New Boots

The last bit of gear - new boots. Somewhere along the line, a friend suggested we buy new hiking boots and use our training boots as backup. It makes sense, considering a boot failure in the backcountry would not only be highly inconvenient, but hard to repair.  So we are stowing the worn and reliable ones with a salute, and hope we need them not.

Here are my new boots before their inaugural hike in Redwood Regional Park last Sunday. I like to think about what they will look like in 1800+ miles.

But let me back up a bit and give you the facts and figures: Jan and I are hiking a significant stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) this year. We will start at Campo, CA, which is just north of the Mexican border, on April 30th and hike all the way to Crater Lake in Oregon. It should take us about 4 months, which is pretty leisurely (a full "thru-hike" from border-to-border takes most people about 5 months). We are taking an easy pace because we can. Foregoing the northernmost 800 miles of trail removes the rush of hiking before rain & snow set it. I am a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of girl, so I am determined to break at a pretty meadow or alpine lake if I want to! There is no real destination or goal for me other than the journey, hiking a trail I have always wanted to hike, and getting to see my home state from bottom to top.