hiking – Page 14 – The Solitude Trail

One Step at a Time, One Stitch at a Time

That’s it, I guess. Just go on living, whether you feel like it or not. Anton Chekhov My readers will not be surprised to learn that I have a life apart from hiking, though my hiking life will always be the axis around which everything else revolves. Still, the winters are long where I live.Continue reading “One Step at a Time, One Stitch at a Time”

The Season of Mud

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. Kurt Vonnegut Winters settle in for a long time in northeastern Washington, and when the snow finally melts it is replaced by mud, thick and dark, the kind that sucks your boots off when you stepContinue reading “The Season of Mud”

Getting the Grace

Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace. Flannery O’Connor Fellow hikers who read my blog know how much the trail toughens us up for life. Almost every hiker has had that experience, sometimes at the end of a long day of hiking. Out of water perhaps, hot and tired, andContinue reading “Getting the Grace”

Things Best Known

Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best. The folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place–not for another hour, but this hour. Walt Whitman William AtkinsContinue reading “Things Best Known”

Something to Touch and Hold

(I)t’s nice to have something you can hold and actually touch. 9-Year old Lucia Olson, speaking of her neighborhood newspaper When I first started hiking alone in my early twenties, I was much more miserly about the weight of my pack than I would become in future years on the trail. Equipment was substantially heavierContinue reading “Something to Touch and Hold”

Surprised on Sand Ridge

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. Mary Oliver Many years ago for my annual trek in the wilderness I chose a route that was quite different from the backpacking trips I usually took. ForContinue reading “Surprised on Sand Ridge”

A Stick in the Mud

Learn the alchemy that human beings know the moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given the door will open, Welcome the difficulty as a familiar comrade. Rumi Many years ago, back when I was a working woman, I had a three day weekend ahead of me. You know what a precious thing that is.Continue reading “A Stick in the Mud”