I stayed the night of the 20th in a camper with my friend who then dropped me off in Sierra Vista. There I met a trail angel who drove me to the closest place I could access the trail. We couldn’t go to the normal starting place because the road was under construction, so I had an extra 1400 foot climb to do.

Right away, I met a woman who was also hiking in. I realized this trip was going to be really different than my other recent ones where I have been alone for days. Here I’m in a bubble of hikers starting off and while most of them will go faster than I am and pass me by, at least I won’t go 10 days at a time without seeing anyone.

I thought of a number of things that first day as I huffed up that grueling climb. For starters I realized I was being given a new opportunity not to worry about anything. I could see snow in the mountains and I had to work not to second-guess myself or berate myself for not having taken the spikes. Rather, I trusted I would be OK.

It was hard not to think about walls on that first day. I could see the border wall from miles away. It was a huge dark line across the land and along it there was this scar where the ground had been dug up. I thought about how we put up walls against each other. I don’t know how effective they are most of the time. Clearly this wall wasn’t 100% effective because I saw evidence of migrants in discarded backpacks and other gear along the trail.

I thought of all the walls I used to have that kept me from feeling the love of my friends. I built these walls in early childhood to protect myself from abuse. These walls protected me both from the painful memories of the abuse, and also from getting close to outside people who could hurt me. But as much as the wall might have some useful components, it also prevented me from letting in love of external people. It also prevented me from knowing my true self. So I had to learn to take the walls down and get along with all my parts.

As I struggled to breathe at altitudes of close to 10,000 feet, I thought about how much better we’d be if we could get along with each other on both sides of the border instead of erecting walls and making those on the other side the dangerous others. Just like some of the people I protected myself from as a child were in fact dangerous, there are some dangerous drug dealers who come across the border. But the only people I’ve seen crossing have been children, women and limping men who were going to plant Christmas trees in Minnesota in order to send their children to school. I certainly don’t have answers to the migrant problem but I’m just not sure walls are the answer when most of us are all looking for the same things such as quality healthcare, enough food, and the ability to live in peace. I know that letting my walls down is one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.

After cresting the highest point the trail reached on Mount Miller I had 3/4 of a mile of snow field. I was able to cross it without my spikes, although I had to be really careful. The hardest part was that during crossing a wicked migraine headache came on possibly due to the altitude. Funny how the thing that I didn’t worry about at all was the thing that caused me the most trouble.

I was sure glad to make it to bathtub springs which had good water. It made for about 11 mile day. It’s only about 7 1/2 miles up the trail, but due to the out and back to reach the border and the extra miles due to the road closing I did an 11 mile day with about 5500 feet of climbing.

I could tell it would be chilly camping there for the night as I was still above 8000 feet of elevation, but there were a couple of other hikers and there was no way I was going to do any extra miles with a raging headache. I set up my tent and crawled in for the night hoping my migraine would soon abate. I forced myself to cook dinner, knowing I would sleep better for it. then I crawled into my sleeping bag, grateful and impressed that my old body had done as well as it had.