Going WILD: How “Ordinary” People can Walk the Pacific Crest Trail Like We Did

Are you intrigued by the thought of walking on the Pacific Crest Trail, but hesitating because you:

• aren’t young anymore?
• aren’t a lean, mean walking machine “uber –hiker”?
• don’t have expensive equipment?
• don’t have 5 months to thru-hike?
• couldn’t walk 2600 miles anyway?
• are too ordinary?
• aren’t experienced enough?

Come and hear Gretchen Brauer-Rieke talk about hiking 421 miles across Oregon on the Pacific Crest Trail last summer with her husband—both of them ordinary, middle-aged people without previous long-distance hiking experience. Learn how they decided how much they could tackle, how they prepared, how they resupplied, how they kept plodding along even as the uber-hikers sped past them—and made it from the California border to the Bridge of the Gods. Gretchen will share her story and provide some resources for ordinary people to plan their own experience on Oregon’s amazing section of the Pacific Crest Trail.