Tim in 2017
In the seventies and eighties I hiked in the Sierra to experience wilderness, independence and freedom. I returned in the nineties with my children so they could share some of the same experiences.
In 2002, still reeling from an unexpected divorce, my son and I set out to cover the entire John Muir Trail. We didn’t take it as seriously as we should have, and a simple blister on the bottom of his foot derailed our plan. Fifty miles in we had to pull out for a couple days while that healed. Then we jumped back on the trail further south at Kearsarge Pass and finished our trip with a memorable night atop Mt. Whitney. We ended up completing the first fifty and the last forty-five miles that year. In 2017 we returned and went in where we had pulled out in 2002. Another physical setback shortened our trip. This time we are both determined to be prepared in every way to finish off the remaining eighty or so miles of the trail. We are not seeking to conquer it, we just want to enjoy it.
Any inner peace or enlightenment that I was seeking eighteen years ago has either come from elsewhere, or will never find me. I have completed all of the gauntlets chosen by fate or by my own designs and the lessons I have gleaned did not stray far from my previous beliefs.
When we started eighteen years ago my son was a teenager and I was a full-grown man. Now he is the full-grown man and I am an old fart that won’t be doing much of anything eighteen years from now. For me, time has transitioning from my “someday” to “before it is too late”. All of the realities that go with the passage of nearly two decades of time apply to both of us. We are different than we were all those years ago and frankly I am looking forward to expanding our experiences and viewing the trip from changed perspectives.
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