Ten years ago today I finished the Pacific Crest Trail, walking into Canada after starting at the Mexican border 172 days before.

I finished with aching feet, deep in the death throes of a long-term relationship. I felt exhausted, I felt strong, I looked at the mountains to the north and wondered what it would be like to just keep walking.

Since then I’ve thru-hiked a new trail every three years — the Tahoe Rim Trail solo in 2018, the Wonderland Trail in 2021, and the High Sierra Trail in 2024, which included my third time up Mount Whitney.

I’ve done backcountry trail work with the Pacific Crest Trail Association in California and Washington State (where we replaced the plastic trail marker seen above with carved wooden markers), and I adopted a 20-mile section of the PCT between Dorothy Lake Pass and Sonora Pass in Northern California.

Every time I return to that section or another part of the PCT — whether with a trail crew, my husband, alone, or taking a friend on her first backpacking trip — I remember the underlying joy of waking up each day with no real task other than walking further along the trail. Walking, eating, resting, walking some more. Even with the sore muscles, the filthy clothes, or a month of cold, soggy feet in Washington — even when I dreaded getting out of my warm, dry sleeping bag in the morning. Even now, I’d almost always rather be hiking.

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.