The challenge is so engrossing that hikers shed their identities and adopt trail names. Tattoo Joe and Mr. Wizard. Bad Pack and Thunder. Dirty Bird, Numskull and Good to Go.
"You're going to be hot, cold, hungry, dirty, tired, sore all the time. Once you get past that, you're gold," said Jackie "Yogi" McDonnell, a 43-year-old waitress from suburban Kansas City who has hiked the triple crown and wrote a PCT guidebook. "Your body can do it. The challenge is mental."
Because of that, McDonnell has learned it's impossible to predict a hiker's ability to complete the trail. An athletic college student on summer break may not have the mental toughness of a 45-year-old who takes on the PCT to exorcise a midlife crisis.
"You'll see Billy Goat and say, 'No way, he's 69 -- he can't make it,' " said McDonnell, who has hiked with him numerous times.
Indeed, at first glance Billy Goat looks as if he might have just emerged from a homeless shelter. Twelve years ago, he was diagnosed with diabetes.
But at 5 feet 7 and 150 pounds, there isn't an ounce of fat on him. His shoulders are as square as a sawhorse from carrying a pack. His legs, scarred by innumerable cuts in the wild, are as taut as wire rope.
"He's an amazing man. Ask him, 'Where do you live?' and he'll point to the ground and say 'Here,' " McDonnell said. "He's so completely comfortable in his own skin. There's just an aura that surrounds him."
Toby Woodard says his father has diametrical personalities: On the trail, he is bursting with life -- gregarious, charming, in total command of his domain. Off the trail, he is often stern and moody, an anxious recluse who struggles with depression.
"He is two different persons who has lived two different lives," said Woodard, 37, who lives in the former mill town of Gardiner, Maine. "The man has walked more than 32,000 miles purely for one reason: to escape from our culture."
Toby's parents divorced when he was 5, and for years he had little contact with his father. The two eventually bonded through a shared love of hiking. He calls his father BG; he is known as SOBG -- Son of Billy Goat. "The only reason we have any relationship at all is because of the trail," he said.
George Woodard grew up in northern Maine surrounded by poverty and the infinite outdoors that would become a respite for a troubled soul.
