Meet Gritt: The Slow Section Hiker Tackling Washington State Along the PCT

Hello, my name is Gritt. That’s Gritt with two T’s, so I guess you could say I’m not like those other Grits you’ve met (I’m different). I have been obsessed with hiking for several years. It all started so innocently at first. A car camping spot near a dirty lake somewhere in Iowa with a few miles of daily hiking. Then came out-of-state camping trips, with more remote trails requiring trekking poles. Then came a weekend backpacking trip and I suddenly found myself wondering how long I could stay there if I just packed more food in my bag. I’ve come a long way since those days of car camping. I hiked forty miles of the Superior Hiking Trail, toured Wonderland around Mount Rainier, and last year hiked 404 miles of the Colorado Trail. I am an experienced backpacker and would say a mid-level hiker. I have hundreds of miles under my belt, but I’m looking to turn them into thousands! My biggest obstacle to that, of course, is time! I’m a full-time engineering student, so now my summers are the only time I have to escape and disappear into the mountains.

That said, I’m not your average hiker. My bag is big, only some of my gear is ultralight, and I’ve never done twenty miles in a day. I value comfort at camp as much as I value comfort while hiking. This has brought me to a base weight of seventeen pounds. I’ll talk more about my gear options in future posts, so don’t bother me too much before I have a chance to defend myself!

After spending six weeks hiking the Colorado Trail, my only regret is not writing more about my experiences on the trail. At every stop in town I would upload a flood of photos to Facebook with a brief synopsis of what that section of the trail felt like. It’s certainly been nice to have something to look back on and remember that time in my life. However, I had written three very detailed accounts of my first days on the trail and was absolutely baffled by the little things I just didn’t remember. During a great hike, sometimes all those little interactions just end up falling by the wayside compared to the much bigger challenges and triumphs of the hike. What I hope to achieve with this blog is to write more and capture my daily life on the trail.

Above all, I hope to inspire. Unexpectedly, I found people approaching me to ask questions about my hike and also about planning these types of excursions. In the coming weeks, as I prepare to walk 530 miles across an entire state, I want to show readers how the heck I manage to do it. I’m a poor college student with very little money and the most expensive thing I own is a 2015 Kia Soul. Clearly I’m not an Olympic athlete either. To put it plainly, I want everyone to know that if your dream is to walk for long periods in nature, you can make it come true. You don’t have to be independently wealthy, you don’t have to be a gym rat, and you don’t have to take six months off to have the adventure of a lifetime.

I hope this blog becomes an escape for you, my readers. I hope my stories resonate with you and that for a few moments a day I can remind you that the world is not always on fire. This blog is a safe space for us hiking nerds. Feel free to comment and share your own stories in the comments. I would love to read them. Words of encouragement are always appreciated too, I’m sure I’ll need them during my journey. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

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