CDT Here We Come!

June 5th, 2024

I can’t even! I feel giddy and nervous just sitting down to write this blog post.

It’s been 3 years since my last thru hike, the PCT, and I’m thinking you all could guess that my next adventure will be thru hiking the last of the major 3 long distance hikes in America…

The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) is happening this summer!

This trail is similar to the PCT as it goes from the Mexico border to the Canada border, however this one travels through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. The trail will be between 2,700 and 3,000 miles depending on the route taken.

I will be hiking this trail with my partner (Journey – if you all remember from the PCT ☺️) and a big change from the previous two hikes is that we will be traveling southbound instead of northbound meaning we are starting later in the year at the northern border in Montana. Currently, we are supposed to start in Glacier National Park on June 15th but the snow up North is doing weird things so we are still uncertain where exactly we will start, but this is the CDT. If you aren’t able to be flexible, it’s not going to get done.

It is going to be harder in terms of navigation as this hike is not as clearly marked and has a lot of alternate paths that we may have to take or choose to take. We will likely have more snow to travel through on this trail which will be a new experience for me AND we will be in grizzly territory up north…

One of the biggest reasons for my nerves for this trail is due to grizzlies. Quite frankly, I don’t want to see one…ever. Black bears I will see all day and be fine with, but GRIZZLIES?!?!

No. No thank you. 🙂‍↔️

Since graduating from the University of Tennessee, my partner and I have packed up our house, put all our belongings in a storage unit in Kansas, and are finalizing our last gear details and learning as much as we can about the trail. Since I was preoccupied with school and licensure testing, I haven’t done my homework like I usually do so I am finding myself looking at as many sources as possible in the next week. It truly has been a whirlwind of emotions as I said bye to the new friends I made and our wonky old house that we grew to adore.

We also saw a tornado in Missouri towards the end of our long drive from Knoxville, I guess it was our midwest welcome.

Getting ready to start a thru hike never feels easy for me. It is exciting to think of the adventure, but it’s almost as if I have forgotten how to do things. Did I pack my bag this way or that way, what gear do I need, what are we doing for resupply, how do I do that again? Additionally, its exceptionally hard to put life on hold and say bye to the people I love dearly to venture out into the wilderness with no steady income and no idea what life will look like afterwards. I’m leaving everything that makes me feel comfortable and that is always a very scary feeling.

I’m not sure why, but leaving at 31 years old feels more nerve wracking than it did at 24 when I started the AT. I still have this creeping feeling like I am not doing the right thing, that I should be focusing in on my career and settling down.

But that’s just not where I am at. From an early age I’ve loved exploring. I would venture around town on my bike or build forts in a forest down the street. Exploring outside and the wilderness is what makes me happy and makes me feel like I am being true to who I am. It’s not for everyone, we all have our own passions that make us feel true to ourselves and I will always be an advocate for people pursuing their passions. We aren’t going to live forever.

Be you.

I am excited to see what this trail has to teach me as I am a very different version of myself than I was before the PCT and definitely before the AT. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past couple of years in schooling and life; some of it was really hard to handle and at points I was very far away from the Isabella most people know. I’m ready to embark on this journey and let those lessons sink in and grow from them and more importantly remember who I am without the stress, anxiety, and depression. Even though I feel nervous and scared to leave, I know that the path back to me, is embarking on these trips and I hope this time, I can hold on to that clarity a bit longer afterwards. I am so aware how much of a privilege this is, even though it is a hard, long adventure, life gets really simple on trail and lets you process in a way that changes you forever. I wish everyone could experience how simple life can be when your only main decision for the day is how far do you want to walk.

As always, thank you to those of you who take the time to read my blogs. I plan to keep a daily track like I did on the last two so I hope you will enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing them. ❤

Iz