From the moment I started down the Hoh River trail carrying my backpack, I started to sweat. The place with thick with moist, hot air, like a tropical rainforest transplanted to Washington State. Drapes of moss hung from the huge branches of old-growth Douglas fir, Western Hemlock and cedar trees. Bright green ferns carpeted the soft, soggy ground. I breathed in, stuck somewhere between a steam room and a sauna, and tried to enjoy the stifling beauty
We turned the corner of a long, dredged channel in the San Francisco Bay, which is just deep enough to accommodate the six foot keel of our double-masted sailboat. My boyfriend Tom cut the motor, and we hoisted a couple of sails, all ropes and winches, muscle and effort. The 41’ sailboat started to lean, catching the wind, pushing against the lines like a race horse ready for the track. In that moment, with our boat cutting through the water, I felt like I was somewhere far away
When I decided to hike 230 miles of the John Muir Trial through the California Sierra Nevada with my boyfriend, there was nothing to warn me how hard it might be.
I joined the John Muir Trail Facebook group, with thousands of members, all of them posting beautiful pictures of alpine lakes, craggy mountains, nests of evergreen trees in valleys far below. They wrote quotes from John Muir, said how much they missed the mountains, what a life-changing experience the hike was. But nowhere