A Beautiful Thing
About
On May 9,2003, I left the Mexican border near Campo, California, to begin a 2650
mile hike to Canada. I left behind my sedentary life in Indiana and started
walking north, into a dream given form. Into the desert and the flowers and
the wind and the sand. To live a life composed only of walking, eating, drinking, and
sleeping. My trip was not so much about seeing a particular mountain
or walking a particular path as it was about being immersed inside an environment
long enough for it to impact me. To see something I had not yet seen. To learn
something I did not already know. To become something better.
Jonathan Ley has put this into words better than I can, and I paraphrase
him here: My trip was not so much about doing something, as it was about
becoming something. The time I spent on the Pacific Crest Trail was the best of my
short life and I hope to impart some of that joy, something of this beautiful
thing, to the reader of this web page.
My Experience