Tag: women outdoors

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The Woman Who Called for the Wild

Paula Schwimmer is a slight woman in her late 60’s whose close cropped salt and pepper hair scatters around her round face. Twinkling eyes shine out from behind her horn rimmed glasses as she escorts her husband Rafe down a Seattle sidewalk. They hold hands as they navigate the city so that Rafe doesn’t get lost. Since his Alzheimer’s diagnoses four years ago Rafe is prone to wandering off and not being able to remember how he got there.

When her husband’s illness began to necessitate full-time care Paula left her 40 year career as an educator to take care of him. “It’s a different kind of closeness now. When you’re married for so long, you envision growing old together and traveling, doing stuff with the grand kids,” she says. The couple have been married for 38 years. “It wasn’t what I had expected for our retirement,” she says.

——

Days after reading Paula’s words I am lying next to Keith in our dark bedroom; we’re talking about the future . The various adventures that we want to go on this year and in those to come. Dream trips, future locations and where our lives might one day take us. The conversation is punctuated by the phrase “wouldn’t it be cool if” as we circle through mountains to climb, trails to hike. The experiences around which we want to build our lives. And equally importantly, the things that we don’t want.

“Part of being alive is awaiting the revelation” of who you’ll become.”

The Art of Decision Making – The New Yorker

At 30 I am entering the part of my life where people are less likely to describe my choices as phases. When I tell people that I want adventure instead of children fewer people assure me that I will change my mind. Though, not all. Only time and the eventual onset of menopause will ever render this point moot. Until then, I must endure the pitying looks of aunts and criticisms of unbelieving strangers who believe that, of course, I do not know what I am talking about. People have a propensity for defensiveness if your choices differ from their own. I have long since accepted that a person’s incredulity is rarely about me, but rather about what my choices might say about them. Motherhood still stands as the central definer of womanhood. But I have weathered the endless choruses of disbelief for two decades now and I am used to the storm that comes with taking the path less followed.


——

Despite my bullish urge to resist, the changing of the year has brought me into a period of reflection. I’ve been thinking a lot about choices lately, and which ones I should make to become the person I wish to be. Even though that woman often feels a long way off I feel compelled to dig through the sand to find her, no matter how often the endless gains slide back into place.

“…we aspire to self-transformation by trying on the values that we hope one day to possess…”

The Art of Decision Making – The New Yorker

——

The days are getting longer. Just a little, but I can see it in the evening sky as I drive west into the mountains outside Seattle. As I drive I think about Paula, a woman I have never met. A woman who was not even the focal point in the article in which I read about her and her husband. And yet her words “it wasn’t what I expected from our retirement” pierces a barb straight through my heart and I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind.

For better or worse I have always been distinctly aware that death comes for us all. When I was a child I would lie on my bedroom floor, and with eyes closed try to remember what it was like before I was born. My aim was to dredge up memories of life before my life. In doing so I was confronted with a stretching darkness. In the way that all children experiment as a means for learning about the world around them I too was attempting to reconcile my place within the prodigious expanse of time. As an infant might drop a spoon from their high chair again and again just to see how many times their parent will fetch it from the floor, I too was searching for the bounds of what is.

My searching rendered me a devout atheist by the time I entered middle school. What I discovered behind my eyelids revealed that before I was born I was nothing more than a formless, unconscious bundle of dispersed atoms. Presumably, I reasoned, that would be where I would return to.

I have spent the intervening years attempting to answer the question that the beloved, and now lost, Mary Oliver asked of us all: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Apparently, at least in part, the answer is that I will leave the office early, drive west into the coming gloom of dusk and ski uphill in the dark just for the delighted play of sliding back down across the grainy snow.

Nestled next to my heart I carry a small but heavy stone. One that begs me to look upon the beauty of the world in the knowledge of the fact that one day it will all be lost to me. Some days that stone feels so heavy that I worry it might break me right in two. But it also fills me with a resolve to not spend my life in the pursuit of shoulds. I find myself lucky enough to be entering a fourth decade on this planet I am called to pursue the freedom that comes from time spent in the mountains chasing sunsets across ridges and forever wondering what is just beyond the horizon.

