A Life Told in Miles

We are a landscape of all we have seen.

Isamu Naguchi

At important transitions in my life I find myself reflecting on the journey that has led to this place and time. As always, everything relates to the trail, the long treks with my backpack, the quiet moments in camp with a cup of tea and a good book, and the places where those journeys have taken place over the years.

As a child these hikes were short, probably no longer than two or three miles, usually with my mother while my dad went fishing during our camping trips. They primarily happened in the Olympics, a National Park that was close to our home in Tacoma and provided my dad with abundant fishing in the rivers and high mountain lakes. The low elevation valleys provided perfect terrain for young children. This is probably why I came to love these mountains so deeply. They have always felt like home to me.

In my early twenties when I became a serious backpacker I returned to these mountains that had provided such happy memories for me, carrying my backpack to those high lakes and beyond. I was a Registered Nurse in a hospital, which often meant working weekends. I did not mind this so much. It afforded days off during the week when the trails were less crowded. Even then I sought out solitude on the trail. I began backpacking alone, for my friends all had ordinary jobs that meant working Monday through Friday. I loved that time alone in the Olympic Mountains and began to seek out the less popular trails that were infrequently maintained, where I could hike for several days without seeing another person. I had a large map of the Olympic Mountains on the wall in my office and would carefully mark a trail with a red felt pen when I had hiked it. After a few years every trail had been marked with red.

After my twin daughters were born these long hikes had to be shortened to day hikes, when I could find a babysitter, which fortunately for me was about once a week. Both of their grandmas loved spending a day with these babies and were happy to give me a break. I missed the longer treks, but I was grateful to be able to go to the places that nurtured me and grateful as well to come home to my smiling happy baby girls.

My marriage to their father ended about the time they entered kindergarten. For the first several years as a single mother I was given a break every summer when they spent six weeks with their dad. I began to explore the Pasayten Wilderness in the North Cascades, having decided that the Olympics were getting too crowded. This area was further from home, requiring a long drive to the get to the trailheads but opened up a wild and wonderful world of new trails to me. I began to extend the length of my solo hikes, finally working up to a full two weeks alone in the wilderness, carrying all that I needed in a backpack that was way too heavy for my small frame. The Pasayten was an immense wilderness area. Another map went up on my office wall. It took more than ten years to mark every trail in red, but I succeeded.

When my daughters left home I left home too, moving to the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming to accept a job providing psychiatric services for the area and honoring a dream to live and work in a more rural area. During my seventeen years there I explored the Bighorns, the Wind River Mountains, the Beartooth Mountains, and of course Yellowstone National Park. I also was closer to the southwest so began making yearly trips every spring to Canyonlands and other National Parks in that area. Yes, more maps appeared on my office wall, and by the time I left Wyoming they had all been marked with red.

I remained in Wyoming until I retired in my early sixties and returned to Washington. Now I had all the time I wanted to explore the trails. I returned at first to places that were familiar to me, hiking trails in the Olympics I had first explored in my early twenties, then began thru hiking. For my “Medicare birthday” at sixty-five I hiked the Washington section of the Pacific Crest Trail, and five years later the Pacific Northwest Trail. This adventure led to a move to northeastern Washington, where I now spend my summers exploring the Okanogan Highlands, the Kettle River Mountains, and the Selkirks. More maps on the wall.

This has been the story of my life in a few paragraphs. It was not hard to tell. I only had to remember the trails. . .yes, the trails. They tell the full story. You have read some of them.

I am not done hiking, though with an aching back and hip I may be done backpacking. I can attribute these aches and pains to the long trips with a too heavy pack. It was worth it. I have more miles to explore…and more maps on the wall.