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How I Got to Thru-Hiking
Seed
In 2019, I thru-hiked the Colorado Trail. Having lived in Colorado for a decade, it was fabulous to explore a huge portion of it on foot. Highlights included watching six moose graze at a high alpine lake, soaking at Mount Princeton Hot Springs, discovering a lake full of leeches and gilled salamanders, and being fed & hosted overnight by the lovely Creede Community Church congregation. I prepared all my food in advance and mailed it to convenient spots along the trail. My gear was heavy compared to what I use now. Before the trail, my typical backpack outing was four days & three nights, extending it to 45 days felt easier than anticipated.
Blossom
During Covid I returned to engineering, designing power & lighting systems for businesses and single family residences. I read Becoming Odyssa by Jennifer Pharr Davis and began dreaming of the Appalachian Trail as well as becoming a nomad. A close friend and I worked our way through the Boulder Trail Challenge, hiking all 174 Open Space and Mountain Parks trails. We also started a garden and took an earth-centered healing class where we learned to make tinctures and harvest wild plants.
In May 2021, I quit my engineering job, ended a relationship, and moved out of my Colorado residence. My sister, two friends, and I thru-hiked the South Dakota Centennial trail. I became a nomadic pet-sitter.
Bloom
In 2022, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Though I started solo, I met like-minded souls who became tramily , several continued on to become life-long friends. In 2023, I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest trail, accompanied most of the way by Hobble-it, from my AT tramily. In 2024, I returned to the Appalachian trail as a ridgerunner in Virginia and Pennsylvania. It felt great to give back to the trail community: teaching Leave No Trace skills, performing light trail maintenance, picking up trash, and assisting hikers. Still, the urge to hike remained so I followed ridge-running with a fall Arizona Trail thru-hike and a tramily reunion on Tasmania’s Overland Trail.
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