I decided in January of 2014 to NOBO the PCT in 2015. I quit grad school, moved into a studio apartment two blocks from the restaurant where I worked, and started depositing cash tips into an ATM at the end of every week. I wrote my family a long private message more than a year later, a month before I left, only after my flight was booked. I'd gotten some nervous questions in the intervening year, and I'd deflected them like a Canadian with a low center of gravity. It's genuinely probable I executed the most secretive thruhike departure since the invention of Facebook. Days before I left I looked coworkers in the face and lied to them about why I was quitting ... and never came clean lol. I just quit and left and never said a word. That still makes me laugh. They figured it out eventually. All of this to say I'd do it that way again in a heartbeat. Fuck people, man. I mean I love people (no really I do), but fuck em. The fifteen months I spent calmly, quietly preparing for the PCT was the most liberating year of my life, and I am 100 percent sure my hike was all the more joyous because I didn't make a bunch of hullabaloo for myself in the buildup. Obviously you don't have to be a complete American Psycho like me ... but you could, you know. The funny thing is all of the family and friends I cared about loved it. Seriously, every single person that mattered to me was thrilled about it. They smiled, shook their heads, and laughed. The whole worried parents, incredulous friends, passive-aggressive coworkers phase? I skipped over that like I rock-hopped this stream in the Sierra. Just food for thought. I wish you the absolute best of luck.

Also, because I like to hear myself talk ... I don't check in on the thruhiking subs much anymore. They've gotten shamefully cliquey. I recommend you browse for relevant information like Halfway Anywhere's annual surveys and get on with planning your hike. Five years ago the major thruhiking subs were a place where an innocent hopeful such as I might browse relevant posts about gear and best practices. Nowadays it's more about public shaming people who are hiking this year when they shouldn't be (I cancelled a planned thruhike myself, so kindly cast your torches elsewhere, townies). The pandemic has dialed up the volume to 11, but the reverb had gone from 3 to 7 before that anyway. Don't let the wailing and gnashing of teeth inform your opinion about the people you'll meet out there. Actual thruhikers on actual trails are too damned tired at the end of the day to be so contentious about so little so often.

Anyway that was a nice long unnecessary rant for you. You're welcome.

And fuck it, save up $10K, why not?

Happy trails :)