Hulk to Hike CDT 2026

Greetings and Salutations! My name is Marc DeSantis AKA “Hulk” on trail. I’ve decided to take on the Continental Divide Trail this year. I’m targeting April 27 after CDT Trail Days or May 3 as a start date. I haven’t hammered out logistics yet, but I’m very close to booking my flight to New Mexico and will be walking NOBO (northbound). The 5/3 date has nostalgia since that’s when I started the Pacific Crest Trail. Anyhow, my goal is to get to Canada by the very end of September, so approximately five months on trail.

I recently completed my first ultra race, the Siuslaw Dunes 50K (31 miles) on March 7. I finished in exactly last place with a time of 8:54, just making the nine hour cut-off. It sounds better to say 72nd place and one runner DNF’d, so I wasn’t really last and passed that runner in the sand dunes section of the course. I also was 3rd place in the 51-60 age division. That’s a bronze medal! I’m not a runner, I basically power-hiked and shuffle jogged at times. I have labeled myself SKT, which stands for Slowest Known Tiger. I embrace the tiger, with my fashion. I’ve used a custom made tiger running vest made by Jonathan Thomas “Janis Joplin” @Exoticpackco and Grant Leonardi “Gusha” @Nashvillepack.co is making me a custom tiger backpack. It’s important to look good out on trail and you might as well adopt a spirit animal.

The big question we hikers ask ourself when we set out for a long thru-hike is what is my WHY? I have a couple of them. First of all my long-term goal is to complete the triple crown and the CDT gets me 2/3 of the way there. I hiked the Colorado Trail and fell in love with Colorado. I’ve never been to New Mexico, Wyoming, or Montana and I hear amazing things about those sections of trail. I’m least interested in the AT and the CDT appears to be so epic. It’s the least travelled every year and most likely the hardest. I need to knock it out while I’m still a young 56 years old. The other WHY is my health situation. I had blood clots in each lung and a large one in my right leg fall of 2024. It was a scary time being in the hospital a couple days on blood thinners IV. Three months later I’ve was able to get off those drugs and my health is good now. My cardiologist thinks it’s not a great idea to be out on a remote trail if another health scare happens, but he also says you have to weigh the pros/cons of such adventure. I will listen to my body during the hike and quit if things don’t seem right. But, I believe it’s a calculated risk I’m willing to take. Challenge yourself. Push yourself. Do hard things. LIVE! As Wooderson in Dazed and Confused famously quoted, “You just gotta keep livin’ man. L I V I N.