Backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail: part 1
Hubris is the bane of hikers... and me particularly
Hubris.
Excessive confidence. Foolish pride.
Hubris is the bane of wilderness explorers; and particularly, a pitfall my son Caleb and I seem to fall into when we go on adventures together: he wants to show off a bit, and I want to be game for anything he proposes.
Thus, we’ve been lost hiking on San Juan Island (documented in Open Road) semi-lost while ocean kayaking (and then later had the kayaks fall off the car), and he’s had to push me from behind while rappelling up a cliff above the ocean (not pleasant for either of us.)
While visiting Caleb at his place in Lake Arrowhead as Mike worked on the remodel of the Oregon house we’d bought sight unseen, I told Caleb how hard it had been to say goodbye and turn back when we dropped him off on the Pacific Crest Trail near Yosemite, as part of our road trip. I had watched him hike off into the distance without me, carrying his world on his back, and I had been hankering to try that myself ever since.
“We’ve got the time,” Caleb said. “I’ll…
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