Goodbye sweet Mary, you were a light upon this world who called us to see the wonder that is all around.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, in the clear blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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Calm Between the Storms

Through the dark a warm, red glow begins to blossom, prying me from sleep. Slowly the glow blooms into a persistent light and I am dragged into wakefulness. Before I can fully wake, before I can choose to engage with the day, I roll over and turn my alarm clock off. I am not going to the gym today.

In fact, I didn’t go to the gym once this week. Not once. Each morning when my fancy daylight alarm clock began to brighten the room I would turn it off and go back to sleep for another hour.

For the first time in what feels like a long time I have completely fallen out of the habit of exercising before work. Foregoing my normal practice in favor of extra hours spent between the sheets. When the darkness of morning comes calling I ignore it. The difference is, that this week I elected to stop feeling bad about it.

_______

Years ago I was introduced to the concept of the Big Why. The Big Why is the concept of drilling way down deep through the desire behind any goal in an effort to figure out what is motivating our actions. Once we understand our Big Why it becomes easier to follow through with the necessary steps to to accomplish our goals. For more than two years my Big Why was attempting a thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.

When I didn’t want to do squats (my very least favorite strength training activity) I motivated myself with the knowledge that squats lead to strong legs and strong legs lead to a higher likelihood of completing my hike. The same was true with money. When I wanted a fancy coffee, or to splurge on a last minute trip I would weight that immediate desire against the much bigger desire to save money for the PCT. Suddenly every dollar I spent became potential PCT money and as a result it was easier to skip the fancy coffee and put that money into my savings account instead. My why was big enough to consistently influence my daily decisions. A touchstone of sorts which I could return to when the desire to be comfortable or entertained in the moment threatened to derail the dream of thru hiking.

However, when I completed my thru hike of the PCT on September 11, 2018 my big why vanished. Poof. It was gone. I had a few plans on the horizon, but nothing that required long term dedication in the way that preparing for the trail did. And that lack of motivating force impacted how lived my life. Even though it would be weeks before I could begin to recognize it.

In the weeks immediately following the trail I began running around the lake in my neighborhood. I signed up for a nearby gym. Told myself that I wasn’t going to lose all of the fitness I had gained over the previous months of backpacking. I thought I could roll this experience into another epic adventure, something big and sexy. I was riding a high of accomplishment and in doing so ignoring how my body was feeling.

Barbell weight training, something I genuinely enjoy, became a chore to be dealt with. Running began to feel about as enjoyable as filing taxes. On more than one occasion I would choose hiking destinations based on the quality of story they would produce, not how happy they would make me. I had become someone with two thru hikes under my belt. Someone who gets outside every weekend, hits the climbing gym at night, and does epic shit. But I was also tired and unmotivated. Misdiagnosing the cause of my malaise I plowed forward.

Maybe, I thought. Just maybe what I just needed was another big project to throw myself at. If I could just cultivate the right level of stoke then all my desire to train and get outside would come rushing back. But in the way that mother nature holds us and allows her foolish human children to find their own paths across this planet, she is also capable of stepping in our way when we are in danger of doing ourselves harm.


_______

This winter in the northwest has been characterized by alternating warm rain and snow storms. Resulting in a highly unstable snowpack and high-risk avalanche conditions which have forced me to stay at lower elevations and closer to home. My personal life has been characterized by stretched finances as I looked for a job and rebuilt my savings account after taking nearly eight months away from the workforce.

In the way in which I pursued the PCT with an unbalanced fervor, the pendulum is has since swung the other way and I find myself craving rest. Yet, having this swing coincide with the new year has left me feeling distinctly at odds with a society that fetishizes productivity and busyness. During the early weeks of January while the internet screams about 10 habits of highly productive people, declaring that this will be the year of the new you. I feel like I am constantly walking through a blaring motivational Nike ad when all I really want is a nap.


_______

The proverbial Greek choir dubbed ‘they’ says that there is calm before the storm. I have always found that there is a calm after the storm as well. Living our lives in endless circles as we do, means that these are perhaps the same calm. A season of effort followed by one of rest. Around and around we go.

At the center of an experience it is hard to see the edges. When I am living in the calm I worry that I will be tied to this bed forever. That my stillness will stretch to the horizon and I will be lost. And while I am amid the flurry of excitement that is the storm I pretend that this too, is sustainable. But here on the edge it is possible to see that change will come in time and that I need not cause myself undue strife in attempting to accelerate it’s approach.

