It's time for a hike

I’m ready. Ready and yet utterly not ready. I’ve been dumping kit into a cardboard box for the past week. Tweaking the list, adjusting, second guessing. Packing. Realising everything fits. Fluctuating between “Huh, this is light” and “Hm this is a lot of kit”. It is and it isn’t. Both incredibly little for a month away and quite a lot for a 50L backpack. If I’ve got it right this ought to be the lightest 7 day backpack (inc food) I’ve ever carried. Guess we’ll find out soon.

But it’s not really the bag that’s daunting. It’s going back to America. Going home, technically, after an entire lifetime. I can’t go back for “the first time since I was 2” twice. I really hope it’s good. I really hope this trip gives me what I’m looking for, even though I couldn’t tell you exactly what I’m looking for.

It feels so unusual to me. Most adventures, at least the ones I read and often the ones I do, are about escaping. They’re about running away from something or about battling against a particular challenge or objective. But this time I’m running towards something. I’m going to see, to experience, to find out what’s out there. Sure it would be nice if I completed the John Muir Trail but that’s really just the excuse to get out the door. A vehicle to add some form to my “just wanting to find out”. It’s been ages since I’ve gone somewhere just to find out what it’s like and it feels so open and weirdly vulnerable – or perhaps just childlike.

I guess it feels like picking up a book with a good premise. You’ve had long enough to think about where you’d like the story to go, what you hope it’ll be about. And the only thing you can do now is move forward in the pages and find out what kind of story it really is that you’re reading. For me, I desperately hope that I don’t spend nearly a month walking across the High Sierra on my own. I’m prepared to do it, but I’m so fed up of solo expeditions. If there’s anywhere to find a hiking party surely it’s on the PCT. Surely.

Will I find my fellowship or drift between groups? Will I get a trail name? What will it be like finally setting eyes on Yosemite? And will it be the river crossings or the snow condition that’s the most sketchy…?

Either way, here are my last few thoughts about pre-trip prep from the start of the month: https://travellinglines.com/california-here-we-come

And rest assured I’ll be singing Party in the USA all the way through LAX, bopping to Californian Girls and singing California Here We Come into the distance.

Fingers and toes crossed, here we go! See you on the other side,

Emily