Memories from September 6
I woke up 20 miles from the border today so there was no question that today was my last day on trail. Knowing that a watched pot never boils I avoided GPS and map checks. The scenery was great and the clouds cleared slowly over the course of the day. I saw a small rock slide which didn’t sound small. Really though, it was just another day on trail. Except for this:
I was expecting to spend the rest of the day at the Northern Terminus of the PCT. In an incredible anti-climax, nature called. There was a wilderness toilet just three miles away so I only spent an hour before making a high speed departure.
I had been expecting to feel something at the end of the journey but other than a modest excitement, on par with cresting a big climb, I felt nothing. That said, walking from Mexico to Canada through wilderness doesn’t leave you unchanged. How those changes manifest, even what they are, is a thing of the future, and not really of the present. I expect that as I return to society, I’ll find that you can take a hiker out of nature but you can’t take the nature out of a hiker.
The End.
Isaac Takes A Hike 