The Senior Hiker’s Checklist: Lessons from a Reconstructed Body

My equipment is spread out on the folding table in the basement. Stove, tent, quilt, headlamp and the rest. I check each item for wear, test the zippers, count the tent pegs. It’s a family routine. My Opinel knife and I have traveled 8,000 miles. Nicks on the blade. Worn paint on the handle.

But this spring, the checklist seems heavier. Not because of what’s on the table. So it is not.

Two joint replacements sit quietly under my skin. A hip cut and reconstructed. A clicking knee before breakfast. Getting up from a squat takes longer. Kneeling is careful. The question is not whether I packed the right equipment. It’s about whether my body can still handle it for the miles left to go.

The equipment checklist is simple. The other requires more thought. This is what I have so far.

Protect your margin

I used to plan hikes assuming I could absorb everything the day had in store. Twenty mile days were standard. I got up before dawn and set off at first light. I made snow-filled passes, I walked soaked and shivering, I was dragged from the mountains. If something hurt me, I did it. At times I felt like I was riding shotgun, watching my body do incredible things.

This spring feels different. I don’t know how my hip will respond to the miles, or what effect the long descents will have on my knee. So I’m adding space to my plan: shorter days, frequent stops, bailouts if things don’t go well. Not because I expect to fail, but because that’s how I succeed now. My margin is narrower; The consequences are more dire. A lost step. A hard fall. Even a lost nail has a weight it didn’t have before.

I learned it in Olympic National Park after I left the AT in July, the season I wrote about in When the road is not the difficult part. My days were eight to twelve miles. I refused to push. I ended up with forces in reserve. I felt strong again. Not the old way, not the try it way. Strong in a more stable sense. I stared at a mountainside for two hours as the sun turned it golden. As I packed up my tent in the morning, I felt gratitude instead of fear. The mountains felt generous again. My body did too.

So I walk with room to spare.

Refuse to try anything

Northern Sierra Nevada near Dorothy Lake Pass, California PCT, 2022.

On the PCT and CDT, I compared myself to the people around me: how fast I climbed, the miles I covered, the passes I crossed. When Blackbeard said we were “crushing” him in Montana, I felt quiet satisfaction. I was keeping up the pace. I don’t measure myself like that anymore. My body has been remade. I don’t need to keep up with someone thirty years younger. Or even my old self. When Bullwinkle continued to that summit in Colorado and I was left behind, I felt the pain. But they didn’t take away anything essential from me. The goal is not to prove that I still have what it takes. The goal is to walk tomorrow.

Redefine success

South Fork Kern River near Kennedy Meadows (South), California PCT, 2022.

There was a time when success meant miles. The number at the top of a newspaper page. A town reached earlier than expected. This spring, success seems smaller and more precise. A constant and painless climb. A descent deliberately assumed rather than endured. Sleeping all night without my hip waking me up. End the day and want another one instead of needing a free one. If the mileage decreases or I stop early, that is not weakness. It’s judgment. I’m learning what this body can do now. I’m learning your terms.

Don’t rush to get over what you came for

Shoshone Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming CDT, 2023. A lone duckling lost on the shore.

There was a time when I tried really hard and let distance be the point. I would pause, look around, and sometimes be surprised by what I saw. He was that focused. Now my focus is no longer on the ridge ahead, but on the next step. I take care of my balance. I watch the joints. I look for signs of trouble. But that’s not why I walk through deserts, mountains and wide valleys. I look for footprints in the frozen grass, fog sliding across a valley at the first light of day, the last breath of wind in a cooling desert. There is now the danger of controlling my pace so much that I forget about the earth itself, of worrying about my body instead of looking up. If I don’t look up, I don’t know why I came.

Pain is a new language

Mount Zirkel Wilderness, Colorado CDT, 2023.

I used to treat pain like the weather. He came in and I adjusted. Tight calves. Sore feet. Back pain at the end of a 27 mile day. Most of it could be managed or driven. In a long way, fatigue and chemistry distort the pain; It doesn’t always mean what it seems to mean. I have written about it in When listening to your body is not enough. I still believe it. But now the pain speaks to me in a different way. A hardening in the hip. Pain in the knee on descents. It hasn’t been long since. It is a warning light on the dashboard. It doesn’t mean stopping. But it does mean checking the engine.

Accept that now is different

Olympic National Park, Washington, 2024. After the AT attempt.

There was a version of me that could absorb hard miles and long descents without thinking about them. Who could sleep on a deflated mattress and wake up prepared? Who didn’t look for rigidity before standing up? That version took me very far and I am grateful that I once filled his body. I carry his ghost. He still walks ahead of me.

There will come a time when the backpack will remain hanging in the basement and the maps will never leave their drawer. I know that. It doesn’t paralyze me. It sharpens me.

I’m not done yet.

The equipment is still on the table. The package is open. Outside, spring is coming, whether you’re ready or not.

This is not for a major hike. Just blackmail. I’ll be driving from Wisconsin to Utah. Canyonlands. Great Quebrada. Escalante. I haven’t decided exactly where I’ll go.

I’ll know when I get there.

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