Thruhiking and Feelings of Accomplishment

My PCT thruhike this summer ended in a whirlwind. I touched the monument in the pre-dawn darkness feeling a confusing mix of relief and apprehension, took some photos like I had daydreamed about for the previous three months, and then immediately made the exhausting journey home. One awkward hitch, one crowded bus ride, and one jarring walk over a busy freeway later and I was right back into my old life without really having taken the time to think about what I had just done.

“2600 miles, what an accomplishment!” my friends and family would say to me. “Not really, it’s something that any hiker can do. I met hundreds.” “But in 100 days in a high-snow year, did you meet anyone faster?” “Only one.”

Thing is, while I may not have met her, I was keenly aware that somewhere out there was a living, breathing woman that walked on two legs like me and breathed normal air like me and ate snickers like me that did the thing an entire 40 days faster than me. My experience was a leisurely walk in the park compared to that benchmark of human potential. Why would I be proud of my little vacation? Modern technology lets us compare ourselves to people around the globe and it let me know that my hike was relatively slow, and only one among hundreds every year.

But something made me realize recently that if walking across an entire country can’t even make me feel a sense of pride and accomplishment, what the fuck will? A World Record or Olympic Medal? Not gunna happen. A Nobel or Pulitzer Prize? Not in this lifetime. I strongly believe that those are the types of things we should all be working towards every day, but it’s becoming clear that I need a plan in place to celebrate the things I do along the way, and to feel good despite inevitably not making it to the proverbial moon I shot for.

I still believe that a thruhike is something that anyone with a healthy body and a passion for the outdoors can do. But shit, Mexico to Canada on foot? Yeah, that is pretty epic. Good for me, I guess. Maybe one day I will do one of these things faster than anyone’s done before. Maybe not. That’s life and we should feel proud of it.