The Mountains Are Calling...

The mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir

When I talk about hiking, people often express their own interest in hiking and describe it as an enjoyable escape or diversion from normal life. I completely understand how they feel and I felt the same way for many years, but somewhere on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014, hiking became much more than an escape from reality. While it is hard to put into words exactly how, the truth is that thru-hiking has changed my life. I am reminded of a quote from a Love Letter to Long Distance Hiking published in Backpacker magazine. "I wanted to think I’d grow, personally, mile by mile, but that’s not what happened. Instead, I shrank - fast - to the exact size of one human being. It’s a scale I knew nothing about."

I know something about the feeling of shrinking and it even fits well with my theology of what it means to be a human being (more about that later). The desire for things, the complexity and pace of life, the pressure to perform and produce; these things shrink with each passing mile. And out of the simplicity of walking comes connection with both people and place that fosters a deep reverence for God, creation, and humanity.

Confronted with the petty concerns of my ordinary life, I feel empty, as if I am wasting a priceless gift...the brief time that is allowed to each human for creativity. Days pass and my work does not generate the strength and eagerness to live, which memories of the mountain inspire in me. Perhaps this melancholy will pass when there is another magnificent peak. In truth I do not know. Anatoli Boukreev from Above The Clouds