When you hear of someone bike touring Argentina, kayaking the Pacific Northwest, or climbing in the Caucuses, the initial response is an odd blend of jealousy and awe. You wonder how on Earth someone can blow off that much time and money to catch a dream we’ve all been chasing.
Everyone is finishing another school year, and some of us are finishing school for good (at least for now). Keeping to the typical projection of life, a job or internship will follow and we will evolve into weekend warriors, time permitting. We’ll read books like “Wild,” watch movies like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and say, “One day…”
I’ll be joining my cap and gown-clad peers in the conga line toward a handshake, smile, and a diploma next month, but I won’t be following them toward a job right off the bat. Instead, I am walking straight on- from Southern California to Canada in fact- on the Pacific Crest Trail. A whole 2,000 (ish) miles.
I’m not telling this to you to impress you or make you feel inferior, but to remind you that yes, it is possible to be that person. It doesn’t have to be a three-month excursion to an exotic country. Utah is beautiful enough that you could adventure here the rest of your life and never see it all. Whatever that outdoor dream of your’s is, go get ’em. Your body, mind and spirit will be forever grateful. “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
Photo by Carolyn Webber