Alex and Brendan's PCT Hike!!

It all started on a grueling 4-mile hike up the Yosemite Valley last April. We were counting the switchbacks out loud...23...45...68!! Brendan and I have always found that hiking together is when we get to the real meat of life. We dig in with each other; we ask the difficult questions, we explore our dreams, we deeply enjoy our Maker and his creation, and we sweat.  Hiking up to Glacier Point, talking about what we hope our future looks like, we came upon a dream that we both had but never really considered would actually happen. A through-hike.  Since living on the West Coast and Cheryl Strand's book 'Wild' coming out, we'd heard about the Pacific Crest Trail, but didn't know too much about it. We decided on that day to start researching and see where it took us.  We've spent the last year buying gear, reading blogs, working out logistics and praying (still doing all of those actually.) And now here we are!

We are doing a Southbound trip (or SOBO, as the hikers call it) where we start at the border of Canada and hike down to the border of Mexico; we plan to leave in July. We are patiently awaiting the snow in Washington to melt into the rivers downstream so we can get moving!

One of the biggest hold ups we had in deciding to hike the PCT is leaving our "normal life" and having limited contact with the people we love for 5 whole months, and there are a-freakin-lot of you, all over the country! We want anyone who loves and supports us to feel involved and live through our experience, if you so wish.  So the most practical way to do that is to help feed us along the way, which is where this page comes in.

Any money you donate to us will be put toward our prepackaged boxes of resupply food along the trail. We will use the money you send between now and June 25th, buy and make LOTS of high calorie meals, package them in boxes and Brendan's brother, Kyle, will send them to us at little hiker town Post Offices along the trail.  You are OF COURSE welcome to send your own letters/boxes, but for proper planning we will rely mostly on the boxes we prepackage to make sure we'll have what we need to keep us going. To give you an idea, $50 will feed one of us for a week, $100 will feed both of us for a week, and $150 will provide food and one night's stay in town once a week. Please feel free to give as much or as little as you wish!

We will keep a weekly blog [ http://restandrise.us/ ] and post many Instagrams [ https://www.instagram.com/aoc.boc/ ]  to make sure you get to experience as much of the hike as possible. We will write about this much more in blog posts, but let it be known that we are not doing this hike to escape our life or because we're tired of being with people...quite the opposite, we are going to miss you all terribly and we actually really love our daily life! We are doing this hike, however, as a sabbatical time with the Lord and each other to grow and press deeper into life's possibilities, and want to share the experience and what we learn along the way with anyone who wants to be a part of the journey. It means the world to us that we have so many people who are excited for us, support us, and want to be there with us in spirit. So, know that we are grateful for each of you who has read this, given to us, and will follow along all 2,650 miles. We couldn't do this without you.