What the miles couldn’t handle: Burlington, CO (691.8) to Julesburg, CO (818.6)

Walking long distances reduces a man to what he can carry and what he cannot leave behind.

You start with the equipment. A package. A system. Layers calculated against the weather. Thin but strong stretched Dyneema fabric. Zippers, buckles, titanium, foam. Everything measured, cut, justified.

But the more you walk, the more it will become clear that weight is not limited to what you carry on your shoulders.

There are other things that travel with you.

Old conversations were repeated in different tones. Regrets that arise when there is nothing left to distract you. Ambitions you never expressed out loud. The memory of who you have been and the suspicion of who you might still become.

You quickly realize that you didn’t leave those things at the trailhead.

They are walking with you.

On a long enough path, there is no way to outrun anything.

All that remains is to carry it forward.

The High Plains Highway

Highway 385 had become a major corridor for my trek north.

The High Plains Highway is neither folded by landscape nor softened by sentiment. It runs straight and exposed, a narrow strip of pavement cutting through cattle land and open sky.

I left Burlington and got moving again the only way a hiker can: one stiff step at a time. The muscles protest even after a brief pause. The straps sit in familiar grooves. After a few miles, the body remembers what it’s supposed to do and the cadence finds me again.

A hiker moves at a different pace than the machines. Vehicles appear and soon disappear. I move at my own pace, but I continue, just like them.

I often carry a single trekking pole and tap it like a metronome: left foot, right foot, pole. It keeps my pace even and my miles consistent.

In one of the small towns I came across a curious interruption in the meadow: an incredibly green golf course, dug into the ground. I watched the men approach a small white ball with solemn concentration, hit it into the distance, and then climb into battery-powered cars to chase it. It seemed like a lot of effort went into recovering something that had just been sent intentionally! I already walk enough without inventing additional errands.

Beyond the city limits, the prairie takes over.

More cows.

More bulls.

More barbed wire fences stretch toward a horizon that refuses to come closer.

Round bales of hay spread over the fields like tightly rolled drums waiting for winter to hit them. The grass is cut at its peak growth, left to dry in the sun and wind, then raked into rows and fed into balers that compress it into dense cylinders. These bales are stacked and sold to feed livestock during the winter, when snow buries the fields and nothing grows. It’s prairie arithmetic: abundance stored against hardship.

And then there are the trucks.

Getting beaten in the semi-finals is routine. Livestock trucks are the worst. Its ventilated sides, perforated with breathing holes, turn the entire trailer into an aerodynamic paddle. When they pass, the air does not just rush. Hit. Push. You brace yourself hard or get knocked off the shoulder.

Almost every other vehicle has a sign spread over its grill: OVERSIZED LOAD. Some trucks carry impossibly long trailing wind turbine blades behind escort vehicles. Others have platforms of steel beams that project laterally in a way that requires surveillance. A distracted step inward could cost you more than balance. It could result in an unscheduled decapitation.

Awareness is not optional on this path.

The interior terrain and the psychology of a long walk

Every long-distance hiker eventually discovers that the body is only part of the business.

The muscle adapts. The feet get hard. The shoulders learn the shape of the straps. The physical system becomes efficient.

The mind takes longer.

On a long solo hike, the excitement becomes episodic. It arises. Back away. Reject moderation. One morning you wake up convinced that you are capable of crossing a continent. By the end of the afternoon, after quite a bit of wind and repetition, you question the wisdom of the entire enterprise.

Anyone who has walked enough recognizes this pattern. There are days when the miles feel clean and purposeful. There are days when doubt remains at your side like a second package.

Loneliness intensifies everything.

When walking in company, the difficulties are distributed among the entire group. Shared miles diffuse internal turbulence.

Alone, nothing spreads.

I’ve been hiking alone since Guadalupe Peak and may not see another hiker until the Continental Divide Trail in Montana. The conversations are internal. The negotiations are internal. Encouragement and criticism come from the same voice.

Prolonged solitude eliminates distractions. Eliminate the shock absorbers.

Triumph walks with you: the courage to start, the stubbornness to continue.

So do their failures: the repeated conversations, the reconsidered decisions.

The distance provides time to revisit both.

