This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jessica Guo, who worked as a consultant at PwC for over seven years. She recently quit to hike the Continental Divide Trail and the Great Divide Trail, and doesn’t plan to return to the corporate world. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I had heard about the Pacific Crest Trail when I was 18, and because I’m from Washington and grew up in Seattle, the idea of walking home really appealed to me. I decided to do it in 2023.
At the time, I worked as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and decided to take advantage of a program they have where you can take paid leave and receive 20% of your pay. In my mind, doing a thru-hike would be a one-and-done. You do that once in your life and move on.
The hike took me five months. When I finished, I felt like I’d just done this really amazing thing — and then I went back to work. It was a really hard transition.
My team had also changed while I was gone. I felt like I didn’t even know what kind of work I was doing anymore. I didn’t know what my future at the company looked like, even though I loved the work I was doing before I left.
This year, I decided to quit my job.
My last day of work was Wednesday, and I’m starting my next thru-hike on Monday.
I’m doing the Continental Divide Trail and linking it up with the Great Divide Trail in Canada. The route follows the mountain ranges that divide the continent, from New Mexico to Kakwa Lakes in British Columbia. The total mileage is 3,700 and I’m hoping to finish in about five months. I’m planning to average over 30 miles a day.
Being able to walk into another country and continue onward on the same trail for another 700 miles just seemed like a really unique way to experience this part of the country, which is so beautiful and wild. I want to do things that scare me, and this route scares me. It’s also my 30th birthday this year, and I wanted to send myself off with a big bang.
Hiking the PCT changed me
I started out the PCT alone and eventually joined up with a group I met on the trail before taking on a risky section.
At one point, we were trying to walk around the snow by stepping on branches when one broke and impaled my calf.
Luckily for me, one of my hiking companions was a Swedish Marine, so he helped provide medical treatment, hiked out with me, and then hiked back in. At the urgent care center, they gave me six stitches. That’s how I ended up getting my trail name: Stitches.
I had to get off the trail for eight days, but the doctor said I could continue hiking with stitches and that he’d give me a suture removal kit to cut them out myself. So at one point when I was back with the group, the doctor ended up FaceTiming me and we just cut them out on the side of this mountain.
The trail is kind of like a wash cycle. It just keeps turning you and turning you, and every day you’re struggling and it’s aggravating. And then in the end, you’re like, “Oh, I am different.” You come out more pure and more raw than you were before — even though you’re less clean.
It just opens your mind and opens your eyes to different ways of being in the world, and reminds you that you don’t really need a lot of the things that you have in your life to be happy.
When I went back to work, I lost this identity of feeling so powerful and strong. I felt like I had lost a lot of direction. On the trail, you have such a clear north star.
I realized I wanted to get off the corporate ladder
I was on a very defined career track. In consulting, you make associate, then senior associate, then manager, then senior manager, then director, and then partner. I was a manager and I am stepping off of that track now.
About a year after the PCT I realized I was at a point where you either commit to this track and you talk about becoming a partner at this firm, or you go and do something completely different.
I was at a crossroads and having a lot of conversations with people. Do I want to make this track my life? Do I want this life?
I realized the answer to that was probably not. I felt like the things that I did on the trail were so much more life-giving to me than the lifestyle I had when I was working.
I feel lucky in the sense that I’m not leaving my firm on a bad note. I have that safety net of feeling like I can always come back if I want to.
Now I want to find a way to marry those work skills from my job at PwC — like coaching and facilitation — with the outdoors. After my hike, I’d like to start my own facilitation practice where people can experience the outdoors, whether that’s over a couple different sessions, a weekend, or a week or two, and get a similar experience that I got from thru-hiking without necessarily having to invest six months.
It was very scary to quit my job, especially in this economy. But for me, it’s just the right time. If I stayed at my firm for another year, I would just be wasting my time. I would be languishing. I would get resentful that I’m spending my time on this when I know what I want to be doing is something else.
If you have a dream now, do it now. If you wait, then maybe it’ll be less reachable or less accessible. Follow that instinct.
Do you have a story to share about quitting your job? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@businessinsider.com.
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