'It just seemed like a no-brainer': N.S. man completes 6,300-km hike from Mexico to Canada

A Nova Scotia hiker recently made the trek of a lifetime when he hiked from the Mexican border to Canada in 175 days.

Colin MacDougall's journey averaged 36 kilometres a day, for a total of more than 6,300 kilometres.

MacDougall says he went through six pairs of shoes during his hike.

"I approximately wore through a pair of shoes every 1,000 kilometres, so yeah, I burned through around $1,200 worth of shoes," he said.

As to why he chose to make such a massive trek, MacDougall says he's always looking for ways to challenge himself, both physically and mentally.

"And I've kind of heard about these long-distance trails through friends and media, and initially I heard about the Appalachian Trail, but since we live in the Appalachian, I decided I wanted to kind of go west coast and that's when I found out about the Pacific Crest Trail," he said. "And it just seems to travel through such a diverse landscape that I've never even seen or touched or imagined. So, it just seemed like a no-brainer to me to just go over there."

As far as the scenes and views MacDougall experienced during his adventure, he says many were "unimaginable."

"You start out in the desert, and then you make your way up to the High Sierra. And then you travel through Oregon, which some people view as mundane, but then you go to Washington and Washington and the Sierra are absolutely breathtaking. They're just somewhere you have to be."

According to MacDougall, he didn't shower, sleep in a bed or take a rest day for 32 days at one point due to a deadline with his visa.

"That was in Arizona. So, I kind of had a bit of a deadline because my visa was expiring and I really wanted to finish the Arizona Trail, and just with the nature of the difficulty with the trail, we were some of the first people to go through the season because of the visa issues and yeah. We just really couldn't take any rest days. There's no time to go shower, there's no time to sleep in a bed. It was just basically hike all day every day."

He says he was able to finish his trek one day before his visa expired.

"So, if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have finished."

In total, Macdougall lost 25 pounds during his adventure, and experienced temperatures from as low as -6 Celsius to as high as 44 Celsius.

As far as where he was able to get some rest, he says he used a very thin mattress to sleep on at night.

"Most people would not be able to sleep on it and think it's quite uncomfortable, but when you're hiking around 40 kilometres a day on average, on a day when you're hiking, you can almost fall asleep standing up," he said.

"I generally cowboy camped, which is just sleeping under the stars and not in a tent. I don't think I slept in a tent until 89 days into my trip, so through all of California I just slept under the stars and I just had a little sleeping bag or quilt over me. And I generally just used random things as my pillow, like a food bag, or my down jacket."

"For food, that's when it gets a bit more difficult because you have to eat these high-calorie dense foods. You don't want to be carrying a lot of weight, you don't want to be carrying something that might spoil or go bad, so you're generally eating a lot of sugar, you're generally eating a lot of salt and I wouldn't cook or prepare my food. I generally would just eat it how it was or I would do something called cold soaking, where you soak your food in cold water and eat it the way it is, like ramen noodles."

Following his hike, MacDougall says it was a bit of a shock returning back to his normal life.

"You're kind of just used to being by yourself or with a couple of close friends that you met along the way. So, initially I came back and was kind of just surrounded by many people just because I also had a small presentation on the subject and it was a bit surreal. It kind of felt like I was disassociating a bit and I just didn't know what to do with myself, and I just found myself just kind of sitting around all day and just kind of dying to get back outside," he said.

"Eventually, I went for a small hike with friends and it was kind of what I needed."

As far as Colin's next adventure, he already has plans in the works.

"So, I'm actually heading out in, I believe, 10 days to fly to New Zealand and I'm going to hike a trail known as Te Araroa , and that's a 3,000-kilometre hike across New Zealand from the north island to the south island."

MacDougall is chronicling his adventures on social media.