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HIGHLAND
Highlights A Highland Hospital employee newsletter.
January/February 2019
Highland PA Abby McCarthy
Conquers Pacific Crest Trail Imagine backpacking from Mexico to Canada, over mountains, passing through California, Oregon, and Washington. Does it seem impossible? Not for Abby McCarthy, Highland Orthopaedic physician assistant, who completed that goal last year when she hiked 2,650 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) traversing 25 national forests and seven national parks. McCarthy chose to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of her Appalachian Trail hike (approximately 2,176 miles from Georgia to Maine) with a Pacific Crest Trail hike. Over five-and-a-half months she backpacked through desert, snowy mountain passes, and along rocky ridges. “Carrying my home, my food and water, and all my other daily necessities on my back, I walked an average of 19 miles a day while I reveled in the views of such destinations as the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada and the San Jacinto ranges,” said McCarthy. “Being born and raised in the east, and in love with it, I never expected to be so bewitched with the massive expanse of the west,” she said. The diversity of the path, from rocks to wild flowers, sprawling trees, and wild critters, held her to her goal, while her dietary intake rarely varied from oatmeal, ramen noodles, and bar snacks. She slept in everything from snow to 100 degree temperatures, and crossed wild streams, fed by fresh snow melt, as well as deserts with over 20 mile stretches without water. “And I was happy every day, and thankful to be out in the wild,” she said.
At the base of Seldon Pass on May 26, McCarthy and a friend didn’t have the spirit to hike on snow so they stopped early that day to watch the ice form, thaw, reform, and shift across this lake.
McCarthy had dreamed of adventures like these since she was a little girl and her family drove from New York to Maine every year alongside the Appalachian Trail. By the time she had finished college, grad school, and started to work, she felt the need to do something “off script” and to see a little of the world. That’s when she hiked the Appalachian Trail. “After that I thought I was done,” said McCarthy. “But there were so many more adventures out there. “When I started this I went alone and had never backpacked or done more than car or canoe camping. But along the way you meet people from different walks of life who are full of heart and kindness. You recognize commonalities and make friends for life.”
After ten inches of snow, a trail at Glen Pass was impassable. McCarthy had to forge her own path to successfully move forward. Glen Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada, located in Kings Canyon National Park, California.
McCarthy says that trips like these make her a better health care professional. “The experiences have given me more patience and perspective,” she says. “On the trail you have no income, but you have your time and you can give that to people and they appreciate it. If someone needs you to sit down and talk to them that’s more valuable than anything. I am more aware of that in my work at Highland.”
Northern Terminus, located at the Canadian border is the official northern-most point on the Pacific Crest Trail.