Date: Sunday, March 29
Location: ~2430 mi ENE of the start of PCT
I'm currently on the train on my way home from the city for the last time before heading off to the trail for good. The numerous goodbyes over the last week have been bittersweet. I will truly miss the love and support that I have received from so many sides over the past several months and years in my time as a student (and my time more recently as a non-student). That love will carry me through the heat of the desert and over the mountains of the high Sierra and Oregon.
It's hard to say goodbye to people who are such an important part of your life, knowing you won't see them for 135 days. My hope is that one of the things that I will get out of my hike is an enhanced appreciation for how lucky I am to be surrounded by intelligent, beautiful, and caring individuals at Columbia and at home.
The most important function of this blog is to give the people that care about me a window into my distance hiking life, which is otherwise so separate from theirs. The thru-hiking world is fully insulated from real life. I'm aware that over the course of my hike, I'll change. I'm also aware that back home, life will continue on for everyone else, mostly independent of me and my backpacking adventure. I realized that it's really important to me to create that window through which the people who care about me can look. 135 days is way too long to fall completely out of touch, and since I can't text and email all the time, this my alternative.
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