Photo submitted for publication This photo was taken early in Burke’s trip while in the desert section of the trail in California.

2,653 miles.

420,800 feet of elevation gain.

Hours upon hours upon hours on the trail.

But the miles and the climbing aren’t just static numbers on a page.

The beauty is the culmination of experiences, relationships and stunning vistas that come along the way.

Photo submitted for publication Burke leading a pack train down the mountain during the latter stages of his PCT adventure.

Just ask Cole Burke of Russell who spent 140 days covering those miles and climbing those mountains along the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, also known as the PCT, from May 9 until Sept. 26.

“I had never been out west,” he told the Times Observer, noting he’s 29 and “the furthest west I have ever been was Chicago.”

This wasn’t Burke’s first foray into distance hiking – that was the Appalachian Trail which he thru-hiked two years ago.

“After the last hike, it was addicting,” he said. “I heard from people on the AT, people saying how great it (PCT) was, how great the views were.”

He knew he would head the PCT “before I even finished the last trail.

Photo submitted for publication 2,653 miles and 140 days later, Burke at the northern terminus of the PCT on the U.S.–Canada border.

“I know I can do this now. Why not go for it.”

So he took a year away from the trail, got a job, quit the job, loaded up his hiking gear and flew to San Diego.

“There’s like a family there that takes in hikers,” he said. “(They) fed me that night and took me to the trail the next morning.”

But the journey that brought Burke to the U.S.-Mexico border isn’t quite so simple.

Burke said he undertook the AT in 2017 after he “just got burnt out at work.”

Photo submitted for publication Cole Burke, of Russell, at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail back in May.

About 2,200 miles later, he came back home and picked up a part-time job, then a full-time job and then a promotion. He had a friend who didn’t want him to make the second trip set him up with a girl.

That was successful – the couple got engaged two months before Burke left for the West Coast.

He said his family knows “I’m kind of the adventurous type. It’s true you only lived once,” noting that without a wife and children there is “not going to be an easier time.”

So how do you get ready to hike over 2,000 miles?

“Nothing could prepare you for doing miles like that every single day,” he said. “I thought I had trained a lot for the AT…I lost quite a bit of weight.”

Photo submitted for publication Eagle Rock on the PCT in Southern California.

Day hikes on local trails like the North Country Trail gave Burke opportunities to “test our gear and different shoes to avoid blisters and everything.

Still, he knew going in that he “was still going to be pretty sore.

“After a couple weeks your body gets used to it. There is no great way of training. Just listen to your body.”

And that brings us back to the southern terminus of the PCT back in April.

Burke explained that the PCT is broken into sections – the first 750 miles are desert.

“It was raining when I started,” he said. “It doesn’t rain in the desert. It rained for the entire first week. I was not expecting that.”

But when the rain went away?

“It was very hot,” he said, with temperatures over 100 degrees and very little water. “Then you go from extreme heat into the Sierra Mountains for a couple hundred miles.”

That then brought problems of a different kind.

“It was the worst year to hike the trail because of the bad weather.

In the San Jacinto Mountains, Burke was caught in a storm and the “wind and rain ripped apart my tent” at 4 a.m. On top of that, snow started to fall.

He teamed up with a couple other hikers and “we bailed off the mountain like a lot of other hikers did.

“After that it was pretty smooth. Lots of rattlesnakes.”

Just because it was smooth doesn’t mean it was easy.

Burke said he had been told that the Sierras are the highlight but there was “so much snow that it made for very slow days. I had to cross these rivers that were extremely cold at 5 in the morning.”

But he said crossing the streams that early is the “safest time to try and cross” in advance of the mountain snow that will melt and raise stream levels as the day goes on.

“There’s days where I didn’t even see the trail,” he said. “Just following footsteps in the snow.”

While in the Sierras, he took a side trail to summit Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states.

“We started at 4 a.m. to get up there,” he said, noting that ice axes and microspikes are required. “That was a big highlight for California for sure, a heck of a climb.”

A “normal” day – if there is such a thing – found Burke hiking by 6 a.m., sometimes earlier in the desert before a siesta in the afternoon.

Night hikes were an option but he said “that’s not a whole lot of fun.”

Just how far he would go each day depended on what section of the trail he was on and what was around him.

In the mountains, he said the goal would be to handle one pass a day “because you don’t want to get stuck on top at 11,000 or 12,000 feet.”

The last couple months of the adventure he’d hike “all day. Take your time. Take breaks as needed” and enjoy the views, stopping with “enough time to set up camp and eat dinner before it was dark.”

His goal was to complete the PCT by September 15 but losing a week to the storm early on “kind of wrecked that.” The “record breaking” amount of and the snow late in the season “made it hard for hikers.”

On a good day, though, in Oregon for example where the trail is flatter, he could knock out 34-35 miles which got him closer to that target completion date but “(you) can only do that for so long.”

Washington “is probably my favorite. How beautiful it was. It rained for like two weeks straight (but the) last three to four days was pretty nice.

“But the night before I finished, I was camping on the side of this mountain. Two different rock slides (occurred) right next to us. (That’s) pretty unnerving.”

The trail ends at the Canadian border.

Burke made it, but without a passport he had to keep hiking – 31 miles back to a pass that leads 20 miles into a small town.

He picked a good time to finish as it had snowed that night and he caught a park ranger telling another hiker not to hit the trail.

That turned into a ride back to civilization for Burke.

Even though the PCT is 500 miles longer than the AT, Burke finished the PCT in less time.

He explained that while you’re “still going up to 12,000 feet, there are switch-backs on the PCT.

“It’s actually graded so you can ride a horse on it.”

Contrast that with the AT where if there’s a mountain, the trail goes straight up.

“I want to say it (PCT) was easier on the body,” he said, but noted he’s still sore, about a month since he finished the hike.

While the PCT might have been technically easier, the weather on the west coast provided some challenge that Burke didn’t expect.

“The weather out west is so much different,” he said. “If it rains out west, it’s always thunder and lightning and terrifying. It’s always extreme.” Then wildfires happen.”

Burke didn’t lose any time or have to re-route for any wildfires but said he did pass “a fire in California the day after a lightning strike. (It) was 100 yards from the rail. We saw the airplanes going overhead checking out fires and stuff.”

And while the challenge is the trail, part of the benefit is the people you meet along the way.

Burke said he was hiking alone and came across a big tent that was housing some hunters.

They offered drinks, a salmon dinner and the opportunity to sleep in a warm, dry tent.

Burke and the hunters were 10 miles from a pass where they need to pick up supplies. They offered a mount and “let me lead the pack train down the mountain.”

With two major thru-hikes under his belt, it’s fair to ask “What’s next?” There is another major trail – the Continental Divide Trail – out there in the US that Burke hasn’t hiked.

But he doesn’t see that in the future.

“I don’t think I’m going to do another long trail like that…. No long through hikes or anything like that,” he said, though he has talked with his fiancee about a 300 mile trail in Vermont.

“That would be fun,” he said, noting that he is also aiming to finish a book on the AT.

The immediate future, though, is to find a job, get married next summer “and see what happens.”