Hiking the PCT
Personal motivation
Beginning of 2025 I will sail with the sail-cargo ship Avontuur, from Timbercoast, to Mexico and start hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. A long distance hike through Turtle island (an indigenous name for the North American region) from Mexico to so-called Canada. It’s 4,256 kilometer long and will take me approximately 5 months, during which I will raise money for Debt for Climate.
Coming from a muli-cultural family, with mixed Indonesian, Chinese and Dutch roots, I am literally a product of colonialism. The consequences of the fact that the Netherlands colonized Indonesia for 400 years can be seen throughout my family history. My great grandfather drowned while being transported on the Junyo Maru as a war prisoner, torpedoed by the English. Some of my female ancestors were njais; concubines or housekeepers of European soldiers. They were considered as some kind of partner, but were taken advantage of and didn’t have any formal rights or recognition. Some male ancestors were part of the Dutch-Indo-European Army (KNIL), an army with mostly European officers and European and Indo-European soldiers.
The implications of colonization are still felt today, and the relation between colonized countries and the colonizers is still not equal. Like global North companies are destroying global South environments, and only the local communities experience the consequences. Like one example of many, Boskalis, a Dutch state-funded company, is dredging off the coast of Makassar in Indonesia to construct five artificial islands. The dredging destroys whole underwater ecosystems, and makes it impossible to fish. This is an essential part of the local diet, and only the natives feel the direct consequences of the dredging.
Former colonized countries are still paying a financial debt for being colonized. Which is unfair, thinking about the free work and land the colonizers took during the colonization. Debt for Climate wants to give the power back to the minorities and indigeneous communities, and ask for climate compensation. Because too many global North companies are destroying global South environments, and only the local communities experience the consequences in their food, water and other supplies. Apart from that, global North is mostly causing climate change, while the global South is feeling most of the consequences.
Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is a great way to raise awareness for this subject, also here colonization and climate change come together. History tells us that the Europeans killed most indigeneous communities and put their kids into boarding schools, where their languages and traditional ways of life were beaten out of them. The Pacific Crest Trail goes through many national parks, where all parks were created as part of a larger project to displace and disposses native people of their lands. Therefore the creation of the PCT has been made possible by killing and displacing native Americans. Along the PCT, the consequences of global warming are felt as well. Large parts of the PCT are endangered by forest fires, the dessert is getting hotter and therefore water becomes scarce. Glaciers and snow are melting fast, which makes crossing snow fields more dangereous each year.
The consequences of colonialism and climate change are so clearly visible when hiking this trail. Therefore Debt for Climate is a great cause to bring these two very important and current topics together. Going to and from Turtle Island by boat, shows how travelling is also possible by being unharmful to the environment.
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General information
The Pacific crest trail is a long-distance hike going through the United States (or turtle island, as the indigenous would call it), from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. The hike is 4,265 kilometers long and takes on average 5 months to complete. Most hikers hike from south to north, and permits starting dates range from beginning of march until end of may. I will start hiking with my friend in the beginning of May, and therefore we will probably be hiking until October. The hike goes through many different environments, including deserts, the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, deep forests and volcanic peaks. The trail become a national trail in 1968 and was officially completed in 1993.
Why the PCT
I came across the PCT for the first time when I saw the movie ‘Wild’ based on the book by Cheryl Strayed. After I read the book and was completely hooked. I was mesmerized by the power of hiking, being alone in breathtaking nature, to be able to deal with all wounds. It was during the time that I was still studying, and didn’t have a big passion for hiking yet.
After I moved to Switzerland, started hiking a bunch and finished my studies, I was drawn to the idea of sailing across the ocean. I originally planned to combine this with hiking the PCT. However, a friend of mine wanted to come with, and since he has family in Brazil the plan changed gradually into going to South America. After planning together and trying to find ways to sail across the ocean, the plan of hiking the PCT slowly moved to the background, until I completely forgot about it. When my friend decided not to come anymore because he wanted to start studying, I had a small crisis. Would I actually be brave enough to go sailing with people I never really met and stay with them on a small boat for a few weeks? What would I do once arriving in the Caribbean? How would I go from there to South America, and once there, what would I do? It didn’t feel right to go on such a big adventure with so many insecurities and without really having a goal on what to do there.
This uneasy feeling changed when one of my best friends sent me the movie made by Elina Osborne ‘It is the people’, which is about her experience on hiking the PCT. I was completely mesmerized and remembered that my original plan was actually to hike the PCT. It also made me realize that if I would start to hike the PCT alone, it wouldn’t mean that I would have to hike alone. The whole community around the PCT was something I had wished for to find in Europe, but had never really felt like it was there. In the end what makes me happiest in life is to hike with my friends, but not with one or two, but with a group. This is exactly what the PCT provides and all you have to do is turn up.
Traveling from and to Turtle island
I haven’t been flying for the past 7 years of my life, and would love to keep it this way. Hiking to raise money for an organization that is trying to fight climate change gives me extra motivation to show others that there is also a different way of traveling – even if you want to go overseas. The only thing you need is a bit more time, but the journey is more important than the destination is it not?
Before I started this journey I emailed different ships to ask if I could join them on their trip. In Europe there’s different cargo sailing companies that go to the Caribbean every year to pick up cacao and coffee beans and bring them back to Europe. For most of these ships there is the possibility to buy your passage across and you can join them as a shipmate. Fairtransport is a collective where some of these ships are a part of. I just emailed different boats to ask if they could take me across, in exchange for some work. The Avontuur from Timbercoast invited me to help them in their maintenance period to see if we would fit together. It was perfect, as they would sail to Mexico, from where I could take a bus to the United states. Other websites as crewbay and find a crew also offer boats that are looking for a crew. But you need to get lucky that they go where ever you want to go and that they are trustworthy people that you also get along with.
While sitting at home
It feels strange to start this adventure, while feeling as untrained as I am now. The past year I have hiked the least of all these years since I started hiking. I was hoping to hike a lot in summer, and do multiple two-week hikes with the purpose to prepare for the PCT. See which gear I really needed and what was redundant, how much food I would need for a week and how much this would weigh. Unfortunately the past summer had a lot of bad luck for me in store. First of all I got a stomach flu which would come back every one and half weeks for a month or so. When I finally was better from this I got a normal flu which took multiple months to recover from. Mostly because I thought I would be better after three days of kind of resting, and could start hiking/climbing/biking again. Without really listening to my body, it was telling me it was too much, I would get sick again.
After going home for a month to recover from the flu, I was preparing for a two week hike in the Dolomites at the end of august, for which I invited all my friends. The weekend before I went climbing in chamonix, and when hiking down for 800 height meters, my knee started to hurt tremendously. This knee injury stayed with me for a couple of months and made me unable to hike for the rest of the year. Writing this in December, my knee is slowly feeling better again, and I can hike more and more each day. However being at home in the Netherlands doesn’t give me much opportunity to practice. To add to the bad luck, a few months ago I started to have a lot of pain in my chest, and after many examinations in the hospital, I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. I have to take antibiotics for half a year, but when they don’t give any side effects I am still able to go as planned.
So after this crazy year full of bad luck, without much hiking, I don’t really feel ready to start this trip of a lifetime. But, since I already found a boat I can sail with and a friend of mine is joining, the circumstances apart from my health couldn’t be better. In the end never tried is always failed, so I will just see how far I can get. Starting a fundraiser for debt for climate for my hike, gives me extra motivation to see how far I can get. Let’s see if I can actually manage to finish 🙂
First nation territories
The hike goes through the states California, Oregon and Washington and passes the following first nation territories, research done by Paige Wagar:
