How I Became a Hiker (and Brought My Dad for a Walk)

When I was little, I would look at power lines and wonder how far they went. I figured if you followed them they would go on and on and eventually you would pass every town with electricity. the concept of length It was what captured my imagination: long, winding roads that stretched into the distance, rivers that flowed to… somewhere. So now imagine my absolute delight when I stumbled upon long distance hiking trails at the age of 12.

Discovering the Appalachian Trail

My parents had forced me, an angsty preteen with a deep hatred for anything remotely historical, to go on a family outing to Harper’s Ferry. My dad wanted to go to the Appalachian Trail Conservatory before we left town… the fact that? We followed a hiking trail for about a quarter mile to a building that has now become iconic in my mind. My dad explained to me that the trail we were on stretched a thousand miles in each direction and that one day I was going to walk it all. I decided at that moment that I would do it too.

Motivated by my sudden interest in one of his life goals, the two of us returned to the AT that same summer for the longest day hike I had ever done… a whopping 5 miles. Back home in my room (which was quickly becoming an AT theme), I plotted the 5 miles we had completed on the 5-foot-long trail map that now hung on my wall. It was just a point. It was hard to imagine people doing something that long in one go when just those 5 miles almost killed my dad and me.

Become backpackers

Neither of us had backpacked before, but I knew that was the next step we had to take if we wanted to become hikers. Backpacking meant we needed gear. I received monthly backpacking magazines and read gear reviews in their glossy pages, trying to figure out what we needed and which one to buy.

We had car camping throughout my childhood, so I had some of the things the books told me we would need… but there were so many things I hadn’t even considered: water filters, sleeping bag. coatings, tiny stoves. Several holidays and birthdays went by when all I wanted was equipment. Since my parents generously bought me my first backpacking backpack (I had learned that a school backpack simply wasn’t enough), we were more ready than ever to take on our longest trip yet and carry everything we needed on our backs. With a fun combination of the world’s heaviest gear and cutting-edge ultralight techniques, we start with 15 miles of Northern Virginia.

Trip after trip we counted miles slowly until my map had a clear (although small) line in the center where we had gone. The more experience and equipment we acquired, the easier things were. We got a stove and no longer had to live on peanut butter sandwiches and granola bars. We swapped the heavy cooking pot that hung outside my dad’s backpack (making a clang with every step) for a small, much lighter camping pot that fit inside his backpack. Lihat juga cdsj. We got blisters on almost every part of our bodies and our toenails turned black, and in response we changed our shoes and wardrobe several times. We discovered the magic that is walking with trekking poles. Meanwhile, my mother, who was often our driver, discovered how smelly backpackers can be.

Go backpacking without my dad

My father and I had mostly taken weekend trips, slowly expanding our mileage and adding an extra day every now and then. So when my friend’s father invited me on a backpacking trip through Shenandoah National Park with him and his 18-year-old boy scout son, I was ecstatic and nervous at the same time. Something came up and my friend’s dad had to cancel, but her brother still wanted to take the trip with me. My parents, reluctant to let their 16-year-old daughter go out into the woods with an acquaintance for a week, had to be convinced. They finally agreed under the terms that he would text them every 24 hours or they would call the police. The trip was a bit of a disaster: we brought about 25 pounds of food for 8 days, he didn’t bring a tent and his sleeping bag got soaked the first night, we had fundamental disagreements about the ethics of Leave No Trace, and my phone rarely had service, meaning I missed a check-in, and my parents were on their way to call the cavalry before we managed to borrow an off-duty park ranger’s phone. I cried on that trip as we walked, in my tent at night, and when I got home. But despite that, I was left with the surprising realization that I CAN do it on my own and that I DO like backpacking.

The following year, my best friend Osgood and I took a 12-day trip across New Hampshire on the AT. I had heard that it was the most difficult and scenic stretch of the AT, and I figured if I could hike the hardest part of the trail, then I would prove to myself that I could hike it all. This was a departure from the local hikes with simple logistics I was used to: it involved planes, buses, hostels, shuttles and hitchhiking. The climbs were incredibly steep and long, we crossed Mount Washington in cold wind and fog, and I had an allergic reaction to black flies, but we made it from Gorham to Hanover and had a great time. By the end of the trip, I was in love with the White Mountains and knew I could hike the Appalachian Trail.

Become a hiker

I had considered doing an AT hike right out of high school, but a rowing scholarship convinced me to push myself and finish college before hiking. Turns out, that was never meant to be. A series of traumatic events and mental illness led me first to quit the rowing team and then to drop out of college altogether. As I considered what to do with my new free time, I remembered my dream. It always seems like a bad time to drop everything and start a hike, but I’ve learned that sometimes you have to ignore the instinct that fears unpredictability and do something crazy. So that’s exactly what I did. I left my job as a secretary at my neighbor’s Internet company and on a cold day in mid-February I began walking north from Springer Mountain.

The five and a half months that followed were transformative: I realized that I didn’t want the engineering career I had been pursuing in college. In fact, the only thing I really wanted was to be happy and I was very clear that happiness is mountains, trails and community. I made it as far as Maine before a fall left me with a bruised liver and ribs and unable to bear any weight (or really move my abdomen). I never made it to the top of Katahdin, instead choosing to go back to school, this time at Rice University to earn a degree in Environmental Science and make decisions guided by what would make me happiest.

Since my first hiking experience, I have not stopped backpacking. I hiked the Arctic Circle trail in Greenland during my first summer in college, the nearby Lone Star Trail during Covid, and then became a ridge runner in Maryland the summer after graduating. That fall, I hiked the SOBO Long Trail and took my dad for the last 100 miles (to date, the longest backpacking trip he’s ever taken). I maintained trails in New Hampshire for a while, then took three co-workers with me to New Zealand and the four of us hiked Te Araroa. More recently, Meredith, my childhood best friend, and I went to Chile and walked the O-Circuit. Needless to say, I found my passion and I intend to hit every trail and climb every mountain until my time runs out.

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