The Mary Badass

A river swollen with snow melt in Salida, Colorado. I’ve done a fair amount of white water kayaking. In fact I used to race kayaks. This entailed learning how to read the river and go with the flow. It also meant learning how to turn in eddies, leaning my body just the right way to…

By Mary Anderson Now that I’m on my way and blogging on a tablet, I expect I may make more writing mistakes. I hate seeing my writing out there with misplaced punctuation or awkward words. Yet it has already happened a number of times. I am getting better at not beating myself up over it,…

Years ago I took classes with Ram Das, who wrote the book Be Here Now. I think of the importance of being here now, in this place, as I hike this desert. It would be so easy for me to go to so many other places: the nasty, unwanted divorce waiting for me when I…

When I did my first long thru-hike in the 1970s it was all about the miles and the end goal. I sometimes skipped great views if I had to walk an extra mile to get to it. I was fixated on completing my goal. Luckily, it did not take me too long to realize that…

By Mary Anderson Sometimes it’s my friends back home that keep me going. Other times it’s the people on the trail. On this day it was the Prairie Dwellers. My knee had been hurting for a few days and I was beginning to feel discouraged. I reached a high point and stopped for a late…

By Mary Anderson Unlike many well-marked eastern trails, the Continental Divide Trail is like a make-your-own adventure. I doubt there are two groups of people who have ever done it exactly the same way. I don’t know anyone who has not been off trail at least once. Many of us are off trail more than…

By Mary Anderson Almost every day while hiking the CDT I am off trail. Sometimes I am only a little off. Other times I feel really lost. Most times I cut cross country to make my way back to the “trail,” such as it is. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I find…

By Mary Anderson Among the backpacking resources I am really blessed to have are those of time and a healthy, albeit aging, body. Due to numerous injuries, I have spent time in a wheelchair and have had to learn to walk all over again three times in my life. But unlike many people who use…

It’s amazing how something you can’t see can have such an impact. The wind howls almost nonstop in the Great Basin of Wyoming. The few minutes it is not there each day I feel my body relax and I relish the silence. Sometimes I feel it will make me crazy. I think about the unseen…

I was thinking about the importance of bridges. Certainly whole cities and civilizations have grown up around them. At least one person drowned on the Appalachian Trail trying to ford the bridgeless Kennebec River. My hiking partner was swept downriver when I hiked the PCT, and there are some notorious rivers to cross on the…