Pacific Crest Trail journey is a repeat performance

Union-Tribune
San Diego, California
November 28, 2006
By ED ZIERALSKI

So many things could have stopped Scott Williamson on his record-setting 5,300-mile hike from the Mexican border to Canada and back on the Pacific Crest Trail, what hikers call yo-yoing the PCT.

There was a severely infected toe from an ingrown nail.

K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune Scott Williamson hiked yesterday in the Lake Morena area as he neared completion of his record-setting trek on the Pacific Crest Trail.

But a surgeon he met on the trail, a kind woman with some pain pills and some surgical tools, performed the operation that kept him hiking.

There were swollen streams and creeks in northern Yosemite National Park, filled with runoff from the record snowfall in the Sierra. At one point it took him three hours to cross Bear Creek.

There was the black bear that nosed into his shelter one night as Williamson camped near Lake Tahoe, but a loud yell sent the bear scampering.

He had to contend with four different forest fires, at times feeling the intense heat of the trees as they burned on both sides of the narrow PCT trail.

And he was extremely ill in the Sierra for five days, losing roughly 25 pounds off his lean frame from what might have been giardiasis, an intestinal infection, because he didn't purify his drinking water.

But Williamson kept going, leaving the famed PCT at 26 predetermined supply areas, always returning to the same spot, marked to keep his trek line intact. And today, about 1 p.m., the 34-year-old self-employed tree maintenance specialist from Truckee who has become a cult figure in the hiking world, will take the last of an estimated 10 million steps over 191 days, two full weeks less than it took him to yo-yo the PCT in 2004.

It all ends at the Pacific Crest Trail terminus at the Mexican border, 20 miles south of Lake Morena, where Williamson met up yesterday afternoon with his fiancee, Michelle Turley, and ate some giant slices of pizza.

K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune Record-setting hiker Scott Williamson stopped yesterday near Lake Morena for pizza with Michelle Turley, his fiancee and part of his Pacific Crest Trail support crew.

“I guess after tomorrow I don't have anywhere else to walk,” he said yesterday, laughing.

Williamson was the first to yo-yo the PCT in a calendar year in 2004, and he's the first to repeat it.

“Scott now has done something no one ever did and now he has done something that no one likely ever will do,” said Reinhold Metzger, a San Diego-based hiker who holds the speed record for an unsupported hike on the John Muir Trail.

Just hiking the PCT through, from south to north, takes most hikers six months. But Williamson left the Mexican border below Campo on May 22, reached the Canadian border Aug. 18, had a one-hour lunch “a little bit into Canada,” and then headed back south.

“For a variety of reasons it was different this time, up and back,” he said. “I started a month later than '04, for one thing. This one was more mentally challenging. I had already done it and I knew how much I had ahead of me. As well as being really late and facing the possibility of being snowed out of the Sierra on my way back south.

“In some ways the hike means more to me this time because I had to work harder to make it, both physically and mentally. I'm pretty jubilant. A lot of people when they come off the trail, whether it's a short hike or not, they often talk about missing the trail. But I'm pretty much ready to finish.”

So why did he do it again?

“The first time I did it because it was a goal I set for myself,” he said. “In many ways it became an albatross around my neck because I came so close doing it three attempts before I did it in 2004. This time I just wanted to see if I could do it again, and also, 2004 was such an enjoyable, epic trip – the people, all the miles, the hiking, the various experiences. I just wanted to recapture that and maybe experience it all in a different way, which I did.”

Williamson's base pack weighs just 8 pounds, one pound of which was a video camera he carried for Shaun Kerrigan, who is putting together a documentary on Williamson and the PCT titled, “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Williamson shot more than 34 hours of video.

“He's got some incredible shots of bears and other wildlife, some of the biggest bucks you'll ever see, and some breathtaking scenery,” said Kerrigan, who lives in the Silicon Valley.

By hiking the PCT, as well as the Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, Williamson is in a select group of hikers.

“I feel really privileged to be able to spend this much time out here,” he said. “I'm an incredibly lucky guy. Most people have responsibilities like jobs, bills, things that get in the way of them taking six months off to hike.”

A magazine story once portrayed Williamson as a man who escaped to long hikes because it was the only place where he was happy. Several years ago, Williamson was shot in the face during a holdup of a convenience store he worked at in Richmond. And a close hiking friend committed suicide, his death affecting Williamson greatly.

But rather than focus on the negative aspects of his past, Williamson clearly has left that part of his life's trail behind.

“Since he yo-yo'd the PCT in 2004, he's never been happier,” said his fiancee, Turley. “He's at a really great place in his life.”

Among Williamson's memorable spots on his journey:

     The High Sierra and the northern parts of the Cascade range are his two favorite places.
 

     The Trinity Alps and Lassen National Park in Northern California.

     Entering Oregon, Crater Lake National Park, Three Sisters Wilderness Area and Mount Hood were beautiful stretches. The Eagle Creek Trail, he said, is "nine miles going down the creek gorge with just waterfall after waterfall after waterfall. It's real lush and green, that northwestern rain forest environment."

     In Washington, the Goat Rocks Wilderness Area.

Williamson's father, Dave, who lives in Escondido, and Turley were his support team.

“It's been a solo hike, but Michelle and my father, a community of people like Reinhold, all were ready to help me if I needed it,” he said. “I couldn't have made it this far without them.”

Williamson has heard that people are inspired by his hiking, how he has overcome so much to do these amazing journeys.

“I think it does give people inspiration. I hope it does,” he said. “I'm a big believer in people following their dreams. And no matter how people feel about what you're doing, if you believe in it, go for it and follow your dreams.”