My Hiking Plans for Next Year

c) Andrew Carter, 2021

I have 838 miles of the PCT still to hike in 2022. 161 miles of that is between Walker Pass east of Bakersfield and Woods Creek in Kings Canyon National Park. I had planned to hike those miles in September, but terrible smoke from wildfires kicked me off the trail. 16 miles are near Lake Tahoe. I skipped those miles in August to get away from the Caldor Fire. The remaining 661 miles are from Santiam Pass, Oregon to the Canadian border. I simply didn’t have time to hike those miles in 2021.

My plan is to hike the California miles in July 2022 and the Oregon and Washington miles in August and the first half of September. I have to allow time for the snow to melt in the Sierra and for the mosquitos to dissipate in the Pacific Northwest.

That leaves me plenty of time to hike in 2022 before I tackle the rest of the PCT. So I’m planning to fly East in early 2022 to hike a figure-8 from Springer Mountain, Georgia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee and then back to Springer Mountain. That’s a total of 539 miles. The first 297 are on the Benton MacKaye Trail. The remaining 242 are on the Appalachian Trail. I’ll do that from mid-March to late April. In May, I need to help my wife close out the estate of her father. In June, I’ll probably be twiddling my thumbs and completing projects at home.

Once my wife retires (date TBD), my long distance hiking will come to an end. I plan to hike the 272-mile Long Trail in Vermont before she does. And, if possible, the 485-mile Colorado Trail.

Once my wife retires, I’ll transition from hiking alone to traveling with her. We have so much of the United States and the world we want to see. Some of that will include walking. My wife would like to complete one of the Camino trails in Spain or Portugal. She’d also like to day hike from B-and-B to B-and-B in Great Britain.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my hiking blog this year. I’ll start blogging again once I start hiking again next year. Happy trails.