Читать книгу The Pacific Crest Trail. Hiking the PCT from Mexico to Canada онлайн

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Hiking 2650 miles isn’t something that just anyone can do, is it? Over the years I have become more and more astonished by the extraordinary things that people who regard themselves as ‘ordinary’ can do when they set their mind to it.

 In 2000 I met Dennis at 12,000ft, on snow-covered Muir Pass. He had had a heart and lung transplant in 1999.

 In 2002 I hiked with 63 year-old George ‘Billy Goat’ Woodard. After starting his thru’-hike he was hospitalised for two weeks with heart pains but that didn’t prevent him reaching Canada. To date he has hiked more than 20,000 miles on the PCT.

 In 2004, Mary ‘Scrambler’ Chambers, a 10-year-old girl thru’-hiked the PCT with her parents, Gary Chambers and Barbara Egbert.

 Scott, in 2006, had one objective: to lose 120lb. He’d weighed 310lb when he set off but when I met him he was already down to 230lb, after just six weeks on the trail.

 In 2006, 22-year-old Ashley ‘Ladybird’ Ravenstein was bitten on the foot by a brown recluse spider and was off-trail for a month with an injury described as resembling a gunshot wound. Nevertheless she returned to the PCT and arrived in Canada in late October.