Day 0, Scout and Frodo’s House

A few minutes later, our driver pulled up to the waiting area outside the terminal. He told us his trail name was Hoosier Daddy.

Tengo had not yet arrived outside, but a security guard wouldn’t let us wait for him in the loading zone. Hoosier Daddy had to drive around the airport once before Tengo came out of the terminal to join us.

After everyone was in Hoosier Daddy's van, he took us to Scout and Frodo’s house, located in a quiet residential neighborhood on the north side of San Diego.

Hoosier Daddy was just one of several volunteers Scout and Frodo had recruited to help keep the operation of shuttling and hosting hikers running smoothly.

As many as two or three dozen hikers from all over the world will stay at the house each day between now and the end of May. Volunteers handle most of the driving, picking hikers up when they arrive in San Diego and taking them to the trailhead.

While at the house, U. S. hikers are allowed to stay one night. Canadian hikers can stay two nights, and hikers from other countries can stay up to three nights. This schedule allows everyone to recover from their travel and make last minute preparations before beginning their hike.

Other than the sale of stove fuel canisters, everything is provided without any cost to the hikers. Scout, Frodo, and the other trail angels refuse to accept donations. All they ask from the hikers is to follow a few rules for keeping order and not annoying the neighbors. They also ask, if possible, that we join or make a donation to the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

Tengo, Luis, Andrea, and I were led to the backyard of the house where we found several large tents had been set up. Tengo and I picked the one farthest from the gathering spot in the yard. We figured some hikers might chose to stay up late, and after a long flight from the eastern time zone, we knew we would not be in a partying mood.

I changed into my hiking clothes, then put the clothes I wore on the plane and the duffel bag that carried my backpack into a box for mailing home. As typical of Scout and Frodo’s thorough organization, a table was set up in their garage for preparing shipments like this.

I was given directions to the post office located a few blocks away, then Luis, Andrea, and Tengo walked with me there so I could mail my box home. We then walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch.

Many more hikers arrived during the day. By evening, more than 30 were staying at the house.

Scout and Frodo have been hosting hikers since 2008, shortly after finishing their own thru-hike of the PCT. By their estimation, one third of all thru-hikers have stayed at their house.

Before the start of this hiking season, they announced that 2020 would be their last for hosting hikers. It is a service that will be sorely missed by future PCT hikers, and I’m grateful I was able to begin my hike here.

Tengo and I had a chance to chat with Scout. We learned he had hiked the Appalachian Trail southbound the same year we had gone northbound. He also completed a thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail.

Just before dinner time, we were given an official greeting. Scout told us about the plan for the evening, plus what to expect for getting to the trail in the morning.

During dinner all of the hikers sat in a circle of chairs on the backyard lawn as we ate chili, cornbread and salad. The air was cool, so most of us wore jackets.

This day turned out exactly as I had hoped. Not only was it a chance to take care of a few chores before heading to the trailhead, the stay at Scout and Frodo's allowed me to get to know several hikers.

Some were like Andrea, who had traveled here on a visa from another country to hike the PCT. Another foreign hiker I met was Siobhan, who had come to the U.S. from Scotland.

A few had already thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Danny, whose trail name was Falls, had hiked it the same year Tengo and I did, but he started and finished earlier than us.

Most hikers were in their 20s and 30s, with only a few closer to Tengo’s and my age. One of the older hikers was Mari Jo, or MJ, who said her trail name was Sideshow Bob because of her “crazy" hair.

We hadn’t yet started walking and already friendships were forming.

As we finished dinner, Scout began to tell us about the history of the PCT, for which he has a keen understanding. He spent many years on the board of the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

He spoke about Eric Ryback, who at the age of 17 in 1970 was the first hiker to complete a thru-hike of the PCT.

He also showed us a medal that was Ryback’s pet project after becoming a PCTA board member. Beginning in 2010, a medal has been offered for free to anyone who finished the whole trail.

As I looked at it, the idea seemed a little pretentious. Being awarded a medal just for walking a long distance? After all, I thought, thousands of people do that every year.

As it turns out, the feat isn’t as mundane as I first thought. I learned something surprising that put the endeavor of walking the entire PCT in perspective. Scout said fewer people have finished the PCT than have reached the summit of Mt. Everest.

Later I looked up the statistics and found he was mostly right. I discovered that fewer people (4,833) have reached the top of Mt. Everest, but in all, the summit has been reached more than 8,000 times. In other words, including times when climbers have reached the top more than once, the number is greater than the roughly 7,500 hikers who have walked the whole trail.

I wondered about hikers in my age bracket, so I tried to look that up as well. Demographic information was difficult to find, mainly because it has been inconsistently kept. Still, I found a survey last year showed just 6.1 percent of successful thru-hikers were over the age of 60. So by those numbers, it would seem that fewer than 500 people have been successful at what I was about to attempt.