During the last few weeks, as I have waded through the morass of unmotivation I have slowly felt my desire for adventure returning. The months long break is slowly lifting and I can feel my drive to explore returning. The other day as I took a walk at lunch I felt that familiar tug to grab my running shoes. This week when thrilling boxes of new ski gear arrived at my door I once again began browsing weather reports and drive times to my local ski hill. While the tendrils of my burning desire to explore outside are beginning to rekindle I have not yet regained the urge to labor outdoors.

The new gear sitting unassembled on my living room floor speaks to the promise of new, softer adventures. I am not ready to push myself, lungs burning, down 20 miles of alpine trail. But skiing feels like pure play in the way that hiking does not. And that is what I am ready for, play.

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Unbalancing Act: Reflections on PCT Thru Hiking

“…this, dear reader, is what I want to tell you about the Pacific Crest Trail. That it is not the romance you expect it to be. Nor is it the suffering which one can imagine it to be, nor the constant elation that many wish it to be. But as with every dream turned accomplishment it lies somewhere in the middle.”

A hiker stands with their arms wide looking at an impressive peak in the distance.

Outside the window the North Cascades roll past as the bus travels south towards Seattle. A verdant green valley stretches away towards craggy cliffs which jut skyward to be capped with low grey clouds. As viewed from the enclosed glass bubble of a Greyhound bus this otherwise expansive view feels distinctly minimized, small, removed—as though I am being sealed off from the natural world. With every traffic-laden mile I roll back hours of walking and this, more than anything, makes me realize that my PCT thru hike is well and truly over.  

A group of hikers gather next to the Mexican border wall.

On March 27, 2018 I stood at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail outside the minuscule town of Campo, California. Hemmed in on all sides by rolling desert hills and nervously laughing strangers I took my start day pictures. I remember thinking that if it were not for the PCT no one would visit this particular stretch of border wall, this particular stretch of chaparral and sand and sky. But there we stood, 35 pale, squinting strangers assembled under a flat blue sky looking north and pretending we could see all the way to Canada. All the way along this wild stretching journey laid out in front of us. The plan: to walk the land between Mexico and Canada, the height of a country. An act which on that day in late March felt more feasible than it does now, some 168 days later. Bizarrely it is only upon completion of the PCT that I have come to realize how absurdly improbable the task of thru hiking is.

At its most basic level a Pacific Crest Trail thru hike is an exceedingly long logistical and physical challenge set against the backdrop of some of America’s greatest natural spaces. Which, when compared to the romantic notion of what people believe a thru hike to be, may sound overly reductive. But the most basic elements of thru hiking are precisely what drew me towards it. Like a thread tied deep within my chest tugging me forward through the months of preparation, it was the thrill of the challenge that sustained me. I have long been drawn to being physically challenged beyond what is expected, or assumed that I am capable of. Furthermore, this hike was an opportunity to spend an extended period of time backpacking in remote places—something which is central to who I am as a person and seek to do as often as possible. I didn’t want to hike the PCT as a means of suffering my way towards a life realization, but because I believed I would genuinely enjoy it—the sleeping in the dirt, the hours spent walking through wild places far away from the next human animal, the self reliance and accompanying logistical planning.


“I remember thinking I wasn’t sure if the PCT would be a life altering experience, or simply another experience in a life.”

And this, dear reader, is what I want to tell you about the Pacific Crest Trail. That it is not the romance you expect it to be. Nor is it the suffering which one can imagine it to be, nor the constant elation that many wish it to be. But as with every dream turned accomplishment it lies somewhere in the middle. More indescribable, more nuanced in the ways it will affect you. More prone to leaving you staring at your keyboard in frustration as you attempt to express an entire world of roiling emotions into the cumbersome, imperfect things we call words. Early on in my hike, as I stood panting atop Mount Laguna and looking down onto the vast beige desert below me, I remember thinking I wasn’t sure if the PCT would be a life altering experience, or simply another experience in a life. Now that it has come and gone and I am left standing along the shores of the aftermath I can say it feels more like the later.

