PCT: Saying Goodbyes

It’s hard to explain how quickly you make friends on trail, but between the shared experiences and lack of distractions from everyday life, friendships form quickly and deeply. The last couple weeks of the trip saw us saying goodbye to our closest friends from trail.

The first up were the Daleys. They had to head home early to get Joshua’s asthma checked out. I can’t fully express how much we enjoyed hanging out with them and having another backpacking family to talk to. It was truly a joy to get to hang out with them.

We’d say goodbye to Manny next. He was heading back to trail before flying home. He wasn’t sure if he’d be back on trail but ultimately didn’t come back. We first met Manny in the Sierra, and he almost immediately became trail family. He added some good humor and lightheartedness to the everyday grind of trail life.

We said goodbye to the General a few days later. I think we easily spent 10x more time with him than anyone else on trail. We started on the same day and easily saw each other on at least half the days of the trip. We spent countless days hiking, eating, relaxing, camping, and zeroing together. He was a trail grandpa to the kids and a great friend for all of us.

Last up was Mando and Allie (now Poolside). They were staying in Portland with family after nearly getting to the northern terminus, but being stopped by fires. Even though we didn’t hike with them much, we spent a lot of time together off trail and just had an easy time connecting with them. We met them for lunch in Portland and the next thing we knew the restaurant was closing around us at 8pm. We called it a night, but could have talked for many more hours.

We hope to see everyone again and there’s a good chance we will with how much we love to travel.