Everything I have

Four days into the High Sierra, I woke up with my sleeping bag and clothes drenched in sweat, and my pulse pounding in my ears. My trail family and I were camping at 11,000’, the highest we had slept so far. I had been hiking with a fever for several days, eating Tylenol like candy, dragging my aching body through the miles, and hoping whatever bug I’d picked up in Kennedy Meadows would pass so I could continue through the mountains.

As much as I wanted to keep hiking, that morning my wet clothes and gear told me it was time to get off trail for a few days. I laid in my tent thinking about everything it would take to get me to a bed—pack up, hike to a side trail, hike down to a parking lot, hope I could find a hitch to drive me the hour down to Lone Pine, find a place to stay. Finally, lay back down.

The perceived (and actual) distance between me in that moment and the end state I had in mind was overwhelming. I briefly considered just staying at that campsite until my food ran out, even though I knew the elevation wasn’t doing my healing process any favors either. Then I thought of times during long monotonous days on trail that I had seen a ridge in the distance with the faint line of the PCT drawn along it. I had been a bit mind-blown that I would eventually get to that faint line, because it looked so impossibly far away. I remembered how each time that happened I continued to put one foot in front of the other as I had been for weeks, eventually forgetting about the trail in the distance. All of the sudden, I would realize I was at that place that had looked so impossibly far.

Whatever happens, the trail says just move forward. Even when forward looks like an unexpected detour to recover from illness, even when forward looks like backtracking to retrieve the trekking poles you left at the last water source, even when forward looks like taking a four hour break in the middle of the day. It is a reminder to trust the process, to trust my own body and volition to carry me, to trust that I can keep moving even when each step takes everything I have.

Three years ago when I decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, I knew it would be a massive physical undertaking. I also knew the planning and logistics would take up a lot of mental energy, and that I would have emotional ups and downs along the way. Previous backpacking experiences had pushed against my resolve, and tested my endurance, pain tolerance, and sanity enough to have some sense of what I was taking on.

Still, I did not know, and could not have known, how all encompassing this experience would be. How much my capacity would be diminished for anything other than hiking, keeping myself fed and watered, and being present with people on the trail. How I would need to find some part of this experience to fall in love with every day, even if it was just the idea of getting to camp and lying down. How much my focus would have to narrow in on this one full body, full heart, full mind, full spirit project. How I would need to keep choosing the trail every day.

Though this trail does often know when I need a reminder of why I chose it in the first place. One evening several weeks ago I was coming to the end of a long day in desert heat, feeling over it, sick of walking, tired of the scenery, just wanting to be done for the day. I stumbled around a corner to find a view of the sun setting over layers of misty mountains. Simultaneously this stunning Aurora arrangement came on my headphones, and I burst into tears of awe and gratitude. Full and overflowing with gratitude to be spending half a year living like this.

In fact, I have rarely felt so full of everything. Full of the beauty of nature, the sharp focus of pain, the beauty of our hiker community supporting each other, the surprising mental strain of deciding how much food and water to carry in each stretch, uncontrollable laughter at nothing, tears of frustration, tears of joy, the sense of timelessness, playing like children, building relationships and interconnectedness, building ever more trust in myself.

Simultaneously I am still hungry (literally and figuratively) and curious what else the trail has for me.

And this is for me. I chose it, and continue to choose it, solely for myself. At times I have felt guilty for that, for taking on this massive thing that demands my full attention for so long. Being in this means I cannot be reliably present for anyone or anything else, unless it is on my impossible to predict timeline, and fits in with my mental and emotional highs and lows.

In many ways it is the most selfish thing I have ever done.

We are told it is bad to be self-ish, better to be self-less. When I break down those words, I am not so sure. I think I would rather cultivate “having the qualities and characteristics of” over having “a smaller amount of” self.

This trail is taking everything I have.

And I suspect in some way it is also giving me myself.