Earlier this year, James Nagel \u201910 packed his bags and embarked on a journey that would challenge him both physically and mentally. Starting at the Mexican border in Campo, Calif., James hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) to the Canadian border to raise funds to support Holden Village in the Cascade Mountains, where he is a member on the retreat center\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mechanical engineering graduate from Valpo, James volunteered at Holden following graduation before pursuing a full-time career as a solar engineer in San Diego. But his desire to cross the PCT off his bucket list eventually became too great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy involvement on the board at Holden really pushed me to think about using the PCT hike as a vehicle to support the village,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
James says his involvement as a Valpo student in organizations like Engineers Without Borders and with the Chapel also pushed him toward such an arduous commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt Valpo, you learn that in your daily life, you have to pursue your passions,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd doing that for the glory of God really made me shift this from not just a cool trail to hike, but a cool trail for a cause \u2014 for Holden.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earlier this year, James Nagel \u201910 packed his bags and embarked on a\u00a0journey that would challenge him both physically and mentally. Starting at the\u00a0Mexican border in Campo, Calif., James hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) to\u00a0the Canadian border to raise funds to support Holden Village in the Cascade\u00a0Mountains, where he is a member on the retreat center\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-engineering-announcements","category-announcements","category-college-of-engineering"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"dev@eridesign.com","author_link":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/author\/deveridesign-com\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/ValpoCampus7-Resized-300x192.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["College of Engineering Announcements<\/a>","Announcements<\/a>","College of Engineering<\/a>"],"unlinked":["College of Engineering Announcements<\/span>","Announcements<\/span>","College of Engineering<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 23, 2015","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 23, 2015 5:02 pm","modified":"Updated on July 24, 2025 10:04 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5700,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3288\/revisions\/5700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}