Tony's Hiking Adventure

It was either sit in a chair and vegetate or get out and do something, so I chose the latter.  Since retiring eleven years ago (1/30/2015), I’ve sailed small boats four times to the Virgin Islands and Antigua (once through a hurricane and in 2025 a fierce gale) and chartered a sailboat with family and friends in the Virgin Islands.  Other travel included visits to Italy for a total of seven weeks and Paris for a week.  And then there is hiking for which this blog/journal is dedicated.

I hiked over 5,000 miles of mountain and desert trails including a through hike of the 485 mile Colorado Trail, the 800 mile Arizona Trail, 1,950 miles of the Appalachian Trail and over 1,200 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.  I, also, went on numerous other small adventures.  It’s been fun so far, and I’m looking forward to more hiking, sailing and traveling.

The year 2021 was another year with the coronavirus.  Although fully vaccinated, I contracted Covid 19 in July while in Maine to hike the last part of the Appalachian Trail.  Stuck in Andover, Maine with no medical facilities or practicing doctors, my latest attempt to complete the AT was thwarted again.  I went home after a week and  twenty-one miles of hiking.  I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be able to complete the trail while still physically capable of hiking the tough Maine terrain.  Time will tell.

My plans to finish the Appalachian Trail are on hold for now.  Two goals to hike part of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and through hike the Tahoe Rim Trail around Lake Tahoe have moved to the front of my priorities.  

I started the Pacific Crest Trail at the end of April 2022 and promptly sprained my ankle.  The next day I tore an ankle tendon in the same leg, and I had to get off the trail.  After nearly a year of physical therapy and exercise to strengthen my left ankle to compensate for the loss of the tendon, I rejoined the Pacific Crest Trail in 2023 at the spot where I was forced off in 2022 due to my injury. My hiking goal was Kennedy Meadows South.  I bested that and ended up doing 750 mile.   

In 2024 I hiked 275 more miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in the state of Washington.  My goal was to do all of Washington and Oregon.  Unfortunately, forest fires put an early end to those plans after I was evacuated off the trail for the second time and then evacuated out of Trout Lake, Washington.

In 2025, I finished parts of the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington, which I missed due to fires the previous year.  Unfortunately, I fractured my right foot and was unable to continue into Oregon.  Despite my advancing age, I intend to hike Oregon in 2026.  In the meantime, I hiked the Ouachita Trail in Oklahoma and Arkansas in late fall of 2025.  My fractured foot was fine, so I now look forward to Oregon.

And so as not to get bored, I boarded a Passport 40 sailboat on December 10, 2025 to sail it down from Miami, FL to the Caribbean with its owner on board.  I’d like to say the delivery was uneventful, but that would be untrue.  We hit gale force winds, which lasted almost two days.  The boat came out of it fine except for leaking hatches.  The owner was not happy about that, but my attitude is like a airplane pilot’s.  “Any landing from which you walk away is a good landing.”

Thank you for stopping by my blog.  Look around and maybe plan your own hike.  I’ll see you on the trail!