As we walk farther and farther south through Oregon, we get closer and closer to the time that Ian has to leave me. Thinking about hiking alone again feels like a whole new beginning, and saying goodbye to Ian, in this case for about nine months, will be really hard. We have hardly seen a single SOBO since we left Timberline Lodge.

I’ve been hiking about an hour and a half this morning, which means, if I’m lucky, I may have gone 4 miles of the 10 mile climb I have ahead of me. This will be the largest elevation gain of any single day since I’ve been on the trail, nearly 6000 feet climbing out of Seiad Valley.

Head down and breathing hard,  I am staring straight down at my own shadow and the steep trail before me with the bright morning sun at my back. After hiking all day yesterday past North, Middle and South Sister without a view of any of them because of fog and clouds, we have decided on a side quest.

To say that I feel grateful or lucky or blessed to be here does not cover it adequately. I am grateful that I feel grateful. I feel lucky that I feel lucky to be here. I feel blessed that I feel blessed. 

I think it could be called grace.

Today the trail starts out with the 2000 foot climb and then, after a little meandering, a 3500 foot descent. This is the way it has been in Washington. The trail goes up and then back down again, unless it goes down and then back up again.

I am leaving Trout Lake, a small community of about 600 year-round residents , which has opened itself wholeheartedly to thru-hikers. There is a generous team of drivers taking hikers from the trailhead to the small town and back at least three times a day. My trail family and I came in yesterday soaking wet from our first 24 hours of rain on the trail.

The stretch of Trail from Stehekin to Stevens Pass is considered one of the most difficult of the entire PCT and definitely the most difficult in Washington. It is 110 miles of deep wilderness with no roads and no way to exit the wilderness. The stretch comes early in the southbound journey and was understandably intimidating to all of us.

My first trail tears came within the 1st mile of my hike. We set out from the car, already above timberline and enjoying fabulous views of mountains and wildflowers in every direction, oohing and awing aloud when the thought came to me “I can’t wait to share this with my mom.”

As I sit writing this, it’s day 18 on my Pacific Crest Trail journey. Things are going amazingly well partly because of the excellent weather we’ve been having here in the Cascades. There is much to talk about, but I find myself wanting to circle back to the beginning of the journey. The hardest night of the trail so far was the night before I started walking.

I’m getting separation anxiety. As my departure date draws closer the excitement is starting to feel more like fear and dread.

Perhaps what I am about to do might once have been called a pilgrimage. Now they call it ‘thru-hiking’, but it feels like a pilgrimage to me.

The gift of attention is perhaps the most precious gift of all. Earlene knew how to make a person feel fully seen and attended to.

If you danced this weekend, good job! If you marched in the Pride parade or cheered the marchers on, thank you and good job! If you went to the farmers market and smiled at a stranger, good job! If you went for a jog or a walk or even got out of bed and did your own dishes, good job!

It’s a wonderful thing when you finally turn towards something that has been calling to you for a long time. It was like this for me with meditation and yoga. This year, nature journaling has been added to this group of practices.

I’m going to come right out and admit it. It’s hard for me to say Happy New Year this year…

Confession: I have a long history of being a habitual list maker. I know there are many others out there who share this same fetish.

On a recent shady Missoula evening, I set out into my back yard to do some weeding. I was expecting to tackle dandelions and clover, but I came upon a plant I had never seen before…

If you’re like me, you may be feeling a sense of relief or that you have crested the summit of something and get to stop working so hard for a while.

I was walking on the hill today after reading a difficult and painful letter from a friend, when I noticed some words resurfacing from deep within me