Ask HN: Career advice – (long) LOA after taking a new SWE position

I'm currently studying for tech interviews after leaving previous company (after 6 years) for hiking few thousand miles (Pacific Crest Trail + more). I have the privilege to be able to dedicate a lot of time for studying at the moment, which might help increasing my chances of passing interviews at Google/Amazon/FB. However, it's likely that I'll want to go on another 4-6 months hike (CDT) in a year from now. It'd make no sense for me to invest so much of my time to try and get an offer from one of these companies just to quit a year later (or even perhaps even two), which leaves me with other options whose feasibility is a big unknown for me: 1. Get an unpaid leave of absence - that would be ideal, though I have no idea how long after one starts working in any of these companies, it's possible to get 5 months off. 2. Delayed contract - use this one year to work for another company while preparing for job interviews at Google/Amazon/Facebook. Attempt to interview 2-3 months before quitting for hiking and if I get offers, I'll try to sign a contract that starts shortly after my hike should end. I've heard (I think it was on SE daily) Google offering contracts for up to a year forward but I'm not sure if it's a standard thing and how it'd work on the other two. 3. Combine these strategies - try to sign a contract with one of the big four that's not on the top of your list, interview for the others before going for a hike and attempt to leverage the current position in order to get better offer on a delayed contract. This is obviously is the least likely option with a lot of unknowns to it. So, my questions are: What do you know of Unpaid LOA in these companies? Same for delayed contracts and finally - are these options I described here even make sense? What other options would you come up with if you had some time to spend on studying now but you wanted time of in about a year from now? Thanks.