Love at First Step

A story about my first trip to the Sierra.

A big thanks to BOA for sponsoring Trail Mix this month. BOA shorts play a starring role in this week’s Trail Mix as they helped me run up and down and all around the Sierra last week. They’re my go-to shorts for all adventures (and misadventures) because they’re so damn fun *and* so darn functional. I ran 38-miles in them this weekend and didn’t need an ounce of anti-chafe anything. And they’re 25 percent off for Trail Mix readers with the code BOATrailMix25!

I looked up at the lake in front of me and I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

The sapphire water was speckled with dozens of rocky islands and a craggy peak towered over its western shores. It was such a spectacular scene that it left me doubting whether this place was actually real. It was simply too good.

“Pinch me,” I exhaled to my friend Eli.

We started running again – and around each bend in the rocky trail, we were assaulted by some new slice of unbelievable beauty. Jagged peaks frosted with snow. Alpine lakes swimming into the distance. Creeks tumbling off cliffs into the Yosemite abyss like nature’s infinity pools.

My jaw got an even better workout than my legs as it kept dropping in awe. I said, shouted, or squealed “wow!” at least 1,000 times per mile.

The longer we were out there, the clearer it was that Celine Dion must have been singing about a long run through the high Sierra when she belted out an ode to “endless pleasure.”

It was my first time in the Sierra Nevada and it was love at first step.

My immediate infatuation with the Sierra reminded me of the first time I’ve met some of my favorite people. The kind of people you only need to spend a few minutes with to decide you absolutely have to be friends forever and ever.

The same kind of friends I got to see during my trip to the Sierra last week.

I ventured down to California because my very good friend Meredith scored permits to climb Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Meredith and I met during college when we were assigned the same lifeguarding shift. We immediately bonded over our shared love of Delilah’s soft rock love specials on FM radio and cups full of smuggled dining hall ice cream toppings. We traded numbers right away and seventeen years later, our friendship has traveled from Vermont to DC to the west coast to a big pile of granite in Yosemite.

After a couple of days in Yosemite valley with Meredith and crew, I headed east to meet my good pal Eli for the lake-and-wow-filled run. I met Eli when I was frolicking around a trail in Oregon and he emerged from the thick woods with my friend Nick. We all rendezvoused in the nearest town for tots and pints and as I sat in the sunshine popping tots, I thought about how much I wanted to keep hanging out with this ebullient guy I’d just met in the woods.

Within a month, we were living and misadventuring together. And four years later, our misadventures are still raging.

And after all the high Sierra shenanigans with Eli, I ventured south to visit my friend Danielle and her girlfriend Kelly in Mammoth. My friendship with Danielle started over Instagram DMs when I told her I wanted to go for her FKT on the Oregon PCT and she asked me how she could help because she was so excited for me. Our friendship escalated when we went for our first run together and I came home gushing about how I had just met one of my new best friends. And that turned out to be a very true hunch.  

California was full of beautiful reminders that when you know, you know. With both friends and places.

It was fitting that this trip to the Sierra involved so many people that I’ve felt that instant draw to, because those mountains ignited that same kind of immediate interest.

As Eli and I kept running and wow-ing down the trail, I knew that I would go back to run in those mountains over and over and over again. And by the time we’d run past all 1,000 lakes in that alpine wonderland, I was 1,000 percent certain that I will attempt to run something big and exciting in the Sierra.

Because all of my best runs and races have been in places that I can’t shake from my head or heart. Like the Oregon PCT or the dirt on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass where Cascade Crest happens or the singletrack that climbs above Waldo Lake and Willamette Pass.

When I decided to do a big run to honor my mother after she passed away last year, I needed exactly zero seconds to decide what that big run would be. I knew I wanted to run across Oregon on the PCT. Because Oregon was one of those places that I loved right away and that has burrowed itself deep into my heart, where it will stay for the rest of forever.

On my first trip to Oregon almost a decade ago, I stood on a ledge over the massive Columbia River Gorge and looked at the dramatic cliffs that surround the water. I’d seen everything I needed to see to know I needed to see a lot more of Oregon.

“Call U-HAUL!” I said to my friend. “I’m ready to pack up my stuff and move to this magical place.”

And then I did just that.

Whenever anyone asks me for advice on how to choose a run, I encourage them to pick a run in a place that inspires them and that they feel connected to. The kind of place that ignites that heart-charged excitement.

The kind of place that’s like those friendships where you only need a few minutes, or a few soft rock love songs, or a few tots to know you want a lot more of it in your life. Because it can do a lot for a run to be able to bring that emotional excitement to the start - and carry it with you all the way to the finish.

On my last morning in the Sierra, I ran up a rocky pass with Danielle and Kelly and watched the sun wake up over the alpine wonderland that surrounded us. There was no part of me that wanted to leave my very dear friends or those very magical mountains, but every part of me knew I would be back for much, much more.

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