Thoughts of Hiking The John Muir Trail: Beginning
Our first visit to Yosemite National Park with Jan and Gorden in April. In the summer of 2017, Brandon and I took a wilderness survival course in Colorado with my childhood friend Lindsay. One evening, the group took a moonlight hike and then had to work together to start a fire with whatever materials we happened to have on us at the time- the true test of whether or not we were prepared. During the moonlight hike, the leader of the group had everyone turn to someone near them and share something that they wanted to do before they die. Wracking my brain, I said the first thing that came to mind to my partner for this exercise, who happened to be the teacher. "I want to do a big hike... not too short, but not too long." Without skipping a beat he responded with, "the John Muir Trail in California - 212 miles." The exercise was over and we quickly continued on our hike, but his answer stuck with me. I later shared about this hike with Brandon and he had h