Category: Uncategorized
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Saving for a Sunny Day
Snow is melting everywhere around me. It is pouring out of the mountains. I pass close to twenty waterfalls daily and cross numerous streams. All of this glorious water that will help keep the earth green as the sun heats up during the summer was stored as snow during the winter. The earth didn’t need…
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Random Acts of Kindness
I talk a lot about kindness in my blogs. It is because I think it is as important to life as water. And yet, like losing sight of the importance of water when you live in a house where it comes out of a tap, I think it is really easy to lose sight of…
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Patience Is a Virtue on the Trail
I cut steps into the steep snowy slope, forcing myself not to look down. I don’t want to freak out. I remind myself that panic is the worst thing to do in a dangerous situation. I focus on each step, sometimes only half a foot from the last. I have to force my mind to…
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Path-Finding the Old-Fashioned Way
I’ve been asked a number of times by younger hikers how I managed to hike the Pacific Crest Trail before cell phones and the trail apps with GPS. Sometimes I have to explain what I mean by map and compass. The other day, I taught a young man that a compass needle points north. I’ve…
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Behind Every Hiker
Water cached by a trail angel in the Chihuahuan Desert. The person who makes the first ascent of a mountain gets a lot of recognition and glory. Yet that ascent was most likely accomplished with the help of all the people who tried and failed before. It takes a lot of support to make a…
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A Matter of Discipline
“I carried my son on my back into the woods when he was still in diapers.” I meet a lot of people who tell me they would love to do a long hike, but they don’t have the time. Some days I feel I don’t have the time to do my leg exercises or my…
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Summits in Solidarity, or Hiking for Racial Justice
By Mary Anderson The colors I see in nature on the trail are diverse and stunning. Daily I am in awe of the multitude of pinks and oranges in the sunrise, the myriad shades of blue in the noontime sky, the shades of white and gray in the clouds, the full spectrum of colors in…
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Why I Hike
Walking in Glacier National Park reminds me of how lucky we are in the United States to have a national park system. This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Considering that I have hiked close to 15,000 miles in my life, that is saying something. Nature and wild places such…
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The Hungry Hiker
food bags in Glacier park, hung to keep the bears away Below is a list of what I eat most days. I dried a lot of my own food before leaving home and then packed it in boxes and sent it to myself at various places along the trail. 1.5 cups high-calorie granola with dehydrated…
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What I Will Remember About Glacier Park
Walking through one of the most gorgeous places on earth. Doing it again the next day and the next. Walking by at least a dozen waterfalls . . . in one day. Walking by a dozen the next day . . . in the first hour of walking. Seeing rainbows in the falls. Washing my…
The Mary Badass 