Outside Magazine

It was Valentine’s Day 2019 on the Pacific Crest Trail in Southern California, just a few dozen miles north of the Mexican border. This stretch of the PCT runs through the Laguna Mountains, 6,000 feet above sea level, and the high-desert scrub that spreads in every direction was blanketed with snow. Pretty much nobody was thru-hiking it this early in the year, but 33-year-old Cory McDonald was already underway. As he trudged along on a thin layer of frost, weighed down by a backpack, he heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, Second Chance!”

Cory froze. He turned to see an older man he didn’t recognize, who somehow knew his trail name. “I saw you on YouTube,” the man said.

The stranger, standing trailside, didn’t look like a thru-hiker. Of course, people thought Cory didn’t either—thanks to his shaved head, baby face, and a weight of nearly 400 pounds. But at least Cory had a backpack. This man wasn’t carrying one, and he made Cory very uneasy when he said, “I followed your footsteps through the snow.”