It begins. Half a mile from the Mexican border, at the official southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, the journey that has been months in the making finally started.

The first stop was a small camp near the border, run by a crew of people who have already walked the PCT — some of them more than once. It was quite nice. That’s Noah-speak for: genuinely good. They covered everything worth knowing before stepping out into the wilderness: safety, pacing, water sources, the unwritten rules of trail life. That evening, tents went up for $15 — breakfast included. Worth every cent.

The next morning: up at 4am. Pack sorted, breakfast eaten, boots on. A group photo with the other hikers at camp, then out onto the trail. Some of those same faces reappeared throughout the day — a brief nod, a shared stretch of path, then drifting apart again. That’s already the rhythm of the PCT.

One surprise: the landscape. Noah had expected dry, flat desert. What he found instead was rolling hills covered in dense, living scrub — some bushes taller than he is (which, at 1.95m, is saying something), others reaching only to the hip, with the occasional low tree scattered throughout. Green, textured, beautiful. Not what the maps suggested.

Good progress meant a full hour’s rest at midday. By around 5pm, Noah set up camp at mile 16-something. Three other hikers arrived shortly after — a couple and a solo woman. Dinner: chilli rice packed into tortillas. Cooked over a small flame, eaten under open sky. Simple, warm, exactly right.

Conversations at camp covered the usual first-day territory: where are you from, what brought you here, how far are you going. One fellow hiker kept pace with Noah throughout the day — sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, passing back and forth with a quiet nod each time. By evening he pushed a little further, hoping to meet up with his family. The trail brings people together, briefly, and then the path decides the rest.

That was Day 1. Mile 16. Already more than expected — in every sense.