If you’ve ever had a class with Mrs. Gregg, you would know that she’s a pretty cool lady. An adventurer at heart, Gregg decided to go on a solo trip this past July. Unfortunately, her journey took a wrong turn and left her to hike nearly 50 miles back to safety on a broken leg. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is a 2,650 mile hiking trail that stretches from California all the way up to Canada. Gregg was inspired to hike the PCT after her husband took her backpacking along the Tahoe Rim Trail back in 2016. “While on the trail, we got to talk with people that were hiking the PCT,” Gregg said. “I set my sights on hiking the PCT and started training.” In April of 2023, Gregg and her husband began their journey along the PCT. However, due to a large amount of snowfall from California up to Washington, they were forced to skip several sections of the trail. Gregg returned to the trail this summer with a plan to hike the parts in the Mojave Desert and the Sierra Nevada that she and her husband had previously skipped because of the snow “It takes four to five months to hike the entire PCT,” Gregg said. “Since I was hiking the sections that we had skipped the previous summer, I had planned to hike until July 31st, then come home to switch out gear and plan the next section I could hike.” Gregg began her trek on July 1st. Three days later, disaster struck. “On the morning of July 4th, I was doing a rock scramble on the side of a mountain to avoid a section of trail that had flooded out from all the melting snow of the previous year,” Gregg said. “I was in the middle of the Sierra Nevada section of the PCT on the John Muir Trail.” Gregg had approached a rock ledge that was around seven feet above the trail she was supposed to be on. In order to reach it, she would have to jump down from the ledge. “While I was trying to make up my mind on how to jump with a 38-pound backpack on my back, the rock ledge I was standing on collapsed and pinned my right leg,” Gregg said. “I was so mad that when I finally got up, I jumped down anyway and hiked another four miles before I had to finally admit that I was really hurt.” In order to make it to an exit where she could get help, Gregg had to walk 40 and a half miles over three 12,000 foot passes. Gregg ended up walking on her broken leg for a total of four days. “I could have hit the SOS button on my GPS device and been airlifted out, but that is for life and death situations and as long as I could put one foot in front of the other, I was going to try and get myself out,” Gregg said. “I kept repeating over and over, ‘I am not going to cry!’ and I didn’t, until I saw my husband at the airport and then I cried and cried because I didn’t have to be strong anymore.” To get herself through four grueling days of injured hiking, Gregg packed snow on her leg to help reduce the swelling as well as used her hiking poles to help her walk. To distract herself from the pain in her leg, Gregg put in her headphones and sang loudly to the music. But through all of this, she wasn’t completely alone. “Two women that I met while hiking stayed with me after I got hurt and made sure I made it to safety. Other hikers helped me tape my leg,” Gregg said. “The Hill and Trail Angels (individuals that help out hikers) arranged to pick me up at the trailhead where I exited and drove me to get help.” Gregg emphasizes that she wouldn’t have been able to hike out on an injured leg without the help of the hiking community. The journey was a hard one, but she made it out. “I won’t lie, I am not sure I could have hiked another day with the amount of pain I was in and there is a good chance I would have had to hit the SOS button and gotten help,” Gregg said. “The second half of that fourth day was kind of a blur. My mantra turned from, ‘I will not cry’ to ‘I will not scream!’” Despite her struggles, Gregg plans to return to the PCT and finish it like she intended. Hopefully in the future, she will have more exciting (but not life threatening) stories to share with the students of FHS.