Kara standing on the PCT in Washington, she is smiling at the camera and there are mountains in the background

Looking out at the great forward expanse that will be the rest of my life, the PCT stands behind me as part of who I am, not the entirety of who I am. An experience that has left me changed, but was not life changing—a sentiment that I tend to feel a little guilty about. As though I should have produced a deeper moral to this story. That I should want to leave my life in the city, throw everything in my backpack, and wander into the wilderness where I would be my deepest and truest self. I know this is the story that many people want to read. But for me it is simply not true, and I have never been a person capable of dishonesty simply to placate others.

You see, there is a prescribed narrative splashed across the pages of books and the screens of social media, a story that says thru hiking will radically change your life or else thru hiking will become your life. For there are a small but highly vocal minority of hikers for whom long distance thru hiking has become the central pillar of their lives. They post YouTube videos about gear and food in the winter. While during hiking season they fill our Instagram feeds with stunning images of wild places and wax rhapsodical about the purity of life on the trail, how the simplicity of living from a backpack and wandering through the woods will lead you onto a higher plane of being. This narrative is so pervasive, that to the uninitiated it feels preordained. In the days after I finished the PCT I was subjected to the constant refrain: what’s next? Strangers who had followed my hike inquired about my next big hike. Would it be the AT? CDT? Something abroad? The online peanut gallery has read the script and in witnessing my success looks to cast me in the roll of thru hiker for life.

Three hikers and their gear sit in the bed of a pickup truck, they are all smiling.

Yet, thru hiking is not something I wish to build my life around. I believe the act is simply too unsustainable for that—you can’t thru hike forever, no matter what social media portrays. And beyond that, neither my body nor mind have the desire to do so. To thru hike repeatedly at the exclusion of all other activities would be to trim oneself into a mere shadow of the multitudes we contain. I am a thru hiker as much as I am a writer, a skier, an adventurer, a traveler. And substantially less than I am a daughter, a sister, a partner, and a individual with myriad desires and flaws.

Kara and Keith smile at the camera next to their tent in Northern California on the PCT.

Please don’t be disappointed dear reader. For while my months long walking vacation has not rent me into a new person for which unabated hiking is the only path to happiness, it has gifted me a great deal.

Thru hiking taught me that there is a great joy in unbalanced, unrelenting forward progress towards a singular goal. The very nature of thru hiking gives us that. Something with which we can focus all our energy towards, an unambiguous pursuit to which we can commit fully and in doing so strip away the banalities and distractions of a more complex life. To realize that balance is rarely at the center of great achievements, but conversely is required for us to be full and complete humans. That balance should be sought in the long game, not the cause for strife in the minute workings of a day.

A hiker with their arms spread wide silhouetted in tunnel while hiking the desert section of the PCT

In the unbalanced volume of time spent walking I was afforded a chance to think, to wander and wonder about my life, to leave space for realizations about what is important. In the broadest sense I came to realize that I do not want to spend my life working towards things to which I only feel the most obligatory passions. Namely, dedicating my life to a career. I have struggled most of my life against the highly American notion that our work lives should be placed at the center of our whole lives. I believe this is most obviously seen in the question we all deem most important to ask new acquaintances–“what do you do.”  To which it is implied “for work.” Not what do you do for joy, or to relax, or to challenge yourself. But what do you do to earn money, who are you in relation to the way you feed your ever hungry bank account. And in the drive for transparency I must admit that it scares me to write this.

You see, upon leaving the trail I am also unemployed and will need to seek work, and what if some future employer reads this and in doing so discovers that a my career has never found a home in my heart? It is subversive in the most basic way to not want to work. America believes itself a country of hard workers and capitalists. But thru hiking gave me the time to fully step outside that narrative and see how artificial that idea is. To re-frame my life’s long struggle to figure out what I want to do with my one wild and precious life, and begin to frame that question outside of a career. What do I want to do with the rest of my life if my job is not the most central part of it, but instead a facet of who I am?

Maybe in some ways thru hiking the PCT simply gave me the space to recognize the full measure of myself. It gave me time to see what I thought was important, and most invaluably, why those things were important to me. To have the time and space to fully observe why I choose to do things, even the somewhat silly things like thru hiking was a tremendous privilege.

