Some days I want to quit hiking the PCT. Actually, almost every sinigle day out here, I have a few thoughts of quitting. Of the comforts that are awaiting me back home. Sweet family, the best of friends, a city I love and am familiar with, the boy. I plan the escape route to the nearest road where I know I can get a hitch to the airport, hop on a plane, and have two parents waiting for me with a big hug in store. It's tempting, let me tell you that.
But then it's those small moments of pure bliss when the sun is shimmering just so. Gracefully, it bends along the top of a winding stream, and you sit down after a long, hot day of 22 miles through the desert with some of the people that feel like family out here, and get to process outloud with them this wild journey we're all on together.
It's the quiet mornings of sipping hot coffee, watching the birds circle and sing above you. It's the days you show up in a completely unfamiliar city, and get gargantuan hugs from familiar friends who have been traveling the trail with your for hundreds of miles. It's the random escapade into a karaoke night, only to find all of your fellow hiker-trash taking over the bar, and being dragged onto a stage with a friend named Cheddah to sing R Kelly's "Ignition," all the while wearing crocs (I promise this is normal out here. They will be thrown in the garbage immediately upon arrival back in the real world.)
It's the curve of the trail that reveals a crystal-clear Sierra lake, and getting to jump into the so-cold-you-can't-breathe water with a smile so wide my trail name might as well be "Cheesin," (although I think I'll stick with Kibble and Bits, which is the name I go by out here.)
It's getting to eat 9 large meals every single day and still having a raging hiker hunger. It's the opening of my resupply box, only to find a blow-up pillow and letters from family and friends.
It's a combo of all these small moments out here that keep me taking step after step, climbing mountain after mountain. You can ask anyone here, and they will all tell you, it's not the walking we enjoy. In fact, thats' probably our least favorite part. We are here for the small but significant memories we are making along this trail we now call home.