I grew up in a family that liked to camp and backpack. I especially liked going out into the woods with my late brother John. In 1980 I met Jim Greenwood, who had hiked the whole trail with his brother. They averaged over 17 miles a day for six and a half months. I thought, "I like backpacking. If a week is good, six or seven months might be great!" After thinking about it for almost 20 years, I'm doing it.

I am taking a leave of absence from my employer, Transmeta, to take this trip. My leave is for ten months, more than enough time on both ends for this trip. I will probably not use all of these ten months. Transmeta sure is nice to let me go for so long. I am weary from my 3+ years here and need a break. I hope to return full of spunk.

To get a feel for what other kind of people set off on this sort of trip, their preparations, and their reasons for hiking the PCT, I've collected links for all the other prospective PCT through-hikers for 1999 who have web pages. Here they are: