We greatly admire the hikers who’ve earned the Triple Crown of AT, PCT and CDT thruhikes!  That makes 3 long hikes.  Well, if we can finish the CDT, that makes 3 long hikes for us, so it’s sortakinda a Triple Crown.  Sort of.

We did go have a look at the AT in Massachusetts.  Our impression was “This is a walk in the woods.  No views unless you happen to make it up to the top of something.”  We met some northbound AT thruhikers while we were there and we asked them, “Is this pretty typical AT trail?  Just walking through a forest?  No views, no nothing?”

They all sort of looked at the ground and shuffled their feet and finally one of them admitted, “Yeah, this is pretty typical.”  Another piped up, “Except back in Georgia before the trees leafed out.  We saw some good views then.”  So we brandished our PCT bandannas and told them, “Next time, go do a REAL trail!   The PCT is WAY better than this!”  They all said that was definitely something they planned to do.

We made up our minds at that point that doing the AT is something you only do so you can say you did it.  Not worth it.

Our first PCT hike was in 2005.  I  (3rd Monty) was 57 and Fixit was 65.  He had just retired and we figured, “This is our one and only chance to do the PCT before we are too old and decrepit.”  Wrong!   Doing the PCT got us into such great shape that we decided we had to do it again.  So in 2010, we did.   And now every summer, Fixit hikes the whole JMT–We start at Horseshoe Meadows and go up via Cottonwood Pass, so we don’t have to deal with permit hassles.  I go with Fixit to the top of Mt. Whitney, then say, “Bye, honey, have fun!” and I head back to the car, many miles away, while Fixit begins his race against time.  Each year he tries to go faster than he did the year before.  This summer of 2015, he did the whole JMT from Whitney to Happy Isles, in 7 days and 11 hours.  Not bad for a 75 year old!  The reason I don’t go with him is because there is NO way I want to go that fast!  I love the JMT, but not at that speed.

Fixit and I did the whole Tahoe Rim Trail last summer also, in 7 1/2 days.  It was tougher than we expected, but really awesome.

So the CDT looks like a big challenge, but we think we are up for it.  And it will sortakinda be a Triple for us.