There are hours when I feel alert and resilient. There are hours when I sit with thin, exposed skin. I have tied my trekking poles in the air over grievances that had nothing to do with the current mile. I have laughed at the absurdity of walking to Alaska alone.

This volatility is not weakness.

It’s exposure.

Emotion is powerful, but not sovereign. What matters is not how you feel after thirty miles of hiking. Fatigue fluctuates. Confidence rises and falls. Frustration builds and recedes.

It’s not just the mechanical steering that matters.

It is fidelity.

Fidelity to the mission that sent you in the first place. Fidelity to the commitment made before the first step towards the north. Fidelity to the man you pretend to be when no one is looking.

You can keep your shoes pointing north and still float inward. The miles expose it quickly. You can fake impulse for a day. Maybe two. But not between states. Not through seasons. In the end, the walk demands accountability.

Advancement must be more than geography. It should include an honest analysis of what comes up along the way.

Walking long distances does not allow you to leave your inner life behind. He insists that you take it.

Stay long enough and something more stable will form beneath the fluctuations.

Not perfection.

Don’t escape.

But integrity.

You begin to understand that you are not walking away from your life.

You’re walking with it.

And if the kilometers teach anything, it is this: nothing essential is left behind.

He lets himself go.

Arguing with the wind

Some days, the High Plains look like a scaled-down Dust Bowl: thirty-mile-an-hour winds, dirt in your teeth, and miles that don’t give way easily.

The flat country has its own difficulty. Even the cows know it.

On especially windy days, I play a little game with myself.

I imagine that the white line painted on the shoulder is a narrow log suspended over the meadow. The rule is simple: don’t fall. Stay focused. Stay upright. Let the wind push, but don’t give up the line.

My trekking pole becomes a balance beam. Heel to toe. Adjust. Correct.

The wind always wins in the end.

But not immediately.

Tailwinds are mercy.

Side winds are a nuisance.

Headwinds are confrontation.

Arriving in Holyoke, the forecast promised snow and strong winds.

Six miles south of town, a sheriff stopped to confirm that I wasn’t freezing to death. Then I packed up and went in there.

The snow came from the side. Ice formed along my eyebrows. My eyelashes hardened and almost froze. The wind pushed me into traffic. I bent over hard, my boots gripping the pavement.

You lean forward.

He leans more.

And yet, you keep walking.

white miles

I left Holyoke with temperatures in the teens and snow across the prairie.

On the way to Julesburg I got caught in a snow storm. Drifts swallowed his shoulder. The sky disappeared into white.

I found refuge inside a concrete tunnel under the road.

Cold slab. There is no place to pitch a tent. The wind passes through the opening.

I left my sleeping bag directly on the concrete and buried myself inside it, pressing it against my body. The phone and battery packs went inside the bag so they wouldn’t fail in the cold. All my water had frozen. I broke off chunks of ice and melted them with my stove to turn them into drinking water. The hand warmers were placed in my down booties and another pair of hand warmers were placed inside my gloves.

It wasn’t comfortable.

It was necessary.

In the morning the storm had passed. I crossed the South Platte River and the railroad tracks and walked to Julesburg, stayed in a small family motel, and let the thaw begin.

Whiteout miles behind me.

Alaska is still ahead.

The real burden

Alaska is still distant enough to seem abstract. There will be more wind. More snow. More insulation. More nights when the mind wanders beyond the feet.

But that was always part of the deal.

I don’t just carry a backpack.

I carry my story.

My unfinished conversations.

My ambition.

My doubt.

My gratitude.

My stubborn hope.

The miles don’t take them away.

They clarify them.

This hike isn’t about cutting ounces or increasing base weight. It is not about getting rid of what is heavy in the literal sense.

It is about discovering what cannot be discarded or left aside.

The further I walk, the clearer it becomes that nothing essential remains at the trailhead. Not memory. I don’t regret it. No love. Not conviction. The road does not take away those things.

You can walk away from the cities.

You can walk away from the storms.

You can walk away from people.

You can distance yourself from certain circumstances.

You can’t get away from yourself.

In the end, that is the real burden.

Not Dyneema.

Not titanium.

No frozen water bottles or hand warmers at night.

When the miles have taken what they can, what remains is this:

Just my life to lead.