Mark Hainds is preparing to become the first person to walk the entire US-Mexican border.

Right now, he’s walking to prepare for the challenging terrain.

The local researcher and forestry instructor at LBWCC has already covered a good portion of the border, embarking on a nearly 1,200-mile journey along the Mexico-Texas border in 2014.

Then, he walked from El Paso, Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico.

The rest of the trip will be done in segments because he loves his job at LBWCC, so he’ll walk during his breaks to finish.

Hainds said he will start his next walk on Dec. 21, the two-year anniversary of finishing the Texas portion.

“I’ll start in El Paso – same place I started last time, except this time I am walking west,” he said. “I’m not quitting this job at LBW, so I hope to knock out the rest of the border on two weeks at a time – two weeks at Christmas, a week or two around spring break and two weeks the following Christmas.”

Hainds said he will walk New Mexico into Arizona this Christmas; the rest of Arizona in the spring and California over Christmas break in 2017.

“I should be the first person to have ever walked the whole border,” he said.

Will that make Hainds famous?

“Possibly,” he said. “It’s hard to say. I want to have my book about the Texas-Mexico walk finished, just in case.”

Throughout his 2014 journey, Rex Jones and the Southern Documentary Project filmed his expedition.

The walk is dangerous in places and he interacted with every branch of law enforcement, especially the border patrol.

The documentary, La Frontera, is finally complete and is expected to air on PBS this fall, he said. Hainds wasn’t sure what date it would premiere.

He was inspired to take the journey by the movie “No Country for Old Men.”