Day one of the Pacific Crest Trail begins at the southern terminus near Campo, California, where a weathered monument marks the Mexican border. I touched it with one hand, took the obligatory photo, and started walking north. The trail ahead stretches 2,650 miles to Canada. That number is too large to hold in your head, so you stop trying. You focus instead on the next water source, the next town, the next sunrise.
The Southern California desert section is deceptive. People imagine the desert as flat, open, and easy walking. The reality involves relentless rolling terrain, spiky vegetation that catches on clothing and skin, and a sun that has no interest in your comfort. By noon on day one, I had learned that my sunscreen application had been inadequate and that my pack, which I had carefully weighed and re-weighed at home, felt considerably heavier in practice than in theory.
The community that forms on the trail within the first week is one of the hike’s great surprises. Thru-hikers are a self-selected group who have all made the same improbable choice to walk from Mexico to Canada, and this shared absurdity creates immediate kinship. By the end of day two I had shared camp with a retired schoolteacher from Minnesota, a software engineer taking a sabbatical, and two recent college graduates who had planned this trip since freshman year. We traded information about water sources and compared blister treatment strategies with the camaraderie of soldiers.
Water is the obsession of the desert section. Sources appear on maps with reliability ratings that range from year-round to seasonal to questionable. A questionable source in April might be flowing; in May it will likely be dry. Planning each day around water means the water report — a crowdsourced document updated by hikers ahead of you — becomes required reading each evening. The possibility of a dry camp concentrates the mind.
My feet have not adjusted yet. Blisters are forming in predictable places despite the preventive measures I read about during months of preparation. The gap between reading about something and experiencing it is always wider than anticipated. A blister is a manageable inconvenience; twenty blisters after fifteen miles with a loaded pack in desert heat is a different kind of problem. I am developing a nightly ritual: socks off, feet assessed, hot spots drained and padded, feet aired while I cook dinner.
Sleep comes instantly and ends with the dawn, which arrives aggressively in the desert. The mornings are magnificent. The light is gold and the air is cool and the day holds the brief possibility that it will be less brutal than it becomes by ten. I have started waking before my alarm to watch the sunrise, which is not behavior I would have predicted from myself a week ago.
Everything hurts in ways that are specific and educational. My hip flexors are vocal objectors. My shoulders have strong opinions about pack fit. My right knee has registered a formal complaint. None of this is alarming — it is the body adapting to a new demand. I have been promised by everyone who has done this before that the second week is easier. I am choosing to believe them.
The desert is beautiful in a way that requires patience to access. Beauty here is not dramatic or obvious. It is subtle and strange and grows on you slowly.