thruhiking
Colorado Trail: Into the San Juans!
I was poised at the edge of sleep but awake enough to discern the songs of winged insects when another sound came into my consciousness. The rasp of labored breathing,...
Glorious Handwashing, An Ode to Plumbing
“I’m getting used to the idea of washing my face with cold water!” Two 20 something year old women stood at the hut bathroom’s cold running water sinks. Somewhere in...
CT: A Hailstorm Beats A Shitstorm
There was something magnificent about that storm. Although I was drenched and battered by hail, internally I felt balanced and sturdy. The past 48 hours had been a series of...
Colorado Trail: the Delight of Doing Hard Things
I lay in the dark feeling mad with the urge to crawl out of my own skin. Throughout the night, my limbs would spasm and jolt with unbearable itches. The...
Colorado Trail: Salida, I love you.
Backpacking is gratifying, intensely introspective, and demanding on many different levels. It is relieving to counterbalance that mode of being with moments of playfulness or outright hedonism. To live, however...
Colorado Trail: No Feeling is Final, Just Keep Going.
God speaks to each of us as (s)he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond...
When the mountain gets you down…
… you either let it handle you, or you handle it… Perhaps a delicate balance of both. I think I fall more into the former category, but allow me to...
“Why would you do that?” -my mom
Hello everyone! My name is Jenna, no trail name. So I've been struggling with how to start my first blog post for a few weeks, and true to form, I'm...
CT: Leadville and The Colorado Trail House
I didn’t have to walk very far to the Colorado Trail House but when I came upon it, I stood stunned on the street. The Trail House was an enormous...
Colorado Trail: trailmances are like never-ending first dates
Trails are an exotic and transient world where connections form quickly, burn brightly, and then abruptly extinguish.