Why I'm Not Going for the PCT Again This Year

Maggie Slepian

PCT permits open on January 19th, a decision I find questionable given the massive increase in Covid-19 cases compared to when the PCTA shut down permits last spring.

Looking ahead to “thru-hiking season” feels like deja-vu. Once again, I’m sitting on my couch, panic-eating pretzels and wondering about the morality of a 2,000 mile hike up the entirety of the west coast in the middle of a raging pandemic we have yet to get under control. I find myself continually amazed: How has it been nearly a year?

I see my friends—lots of my friends—planning Triple Crown hikes. Maybe I’m worn out from arguing with everyone from internet trolls to people who still won’t wear a mask in the coffee shop, but I’m not filled with indignant rage this year and I’m not going to judge them. I’m envious of their plans and tired of the uncertainty. I wish I could convince myself that it was a good choice to try for the PCT again, that I wouldn’t be questioning my decision. That anything at all was certain.

But with Covid numbers still at incomprehensible limits, planning a hike up one coast or another doesn't seem feasible. Two days after I found out the PCTA was issuing permits, the US recorded yet another record of Covid-19 deaths. California and Texas had the highest rates of infection. Nowhere in my mind could I fathom clicking “purchase” on a cross-country flight to Southern California within the next three months.

The decision comes from a few different places. Like so many other hikers last year, I had the rug pulled out from under me. I cancelled my flights to California just weeks before my permitted start date. A year of planning and saving and preparing, gone. I know I shouldn't complain. In the grand scheme of things, the ability to thru-hike is a major privilege afforded to very few. The freedom and financial stability necessary to take six months out of your life to hike a few thousand miles is not something to be taken for granted.

I had it all worked out for 2020. I had renters who would care for my cat and live in my house, helping offset the mortgage. I had a full-time job that would take me back when I returned. I had built up enough of a cushion to cease working for six months.

Without even considering the pandemic implications, none of those stability aspects are in place for me anymore. If I wanted to thru-hike, I wouldn’t have cat care. My renters have since moved out, and I’d have to list my house with a property management agency. I lost my job over the summer, and managed to survive as a freelancer this year, but barely. That’s not to say that I couldn’t remove those barriers if I really wanted to. But when compounded with the morality of hiking the PCT starting this spring through one of the worst Covid states in the country, the answer is a painfully obvious nope.

I'm not going to fight the permit battle by wading into angry hordes of 2020 NOGO hikers and 2021 hopefuls. I still want to hike this year. Something. Anything. I hiked the Ouachita Trail this fall, a trip we planned when things were *semi calm* on the pandemic front. Even during that hike, we questioned our choice to keep the plans even as the departure date grew near and the numbers started to get bad again. I feel like we’re all living in a sort of stasis, where plans can be made but also stripped away without warning.

Pandemic weariness is a real thing, and we all want to get out there. I have some shorter trips tentatively planned for 2021, but the uncertainty plagues at each and every one of them. If I’m vocal about not hiking the PCT, can I really do anything this year without being a hypocrite?

If you’ve made it this far in the post and it’s created more questions than it’s answered, trust me, it’s not just you.

I look into my 2021 and I see a blank slate. In every past year that I can remember, I’d take a page of my planner and write out trips, goals, and plans. I’d break it down by month and season: Colorado Trail for the summer. A climbing trip to Utah in the spring. Bikepacking in early fall. A few trips home to see my family. This is the first year that I haven’t done this ritual, and it makes me feel hollow and sad. I wish I could confidently make plans; I miss that sense of excitement and adventure.

For those of you making AT, PCT, and CDT plans for 2021, no judgment. I’ll be following along and wishing I was out there too. For those of you holding off, I’m right there with you. We’ll create our own adventures as we go.