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farkas not giving up on pacific crest trail hike
third time will have to be the charm for jeromy farkas ...
aug 5 2023
3 minute read
jeromy farkas returned to calgary on thursday, 70 km short of completing the pacific crest trail, while raising money for big brothers big sisters of calgary. he plans to return in september to complete the final few days of the almost 4,300-km trail.
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third time will have to be the charm for jeromy farkas in his mission to complete the pacific crest trail.
the former city of calgary councillor set out 10 days ago to complete the final 250 km of the 4,265-km hike in effort to raise money for big brothers big sisters of calgary. he returned home on thursday 70 km short.
“if anything that the trail teaches you is that you can plan for certain things and what happens out there sometimes goes completely different, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse,” he said.
they battled average temperatures above 37c and high levels of smoke from wildfires in the area, as well as injury. on the second last day of the hike, volcanic rock fell and landed on farkas’ feet, leaving his toes bruised and sore. after more than a day of struggling and limping, he and his two partners on the expedition finally tapped.
he called it some of the toughest hiking he has ever done — which is saying something for farkas. in the 180 km they did complete, they covered 25,000 feet of climbing, or about the height of mount everest from sea level.
they were beaten down, exhausted and hurt.
“we had to make the tough call to come home,” he said. “going into it, we knew that the conditions would be brutal. … but it was fun. it was interesting. it was pretty much everything you’d expect. there’s heat, volcanoes, rocks, ash from the previous fire, constantly climbing over fallen dead trees, scarce water. but even in all that there’s such a ton of beauty to be had and i’m so grateful that i had the opportunity to go back.”
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they will go back again, and soon.
farkas said they plan to recover over the next month and return to where they left off at olallie lake, ore., to finish the final three-days’ worth of hiking. it should feel like a short jaunt after more than eight million steps on the pct so far.
farkas took on the hike as a way to memorialize his grandmother, elizabeth ptycia, who died during the pandemic. he is also using it as a way to recover from a “tough loss” in the 2021 mayoral race — he finished second to jyoti gondek in the election. his grandmother was a former teacher and was passionate about children and big brothers big sisters of calgary was a natural fit for an organization where he could greatly impact the local community. he raised just shy of $250,000 last year as part of the campaign and two followup events.
the attempt, however, stopped when wildfires completely closed off the trail to hikers to a 250-km stretch of land in oregon.
he decided to use the hike this year to push the total money raised over the quarter-million-dollar mark.
but he also really just wanted to finish what he started.
“when you wake up every single day and you point yourself north and you start walking, you think a lot about the destination but it’s also the journey,” he said. “i wanted to make sure that i set foot on every single inch of the trail after i set out to complete it. and while i got to do most of it last year, i really thought of it as unfinished business. it was my dream to complete it.”
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