Month: January 2021

I haven’t said much about the CDT since posting my announcement that I’ll be hiking it, and there have been some developments in the last couple weeks, so I thought it’s a good time for an update. 

A couple weeks ago I had some realtors come by to start the discussions about selling my house. All of them said my house would sell quickly (and at a price I was happy with) based on the market right now. That was encouraging. I got a realtor picked out, and then it was a matter of figuring out when we would need to list it, which would depend on when I would be leaving work. 

When I gave my notice at work back in October, I told them that I could stick around until either mid-April or mid-June. I learned this past week that they will be keeping me around until June, which really wasn’t much of a surprise. With that in mind my realtor and I decided to list the house in early May. That makes me a little nervous since it gives some time for something to happen to the housing market. I looked into apartments that would do short leases, and wasn’t particularly thrilled with what I found. They were either more than I want to pay, or weren’t particularly appealing. After that I did some reading about forecasts for the housing market, and pretty much everybody seems to think it should stay fairly hot this year, so I think I’ll take my chances and list the house in late April/early May. Fingers crossed!

I have gone through my gear a couple times this month and weighed stuff and tried packing it into my pack. After the first round I realized it weighed more than I would prefer, so I purchased a new tent this past Friday to drop a couple pounds. I was hoping to avoid that, but it was needed. Even with the new tent it is heavier than I would like, but I don’t plan on making any other changes at this point. There will likely be a gear blog after my Ozark Highlands Trail (OHT) hike next month.

The June start date means I will be starting at the Canada border (likely mid to late June) and going SOBO (southbound). There are pros and cons to this:

Cons:

• I would rather finish in the mountains at the north end than in the desert at the south end. 
• Starting in the mountains will be harder than starting in the desert. 
• I will break my streak of consecutive OKC Memorial races (currently at 8). There was a small chance I could still make the race if I started in April and hiked NOBO, but I won’t be finished in time going SOBO. 

Pros:

• Later start date hopefully allows some more time to get COVID under control before starting, although I’m not too terribly optimistic.
• San Juan Mountains should be a lot better going SOBO (assuming they don’t get some major, early snow storms). NOBO hikers generally run into a bunch of snow in the San Juans, and it’s fairly common for them to take an alternate route through there. The snow should be gone by the time I go through, and there were a lot of SOBO hikers last year that had amazing fall color pictures in the San Juans. I’m hoping I can time that right. 

I’m sure I’ll think of more pros/cons over the next few months, but that’s what I can think of right now. While it’s definitely nice to have the starting point/timeframe figured out, there is a lot about the start that is still up in the air. Last year a good chunk of Glacier National Park (GNP) was closed, including the official CDT route. I believe most people did a road hike on the west side of the park. I don’t think any official decision has been announced yet in regards to what will be open this year. I would definitely like to hike on the official trail through the park, but if that is closed, I’ll have to figure out another route to the Canadian border. So lots to be figured out there still. 

Other than that, not much more to put out there at this point. I have had a few people ask if I’m busy planning the hike. There really isn’t a whole lot to plan with the hike itself. More of the planning/preparation will have to do with life stuff (selling the house, getting storage figured out, getting business stuff sorted out, etc.). Haha. Really for the hike itself it’ll mainly be figuring out a start date and point, and then figuring out where I need to send resupply boxes and if I want any particular gear sent to a particular place. I’ll probably spend some time pretty soon figuring out alternate routes at the northern end in case the CDT in GNP is closed. I do still plan to do a “shakedown” hike on the OHT in mid-February to test out new gear and make sure I’m happy with everything. I’m really looking forward to that. There will definitely be some pictures and updates after that. 

I’ll keep everybody updated as more things come into focus.