In truth my beautiful reader, I didn’t hike the PCT for any real reason other than I wanted to. There was no burning desire to memorialize a loved one, nor did I expect the trail to somehow solve all of my life’s problems. In the most literal sense there was no point to it, no purpose other than that I thought I would like it. In so many ways the whole PCT is a pointless, deeply absurd endeavor. To walk the land between Mexico and Canada along a set line between two arbitrarily decided borders–and to what end? To live a life of social conformity–and to what end? If I don’t have my own own reasons for doing something, then why am I doing it? If I am not finding joy in the process or working towards a goal, then what am I doing and why? Why, I was given the time to ask, does one choose to anything in life?

A hiker stands on a the PCT overlooking a valley, there is a rainbow in the distance.

Ultimately, I chose to thru hike the PCT because the challenge appealed to me and gave me the time to shed the gaze of the world and play freely in the outdoors. And that, maybe more than anything, is what the PCT was to me. A chance to honor myself by doing something that was so purely selfish and joyful. Yes, maybe that is the real truth of it—to me, the PCT was an act of joy.

For joy is not something that is without pain, or suffering, or strife. Joy is electing to go through that pain because what is waiting on the other side is so much grander and more beautiful than comfort and conformity could ever be. To bleed, to ache, to hurt in pursuit of something that you want–that is joy. To peel back the layers of your skin like a wild, feral, inhuman beast, to dig deep within yourself for no other reason than the thrill of adventure–that is joy. To choose how you suffer, to look far into the distance and recognize that this ridiculous idea of walking to Canada is nothing but an expression of want–that is joy. It is a privilege to be given the body, time, and world in which that is a possibility.

So no, the PCT did not change my life so much as it was an opportunity to step away from how we are told to live and open up to the ways in which I would prefer to live.

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Getting Good at Being a Little Afraid

You’d think it would be easy to find small suction cups in a city as large as Seattle. I certainly did. In fact, as a Millenial in the age of access I basically assume that I can find any item in 36 hours with minimal time or money spent.

In a somewhat disappointing turn of events, I have discovered that this is sometimes just not true. Which is how I came to be standing in the checkout like at my third Home Depot stop of the day hoping that the adhesive-backed velcro I was buying wouldn’t require more than a few hours of scrapping to come off the inside of my car windows.

But let me start at the beginning.

I am someone who is 30% good at planning, 50% amazing at hoping for the best, and 20% willing to grit my teeth and laugh through a bad situation that came about as a result of my poor planning. Which is to say that when presented with a completely free four day weekend I made three bad plans; each one thwarted by dubious safety, distance, and the fact that winter in the Pacific Northwest is substantially less forgiving than the winters I’d grown accustomed to in Southern California. Eventually with snow and cold temps in the forecast I decided on a small road trip through the interior of British Columbia, sleeping in my car along the way. The velcro I was buying from Home Depot was to affix insulated cut outs to my cars windows. The cut outs, made from a similar material to windshield sun shades, were to prevent me from freezing to death by adding much needed insulation to my car.* But because I am a reluctant planner at best, I was buying said velcro for said cut outs on Friday night on the way to the Canadian border with my car already packed and only about half of my insulating cut outs made. It was fine. Or, it probably would be.

An insulating cut out for a rear window in my car. The suction cups were supposed to go in the corners and attach it to the window.

* Fun Fact: While sleeping in a car you lose most of the heat through your windows which is why insulated cutouts are a great idea if it’s going to be cold. They’re also good for added privacy.

As I drove through the Canadian border, then through and away from the bright lights of Vancouver I was admittedly a little scared. The whole trip felt reactionary and maybe a little dumb. I was driving north into a mild storm because the weather everywhere else was worse. I had a scribbled list of potential campgrounds that would hopefully still be accessible in late December. And in the same list some views I’d hope to see along the way if they weren’t obscured by clouds. Even if this trip was a dud, at least it was better than spending four days alone in my small apartment.

I got to my first campground (read: dirt parking lot in the trees) around 10pm and as I was setting up my car for sleeping a light snow began to fall. In the space leftover by my conscious brain fear swarmed around like irksome gnats–near invisible yet persistently annoying. What if it snowed more than the forecast called for and I couldn’t get my car out in the morning? What if it was too cold to sleep? What if the insulation I was sticking in my windows was magically too insulated and I suffocated while I slept? Was that even possible? Or what if some crazy ax murderer came and, ya know, murdered me? Was I too close to the road? Too far? On what side of adventurous and idiotic am I currently residing?

