Do your own hike – The Trek

A mantra in the Thruhiking community that captures the very essence of my planned trip, a call to embrace an inner compass yet to be calibrated. For me, hiking the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) is not just a physical challenge or a race against the onslaught of winter; It is primarily an intimate (and possibly quite long) dialogue with myself and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to paint a first-hand picture of this region that I have created in my mind during endless hours immersed in Wild West novels.

Thruhiking, as many define it, is the art of finishing. A countdown towards an eventual climax. It carries the dramaturgy of classic novels that measure the journey in miles (or kilometers if you prefer), adversity and an eventual triumph upon completion. The American Triple Crown, behind the AT, PCT and, of course, CDT, is surrounded by an almost ritual set of rules. Here, the challenge is defined by the unwavering commitment to traverse from one extreme to the other (walking from terminal to terminal with full steps)subject to calendrical limitations and the unyielding demand for quantifiable achievements. For many hikers, the focus is on the finish line, on the relentless pursuit of the ever-so-distant climax that validates every sore muscle, every blister, and every step on soggy, incredibly smelly trail runners.

However, there is another form of hiking, a more meandering and experiential form of long-distance hiking. Thruking doesn’t have to be a race against time, it can also be a journey through the endless wonders that nature provides. It can be less about the destination and more about the moments in between. Setting up camp after a long day of ups and downs. The varied soundscape that nature offers, the incomparable colors of wildflowers in full bloom. You can focus on wandering without the weight of expectations, without the need to achieve, delighting in the transitory miracles that dot the path and make this journey of uncertainty something I look forward to rather than something that stresses me out before I even begin.

How social media influences pre-march nervousness

However, as the world has developed, so has hiking. Modern times have introduced digital immediacy to the world of hiking. The democratization of moving image content has created the wonderful opportunity that even activities as specific as thruhiking can now be experienced second-hand around the world. Yet looking at hiking content on social media reveals a frenzy: images of hurried camps, dawn runs, 24-hour challenges, and hastily shot views that seem to capture not the soul of the trail, but an almost desperate need to document every step to relive it online after the race is over. Ironically, this will be the first hike that Yo I will also share it with a broader audience, but I have promised myself that if this experiment in publicly documenting my trip interferes with my hiking experience, it will be behind me. Following Hikers on YouTube and Instagram makes me feel a palpable stress, a relentless urgency, which implicitly seems to dictate how one should behave on the trail. Faster, longer, harder, lighter seems to be the motto of the day. No thanks 🙂

The rhythm of these snapshots contrasts markedly with the rhythm that nature follows. Moving through landscapes shaped over millennia at a literally glacial pace could no longer contrast with the increasingly fast-paced world in which we live. Influenced by the endless scroll of achievements and quantification (the only thing Instahikers love more than gear is stats!), many thruhikers unknowingly succumb to the pressure of ending up with an arbitrary set of rules, leaving little room to savor the art of actually being on the trail. Obviously, nature also plays a role in this artificial urgency by melting and dropping a thick and often last layer of snow on the San Juans and Glacier National Park.

The hiking philosophy that I will take to my trail.

On my journey, this is not the path I will choose. My intention is to travel the CDT in the spirit of the odyssey, embracing a journey from snow to snow (hopefully not so much) once fall arrives, without the need for a finish line. Jennifer inspired me to see the Path as an empty canvas with my legs as a paintbrush and my head as paint. Going as far as the trail will allow instead of forcing myself to complete a checklist. I want to flow with the seasons, my body, and my emotions and let all of those factors dictate my pace and my path instead of being trapped forever by the relentless ticking of the clock. I made that mistake once and I would rather make new mistakes than repeat old ones. It’s a lesson I learned during the first week of my hike along the Alpine Way. Trying to stick to pre-planned schedules and dismissing opportunities and needs that arise along the way is a recipe for misery.

The celebrated finish so glorified in hiking tradition and immortalized by countless snapshots of and on monuments certainly offers a sense of achievement to which I am not immune, a finality that crowns months of hardship with a triumphant gesture. However, in that same structure I see the risk of reducing a once-in-a-lifetime experience to a fleeting endurance competition. Finishing, after all, is but a speck in the larger saga that is a walk.

Between the plan and improvisation, between goals, missing them and setting new ones, I find my way along the CDT. Keep going, because I’ll never know what the next corner will bring, and that, after all, is the essence of exploration, right?

How did your pre-trail social media behavior about hiking culture influence your own experiences on the trail?

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