After leaving home in Granite Falls on April 11, Devin Boyd lost 40 pounds, patched up painful blisters, met a rattlesnake, climbed a 14,505-foot mountain, found a way around a forest fire, dealt with homesickness and mosquitoes, went through five pairs of shoes, and turned 21.
What he gained, hiking 1,200 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, can’t be quantified.
There are the stories he’ll be telling decades from now. There’s the confidence earned by facing fears and going it alone. And there is his new appreciation of other people — a lesson taught by long, lonely days and nights.
“It was a culmination of a lot of things I wanted to do,” said Boyd, a 2015 graduate of Granite Falls High School. “It was something different, to get out there.”
The Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT, is a 2,650-mile hiking route that stretches from the U.S.-Mexico border to Monument 78, where Washington meets British Columbia.
Devin Boyd of Granite Falls hikes on the Pacific Crest Trail at Donner Pass near Lake Tahoe. He recently returned home after walking about 1200. (Photo Devin Boyd)
This year brings the trail’s 50th anniversary. President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Trails System Act on Oct. 2, 1968. The Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails became the country’s first National Scenic Trails — today there are 11, plus 19 National Historic Trails.
It was April 12 — day one — when Boyd set out from the trail’s southern terminus near Campo, California. It’s about 50 miles east of San Diego. “You see the border fence,” said Boyd, who a day before had taken his first plane ride.
He hadn’t read “Wild,” Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 best-seller about her grueling PCT trek from Southern California to the Columbia River. He has seen the movie, starring Reese Witherspoon,but that’s not what got him thinking about the hike.
“I learned about the trail in eighth grade,” he said. “It was a friend’s lifelong dream, but back then I was thinking ‘Who’d want to walk a 2,000-mile trail?’” After high school and a year at Everett Community College, the idea gained appeal.
A bullet-riddled sign marks the Pacific Crest Trail at a wind farm near Tehachapi. (Photo Devin Boyd)
Before this summer, his longest hike was a two-day trip to Image Lake, east of Darrington. “It’s hard to prepare for a trip like this,” said Boyd, who by mile 171 on the PCT had developed nasty blisters.
“Crest” in the trail’s name refers to its alignment with the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges. While hiking — and he climbed, too, detouring to summit 14,505-foot Mount Whitney — Boyd had emotional highs and lows. “Some days felt golden, other days down,” he said.
Boyd didn’t complete the trail’s full length. On Day 113, he stopped at Crater Lake in Oregon. He took a bus and then a train, arriving home Aug. 4.
“I just got burnt out,” he said. And while still on the trail, there were sections he skipped.
In the end, it wasn’t about mileage. It was the journey — all he saw and experienced, and people he met — that mattered. He was cheered by kindness, beginning at a PCT host home in San Diego. The hosts, “Scout” and “Frodo,” have sheltered hundreds of hikers.
A long, lonely trail lay ahead for Devin Boyd near Warner Springs, California, on the Pacific Crest Trail. (Photo Devin Boyd)
Rather than nicknames, PCT hikers answer to “trail names.” By his fourth day, a hiker who went by “Pink Panther” had dubbed Boyd “Germanator.” He explained it’s like “The Terminator,” with the film’s “I’ll be back” line, but with a nod to his German ancestry.
Boyd was happiest traveling with a “trail family” — “people I got along with.” Sometimes a group would go on ahead, or quit their hike. “I thought I’d find a consistent trail family,” he said. “The trail community, they’re some of the nicest people — smelly, wacky and just fun.”
And “trail angels,” people who help PCT hikers, offer a ride, a beer or a place to stay, Boyd said.
Solitude got to him. By day 11, he considered quitting when he didn’t see another soul.
And the scariest thing? “It’s your imagination,” said Boyd, who spent one night in a bathroom because he feared some rustling sounds might be a bear. “I was pretty freaked out. Your mind runs wild.”
At about mile 100 a beautiful tree greets hikers at Warner Springs, California. (Photo Devin Boyd)
His pack, with tent and sleeping bag, weighed 16 pounds. He carried 4 liters of water and averaged 15 miles daily. He didn’t cook, instead subsisting on granola bars, salami, tortillas, cheese, peanut butter, fruit snacks and oatmeal soaked in water.
He wore Altra trail-running shoes, five pairs in all, the Superior and Lone Peak styles. His parents, Mike and Maggie Boyd, sent care packages to postal stops along the trail. Love from Granite Falls came in person when his mom visited at Lake Tahoe, before he continued to Donner Pass.
On June 30, at Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, Boyd turned 21. He was hiking with someone, but doesn’t recall telling his companion it was a day to celebrate.
Places he loved, the glassy lakes and majestic beauty of Pinchot and Mather passes, will never leave him. His written log, and photos taken with his Samsung cellphone, include smaller details: “first snow,” “pizza delivered to trailhead,” “angry bees” and “first rattlesnake.”
By mile 91, Devin Boyd was suffering from nasty blisters. (Photo Devin Boyd)
“It’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s a good way to reassess things even if you just do a section,” said Boyd, who works at an outdoor clothing and equipment store. He hopes to attend Western Washington University, perhaps to study geology or environmental science.
His high-country hike left him with an in-the-moment way of seeing life.
“Honestly, one of the best things about the trail is not to get so caught up in planning,” he said. “Take things as they come.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Learn more
In 2017, 6,069 permits were issued to Pacific Crest Trail hikers, 3,496 of them for northbound through hikers. Long-distance hikers, those going 500 miles or more, make up a small percentage of trail users.
Information: www.pcta.org
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