Thanks to everyone who's waited patiently for me to post this blog. It's still a work in progress, so expect to see updates from time to time. I figured my first post should include why I'm hiking the John Muir Trail, but first, some background:
For 211 miles, the John Muir Trail passes through some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in the United States. The trail, which mostly follows the longer Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, traverses the Sierra Nevada mountain range, passing through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, as well as Ansel Adams and John Muir Wilderness and Inyo and Sierra National Forests. From it's northern terminus at Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley, to its southern terminus atop Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, the John Muir Trail offers some of the most scenic vistas in the High Sierras.
So why am I planning a 220 mile, mostly solo hike through some of the most astounding and unspoiled wilderness the lower 48 has to offer? Look I'm sorry about this, I really am. I understand that by creating this blog, you'd expect to see a bullet point list of all the reasons I'm doing this. But honestly, I don't have one. Other than I think the past few years have been leading me here. I've had this sense of needing Something. "Something" was always just a little bit off, but I didn't know what that was or how to fix it. How to fix me. And then, a random phone call with my mom. I'd been telling her about my recent hike to the desert and she brought up how fun it would be to do the John Muir Trial. She'd been talking about doing the JMT for as long as I can remember. It was one of her ideas that always sounded great, but in the end, existed as just another entry in the Someday category. Sure I'd like to go backpacking across the country, but no one ever really does it. But this time when she brought it up, I don't know. Something struck a chord in me that was truly visceral. And I thought, all these things in me that I can't get right and aren't working, all my angst and anger and struggling and pushing and trying. Maybe what I've been looking for isn't something to be found at all.
I'm reminded of Thoreau's Walden, and a quote which I've now memorized and repeat like a mantra at the beginning of every hike:
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
I hope you'll follow my journey.
