The PCT Journals

On the morning of the day he was laid off from his job, Kolby Kirk told his Mount Whitney training partner that he was itching to give the Pacific Crest Trail a try. This was in 2011 and Kirk was not far removed from his self-challenge to complete 100 hikes in less than a year. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48, was an obvious objective for a weekend warrior living in Southern California, but he was hankering for something bigger, for extended trail time, for the head space that only comes from long days away from civilization and technology. Maybe in 2012, he thought. But that afternoon came the axe. Jobless and free, he could now do whatever he wanted. He gave the Whitney permit to his partner and headed for the PCT.

In the span of a month, he packed up and moved out of his apartment of nine years, assembled his gear, calculated his logistics, bought a stack of Moleskine journals, shuttled to the