Madison Sites

I’m busy trying to get things together to finally get my annual New Year’s letter finished, but I thought I would share a brief update on how my 2023 hike on the Pacific Crest Trail went. Also, I’m happy to publicly share the creative projects that came out of this experience: the writing I did along the way, a couple of video projects, and a fun map that Shawn did to incorporate those posts with some of my favorite photos. There’s even a comprehensive survey of the hiking class of 2023 done by another thru-hiker.

1,500 miles on the PCT

I was lucky to spend 5 months hiking on the PCT in 2023. It was a wild ride that went completely off the rails thanks to the record-high snow year in the Sierras last winter. Even still, I learned so much about myself, which has forever changed how I approach my life.

My “Type A” personality is still present but much weaker. I have an easier time going with the flow and welcoming an experience I didn’t plan for.

That record snow prevented a lot of people from thru-hiking in 2023. I didn’t have the luxury of putting my hike off for another year. This was a semi-planned gap year between jobs for me. Also, everyone had already agreed to delay family vacations since I was supposed to be on trail. Some folks still hiked but decided to go home after completing the desert instead of continuing through the Sierras. Many others jumped ahead, but there was no single destination that everyone flocked to, completely destroying the idea of a hiking bubble.

Despite not having the solid social experience I was hoping for, I still met incredible people, both hikers and trail angels, who restored my faith in humanity. It had been severely weakened over the last few years. I had witnessed many former thru-hikers echo this sentiment, but I felt I was too far gone to get it back for myself. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

Updates from the Trail

I knew I wanted a way to keep my friends and family updated with where I was along the trail. My emergency device had a map I could share so that family could follow along, which would have easily fulfilled that, but it felt a bit, well, impersonal.

As I considered simply updating them with posts from this blog, I encountered a problem: there wasn’t an easy way to restrict/manage who could view the posts. These updates would be coming straight from the trail, making it easy for any stranger on the internet to triangulate my location. Sure, it would be unlikely and, frankly, difficult for someone to do, but I read an article in Outside magazine that made me forever paranoid about it. Restricting the real-time audience was an absolute requirement in following through on my promise to friends and family that I’d always put safety first on this hike. 

The process of finding an alternate way of updating folks was overwhelming. I nearly gave up several times, feeling it was easier to leave things to the emergency beacon map. Each time I considered this, painful regrets would float to the front of my mind. I had no documentation of other significant experiences in my life: my internship at Disney World, studying abroad in Paris, all the years before I started writing my annual letter, etc. The pain of forever losing those memories (in conjunction with not maintaining a steady presence on social media) inspired the tradition of writing those annual New Year’s letters.

So, I kept on.

Finally, I was perusing a PCT hiking forum when I stumbled across the idea of using a Substack from another woman who would be solo hiking the PCT in 2023. This is a platform typically reserved for “real” writers. People who write about their area of expertise share their posts regularly through a Substack newsletter. Generally, most of them have a “free” subscription and a “paid” one, with the latter getting access to more frequent posts that are forever behind a paid membership wall. I had no interest in charging anyone for hiking updates, but I did have a use for those membership walls. Because the platform was already set up to handle this, it allowed me to create a newsletter where I could restrict the readers by requiring e-mail approval; no paid membership required! 

I could have just as quickly locked down this blog, but there are already folks who follow this that I don’t recognize. Also, I wanted to avoid effectively taking down my blog for six months or continuing to do so anytime I go on another hike in the future.

On that note, my Substack is now public for any of you to peruse. If you want to start from the beginning, click here for the first post and use the “Next” button at the bottom to continue through the adventure.

The process of writing each of those posts while I was in town was almost meditative. It solidified my memories of the section before but also helped me dig deeper into the stories and beliefs I told myself and how I viewed my hike at that moment in the journey. It allowed me to step back and take in the view, so to speak, making me much more introspective along the way.

I’m entirely sold on continuing this habit for future thru-hikes. I expect to lock down the Substack again before I head out on my next hike, removing any new e-mail subscribers I don’t recognize before I head out. There will be a “warning post” to let folks know that it is about to be locked down, giving any of you ample time to let me know if you don’t have an obvious e-mail.

The Map Project

My partner, Shawn, was a perfect man in the chair throughout this adventure. Not only did he help me by sending out my resupply boxes, but he also jumped into a creative project to visually document the trip: a personalized map.

He imported my GPS data from my hiking devices to fill in how much of the trail I was able to hike in 2023, plus pulling in data from a section hike I did a few years ago. You can zoom in to see each of those newsletters mapped to the location they were sent from, as well as some of my favorite photos along the way.

YouTube Videos

I worked on a couple of projects from the trail in the form of some simple YouTube videos. As I uploaded them, I kept them private (see above, privacy and safety). I’m happy to share that they are now public.

Shoes

I asked for five pairs of trail runners last Christmas, much to the bewilderment of my family. Hiking shoes should be replaced every 500 miles, and I was intent on holding myself to this to ensure the health of my legs. This started as a way to say “thank you” while also showing everything I put a pair of shoes through. A visual explanation of why I needed so many pairs, broken up into a video for each pair. 

Selfies

When Shawn dropped me off for my hike on the John Muir Trail years ago, he asked me to make sure to take pictures of myself since I never bother. I thought it would be funny to take a selfie every single mile and bombard him at the end of the trip. 

After returning from that hike, I realized they would make a fun video. The result made me feel really grateful that I captured those moments, especially when one of my newfound friends appeared. It really helped me to place many of those specific moments. What started out as a sarcastic butthole response to him turned out to be a pretty memorable thing that I absolutely wanted to continue doing. 

I had done the first video manually, putting in each mile by hand. This hike would involve way more miles and, therefore, way more selfies, making it impossible to do manually. As he was already pretty experienced with fancy video editing software, I enlisted Shawn’s help to compile them. He did a fantastic job and even wrote up how he did it for those of you interested in peeking behind the curtains. 

I hope you enjoy watching these videos as much as I do!

For the Data nerds

One final thing for those interested in a more comprehensive, data-oriented look at what it was like to hike the PCT in 2023 from more than just my own perspective: a survey result.

The website Halfway Anywhere is run by another thru-hiker who has been creating thru-hiker surveys of each of the popular thru-hiking trails for years now. They are a valuable resource for future hikers and an exciting read for a zoomed-out view of what it is like to hike those trails. You can view demographics, the gear most hikers chose, and how different people handled their resupplies. He even captures memorable highlights (both the good and the bad) from hiker responses. 

Happy trails

That’s all the media I’ve got to share from my time on the PCT last. I hope you find any of it interesting. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough that it inspires you to join me for one of the sections I still have left to complete in the future! 🙂