Trail Log: PCT Days 15-32

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From snow to desert. From hypothermia to triple digit heat. From southbound to northbound. So much has changed, and the trail has thrown new challenges at us every step of the way. Rattlesnakes, leg gashes, wrong turns, tendinitis, lightning-sparked wildfires… and yet, I remain deeply in love with the trail, with each moment, each vista, each new friend and starlit sky. As I sit reflecting on the last two weeks, I overflow with gratitude for every unexpected twist and turn of this incredible journey.

Trail Log: PCT Days 1-14

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The dust settles slowly over the now empty gravel parking lot. I can hear the faint sounds of my father in-law’s retreating truck down the Harts Pass road, his last words still echoing in my ears. “Good luck.” I turn to my hiking companions with an apprehensive smile, scarcely believing this day has finally come. After so many years of dreaming, so many nights spent pouring over blogs and gear reviews and pack lists, so many plans laid and relaid, so many training hikes, so many emotions leading up to this one moment that is finally actually really really here. After everything, here I finally am. “Let’s do this.”

My Wilderness Roots

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Every time I leave the gardens of the “civilized” world and wander to the Wild places, I hear my self calling out through the trees and the mountains and the bubbling streams. Like I’ve been here all along waiting to be found, but I’ve only just begun to recognize the sound of my own soul echoing through everything around me. Many people wander to the Wild to escape, to run away. There was a time where I wondered, was asked, what I might be running away from…
I think about it now and realize maybe I haven’t been running away at all. Maybe I’ve been running toward that long lost part of me. Magnetically drawing me home.

Wilderness: A Gateway to Minimalism

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Our society of consumerism has instilled in us this unconscious belief that happiness lies outside ourselves, in the next thing, the newest model. In reality, this preoccupation with possessions is an endless, fruitless cycle that distracts from deep-rooted, intrinsic happiness. After all, nothing is enough for the person to whom enough is too little. Happiness comes from within ourselves, how we choose to experience every moment of every day NOT from the temporary high of accumulating the next thing. My formula, taught to me through my wilderness backpack, is simple: Less stuff, more happiness.

Trail Log: JMT Days 15-17

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The wilderness calls to us, pulls us, beckons us out beyond the reach of civilization. Over and over again, I hear hikers say they don’t want to wait until “someday” to really, truly live. So here they, here we all, are. Hiking ten, twenty, two hundred, two thousand plus miles. Whatever we can, whatever we must. Because there are no guarantees in life, and this is too important for any of us sitting here, in this cafe, to brush aside.