“I WANTED TO FIND SOMETHING … I JUST DIDN’T KNOW WHAT.”


linda blaney, age 53 H Las Vegas, Nevada


Linda was burned out. After two decades work- ing the blackjack tables of Las Vegas, she was ready for a change—from cigarette smoke blowing in her face, from down-on-their-luck customers’ sob stories, from long shifts wearing a forced smile. Back then, her idea of “hiking” was walking the paved


pathway at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. She’d meet her boyfriend for a picnic, followed by a short stroll around the sculpted boulders. But she soon found herself asking, “Is there more to these trails?” At 50 years old, she joined a local hiking group, eventual- ly huffing and puffing to the top of Kraft Mountain. There she proudly recorded her name in the summit register, then scanned the horizon, surveying the distant peaks. She imagined her name in every one of their summit books. “It was a goal, right from the get-go,” Linda says. Day hikes led to overnight backpacking trips. She climbed dozens of nearby peaks, then spent three days in Bryce Canyon National Park. But she felt driven to go longer: the idea of reaching places you couldn’t simply drive to was compelling. “Not just anyone can do it,” she says. “You’re special because you can do it.” Around then she learned about the Pacific Crest Trail,


often nicknamed the PCT. She picked up Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild, and the story moved her. “I wanted to find something,” Linda recalls. “I just didn’t know what. I thought, well, shoot, if this woman can do this, anyone can do this. I can do this.”


36 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2014 The memory of mailing out her resupply packages from


the Las Vegas post office still gives Linda chills. In prepara- tion for her trip, she combed over maps and read all the tips, choosing Southern California as her starting point. When it finally came time to set off on the first day, she was so excited that she forgot to sign the logbook at the trailhead. Over the next 266 miles, Linda encountered fierce


dogs and rattlesnakes. She also met helpful “trail angels” and fellow through-hikers, companions who nicknamed her “Holland-Days”—because she was raised in Holland, Michigan, and also for her reputation as a tough hiker who could travel the trail all day without a break. Usually a bit of a chatterbox, Linda found she was just as content to trek alone, singing songs from The Wizard of Oz at the top of her lungs: You’re out of the woods … step into the sun, step into the light ... . “I found myself,” Linda says. For months afterward, all she could talk about was the PCT. Her blackjack customers rolled their eyes, but it didn’t bother her. “I was glowing,” she recalls. Married and divorced three times, Linda went a full year without bothering to go on a single date. “It was like, you know what? I’m in control of my life for once. I can have fun without anybody.” With her first segment of the PCT completed, Linda


thinks constantly about the next stretch on her list—a 377- mile grind from Big Bear to Walker Pass. Meanwhile, with trails on the brain, she’s eager to share her newfound pas- sion: she’s designed and sold “passport” books to a hundred different hikes in the Las Vegas area.


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