I had only winter camped once before this trip. Three weeks previously Starman and I hiked up Rainier and camped below the Muir snow fields. It was challenging and cold, but I had another person to turn to if things went wrong. But out here there was no such security. For all my experience outdoors, for all the miles hike and solo trips embarked on, being outdoors by yourself can still bring forth a fear-spiral of ‘what-ifs.’

As I sealed myself into the bubble of warmth inside my car my only option was to hope for the best. I have rarely been able to logic my way out of being afraid. The only way I’ve found to get over being scared is through experience. By exposure to small fear again and again we slowly grow into confidence by way of practice.

And you know what? I didn’t freeze (spoiler).

The next morning I woke to four inches of snow on the ground and fluffy white flakes drifting from the sky. I drove north.


“On what side of adventurous and idiotic am I currently residing? “

Down two lane roads with no tire tracks and no signs of people for hours. I took small, quiet walks to lookouts and silent lakes. Sliding in the footprints of strangers left behind before the latest snow. It feels eerie to be alone in natural spaces that are designed to hem people in, to protect them. I stood against signs pinned to ugly chain link fences and listened to the somber roar of a winter waterfall as the snow slowly worked to fill in my footprints.

I saw small avalanche slides between trees laden down with white caps of snow. I drove under massive slide paths where the trees were shorn down to their roots by a long since melted tidal wave of snow. The land in this part of the world is stunning and I am exultant in its presence. Chock full of mountains rearing up from deep valleys, where towns grow small and stunted, the land too steep for any sprawling human habitation. And in the early afternoon the darkness begins to snake it’s tendrils across the sky and there is that familiar voice of fear again.

While this land is beautiful in the extreme there is an undercurrent which belies the wonder. To err in a place of darkness and snow is to accept the chance of high consequences. Hence the insulated cutouts. The two sleeping bags and pads, spare socks and warm booties. The extra layers, jackets, emergency blanket, shove, stove, and boots. My car is full of so much gear I likely won’t use because that is how I handle the fear of newness–with contingency plans and warm pants. But also because my knowledge of traveling in places like this tells me to be careful.

I have come to recognize myself as someone with a proclivity for to pushing beyond my comfort zone. In college I went from an occasional jogger, to having my ACL repaired for the second time, to standing on the starting line of a half Ironman triathlon in 18 months. After college I went from running the rare half marathon, to running ultra marathons, to lightweight backpacking, to completing a 2,650 mile thru hike of the PCT. All in three years. I feel like a coy fish who is constantly outgrowing their pond. Slowly changing until all at once I feel like a different person. The extra gear in my car is a means for that growth. The extra gear is what will allow me to take the first tentative baby steps into new adventures while relying heavily on previously gained knowledge in order to mitigate risk. The only way I’ve ever learned to safely progress my skills in the mountains are by keeping one eye on the lessons of the past and by embracing little fears.

Which is why I didn’t take my inability to find suction cups as a good reason not to go on this trip. It’s why I didn’t turn around at the Canadian border as the sun set and the temperature began to drop. It’s why when I woke on Saturday morning I pointed my car north and drove. Because the only way I’ve ever found to move forward is to embrace the little fears and allow them to teach me what they will.

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What You’re Not Seeing

8:03 a.m. Saturday

The first tenuous glow of morning light creeps into the bedroom. Lighting the walls from darkest blue to grey. Revealing the small tidy bedroom I share with Keith, where at the foot of the bed sits: nothing. There are no ice axes propped against the closet, nor backpacks packed and sitting ready to be scooped up at the first blare of an early alarm clock. The emptiness is a promise of calm. Outside a cool, rainy day is blooming into being while I luxuriate in the idea of having nowhere to be. Nothing on the agenda other than the chores that help adult life chug slowly forward.


“In the age of internet over-sharing I have fallen prey to the idea that we must constantly be documenting and sharing in an effort to convince internet strangers that I lead an epic life.”

I have been slow to appreciate these weekends spent indoors. Guilty of the self imposed need to fling myself forward at full speed, never ceasing until illness, injury, or burnout bring me careening to an inelegant forced halt. It has taken time to embrace days spent caring for, or rather about, the less share-worthy aspects of life. In the age of internet over-sharing I have fallen prey to the idea that we must constantly be documenting and sharing in an effort to convince internet strangers that I lead an epic life.

