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 heard of it. We both looked it up, searching for more information. Days later, we headed to California for a family reunion, and driving through the Sierra made this idea even harder to shake. Little did we know at the time that we would end up working for the winter and summer seasons on Donner Summit. After visiting Yosemite with some friends, we knew that we had to do this hike. Our proximity made it seem like this dream could actually become a reality.

Our first "long trail" ended up being a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. We walked from the Spain/Portugal border 115 km (75 miles) to the cathedral of Santiago. It was a great experience where we hiked from hostel to hostel, village to village, carrying way too much and loving every minute of life at a walking pace. Thus began our love of walking, nature, life lived slowly.