friday, and won’t be cutting it again until I’m done. It’s been quite the interesting experience being bald. For starters, I’m not truly bald, and I can easily feel the tiny hair follicles on my scalp. It acts like a weird Velcro that hangs onto any random thing it touches — my hand, a beanie, towels, my t-shirt, etc. I have to pull really hard to take off my beanie.
Seeing my bald head’s shadow is so strange (it looks like an egg with a nose), and sometimes I unexpectedly glance at my head in a window or random mirror and it’s scary. I’m very bald. I also am taking a picture every day to make a timelapse of my hair growth. Very excited to see how that’ll look at the end.
Much later (like probs after I’m done hiking in October), I’ll write more about post with my gear selection and planning stuff. I was going to write it here, but then I realized that 1) That’ll actually take super long to write, 2) I ran out of time to write that, and 3) These completely self-imposed blog deadlines stress me out. So here we are!
Be sure to follow me on Strava, the trip on Polarsteps, and please send me mail! Any postcards or letters would be so welcome and appreciated and I will be so so happy and love you forever. I’ll be at the first post office on Saturday, May 17th: 31650 CA-79, Warner Springs, CA 92086, United States
So yeah, that’s about it. Let’s do this thing!
Safe travels ❤️
you're no longer dennis...
now your EGGNIS