Blue Blazing - Mt. San Jacinto

I AM NOT HIKING THE PCT. This is not a post about me quitting, I still intend to walk from Mexico to Canada. The vast majority of my walk from Mexico to Canada will be along the path defined by the Pacific Crest Trail Association, however by the strictest definition I am not doing the full PCT (nor do most people).

There is a concept in thru-hiking called "blue-blazing", this stems from the almost universally used app FarOut. FarOut is a navigation app that is used for long trails like the PCT; it shows campsites, water sources, notifications and pretty much every important point you might want to know about along the trail. It shows the main trail, as defined by the PCTA, as a red line. It also includes some side trails as blue lines. These side trails come in a variety of shapes. Some are out and back paths to climb a peak (like summiting Mount Whitney), some are hikes you have to take to get to town, and some are alternates. For example, coming into Idyllwild there is a path that bypasses a hill on the official route.

Leaving Idyllwild I took the opportunity to summit Mount San Jacinto and came down the back side. I am not alone in this, I would estimate that the majority of PCT hikers take this same path. This alternate route adds elevation and distance, but technically bypasses part of the designated trail. I don't think most people would see this as "invalidating" someone's thru-hike; it would probably be an official path if the grading was suitable for pack animals. Even if that wasn't the case, making your hike more challenging is not likely to turn any heads. But, what about the trail around the hill leading into Idyllwild? That makes the hike easier, yet you would still have a continuous foot path from Mexico to Canada—is that ok? To cut this line of questioning short, it really boils down to what the person doing the hiking wants from their hike.

"Hike your own hike" is a common saying for a reason; at the end of the day you will know how you did the PCT and as long as you're ok with it, that's what's important. There are plenty of options for how to make your way along the path. Here are a couple more common ones I've heard of and seen so far. There is slack-packing, dropping your gear off or leaving your car somewhere, hiking and then hitching back so you don't have to carry as much. Yellow blazing, hitching to skip some parts of the trail. A lot of people did this from PVC to Idyllwild, skipping the section I talked about in my last post. Flip-flopping is common in high snow years. People who get to the Sierras when there is still too much snow will go ahead to hike other sections and then come back to do the Sierras once the conditions are better.

The reality is, even if you want the most "pure" form of the hike, you are unlikely to get what you expect. The vast majority of people will have some form of closure, flip-flop or re-route due to snow pack, wild fires, endangered species protection or any other number of reasons. The ultimate goal is to have an experience that was meaningful, not to follow a line on a phone app.