Yet I am growing, learning that there is a sort of gentle joy to be found in moderation and silence. That in caring for things beyond the outdoors I can collect more happiness in my daily life. A novel contrast to the previous two years where preparing for and completing my thru hike of the PCT consumed so much of my attention. To have reached Canada and be released from that singular consuming goal feels like being moved to the passenger seat. Where, without the need to keep my eyes on the road I am free to look around at all of the things I have been missing.

This morning I will drink coffee in bed while reading. I will make breakfast for Keith and myself taking the available time to cook the kinds of foods you can’t eat on the trail. A cheesy omelet with sauteed peppers. Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberry jam on top. While I cook I listen to Vanessa and Casper of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text discussing expectations. I delete Instagram off my phone, thus removing any expectation I might place on myself to share, tell, post my life for the benefits of others. Thus removing my own expectations to be good at social media.

11:47 a.m Sunday

I am sprinting after a rubber ball in the rain. My lungs are burning and I know my legs will be inconsolably sore tomorrow after having abandoned any attempt to take it easy as I learn this new game. Gaelic Football, a confusing mess of a sport akin to soccer, basketball, and rugby all rolled into one. But fun, undeniably fun. The delight I take in team sports is being rekindled after such a long absence. Saying yes to thru hiking meant saying no to a great many other things. Because you just can’t have it all. At least not all at the same time. The longer I live on this twirling blue rock the less I am even inclined to try.

Monday 8:17am

 During the bus ride to work I am scrolling through the newly re-installed Instagram. Comparing hashtags and looking at the success of my last few posts. I am debating captions and filters when a little voice in my head reminds me that I don’t have to do this. The outdoor industry as it is portrayed on the internet is not a club I necessarily want to be a part of any more. As I slide past the billionth picture of a thin, conventionally attractive, white person standing with their back to the camera as they look at a mountain peak with a caption about following your dreams I almost throw my phone out the damn window. Luckily they seal bus windows to prevent these exact morning existential rage meltdowns.

The further I scroll the more the images look the same. Each post about sending it. Crushing it. Conquering a climb. Being stoked. Living the dream. Epic to the max. Type 2  suffer-fest fun. Beautiful people in beautiful places saying nothing much at all.

On the internet the outdoors is for escapism, not activism. Full of people who quickly become defensive at any political comment or critique that the community could do with a little diversifying. I cannot begin to recount the number of times I have heard a fellow white person say “I’m not here to discuss politics, I’m here to escape it!” And while we are all entitled to take space away from the quagmire of political vitriol, I find that those who are the safest in our society are those who can best afford to check out and get out. Both emotionally and financially.

And here I have a choice. And so do you.

I can continue to post image after image of the beautiful images I have been privileged enough to visit, toss in an inspirational caption about freedom, maybe a questionable quote from Edward Abbey. I can continue to portray the outdoors community as white, able, thin, and wealthy, continue to consume media from accounts and brands who do the same. Or, I can make a different choice. The reality of which, isn’t much of a choice. Because hard choices come when you have something to lose. Sure, I want people to read what I write and I want them to like the pictures I take but it’s not the end of the world if they don’t. I’d rather be honest and unpopular than promote an ideal I don’t think is helpful.


“…if you don’t know something, you can’t love it. And you won’t bother saving something you don’t love.”

As a lifelong member of the outdoors community I can say we could do with a little growth. And the first thing I’d like to see us do, as a community is to be more transparent about what it means to get outdoors. There will always be the athletes doing first ascents in wild places where no person has ever been. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t also room for walking 100 feet down a trail and sitting on a warm rock in the sun. Or going on your first overnight trip. Or your first hike period. You don’t have to be outside at every opportunity, fair weather hikers are still hikers. It all counts. We should celebrate it all. 

By opening up the definition of what it means to be an outdoors person we will be rewarded with a more diverse community of folks who know that they have a place in the outdoors, who love these wild spaces. Because if you don’t know something, you can’t love it. And you won’t bother saving something you don’t love. And folks, this planet needs our love, needs saving. So let’s lower the standards of admission into the outdoors and let everybody in.

Diversifty our feed – 10 rad accounts to follow

Brown People Camping
Unlikely Hikers
Natives Outdoors
Shooglet
Pattie Gonia
Queer Appalachia
Melanin Basecamp
Carrot Quinn
Nicole Antoinette