The Space to Explore

A story about wandering around the Sierra and finding - and losing - the next big thing.

There is a question that has been lodged in my head for over a year now:

What’s next?

It’s something other people started asking me – and I was asking myself – before I even reached the Bridge of the Gods at the end of the Oregon PCT.

“Are we going to Washington next?!” my friends bellowed, as I hobbled down the trail barely making it through the next mile – never mind another state.

What’s next?

It’s something I’ve been asking myself at the end of every running season for as long as I can remember. Picking the next thing every year has felt as necessary as eating breakfast every morning. There’s always been a next marathon, a next 100, a next goal, a next Big Thing.

But this year, I really didn’t have that thing – despite looking very hard for one.

I combed through lists of 100 milers, but nothing jumped off the page at me, and my ultrasignup account stayed quiet.

I considered all of the lottery qualifiers for the big races, but found myself not really caring about checking those boxes next year. My 2019 Cascade Crest will hold for one more year of the Hardrock lottery and that’s enough for now.

The only thing that’s felt clear is that I want to do another big, multiday, many-mile FKT attempt, but this summer wasn’t the right time. August was full of things I wanted to do that didn’t involve popping blisters at 2am or eating a handful of skittles every 30 minutes – my brother’s big bike race, my friend’s wedding, my Eli’s first 100 miler.

And so I’ve let that question linger, hanging overhead like a cobweb in the corner.

And as much as I’ve wanted an answer, I haven’t wanted to force one. Because I believe a big-kind-of-thing is best accompanied by fireworks of stoke and all my ideas have ignited nothing but sad sputters of indifference.

So, I’ve kept running like I will eventually figure it out – so that I can be ready for it, whatever it might be, whenever it might happen.

But I’ve let that question of what’s next linger, and while I’ve kept searching for an answer, I’ve found something else: the space to explore.

Which is how I ended up back in the Sierra for the second time this summer, spending my nights sleeping beneath jagged peaks, with the glassy lake below capturing the moonglow. And spending my days wandering around a stretch of wilderness, that was helping me appreciate that I hadn’t forced any next thing into my summer.

I went back to that magical mountain range because I was heading to San Francisco for my friend’s wedding and I wanted to tack a little mountain time onto the city celebration. I envisioned doing a bunch of structured runs from a basecamp: a long run one day, a big hill run another, a pile of sweaty running clothes growing larger every day. My usual routine for a summer trip to the mountains.

But my boyfriend had another idea.

“Let’s go fastpacking again! Slumber party in the Sierra!” he yelped.

And that also sounded like a lovely way to hang out in the California alpine. All of my overnight treks this summer have made me want to spend more nights in the backcoutry. And with no real reason to prioritize more structured training, it was easy to say yes to Ian’s idea. Just like it was easy to say hell yes to Nicole’s invitation to crash her Colorado Trail thru-hike the week before.

Just like it’s been easy to say yes to a whole slew of other alpine outings this summer, while I’ve had no big thing on the horizon. Things that I might have done no matter what, but I also might have skipped if I had a super-sized run to get ready for.

Things like climbing a bunch of mountains that I’d sworn off as too technical for me, surprising myself with a bunch of scary summits along the way, loving the palm-sweating challenge of it all, and getting really excited about which mountains I want to climb next and how to combine trail running with spicier alpine shenanigans.

And things like dabbling in fastpacking and doing more backcountry overnighting, from the Cascades to Colorado to the Sierra – and discovering that I really love the simplicity of living out of a small backpack, moving fast and light through the mountains, and spending quality time in the backcountry with extra buttery mac and cheese and a toasty warm sleeping bag.   

Through the void of a big goal, new excitement has had space to emerge and grow. Seeds of excitement that might not have had room to burrow in if they’d been crowded out by something else.

And all of these things that I’ve unexpectedly pursued have felt like the beginning of something more and something bigger.

As I was wandering around the Sierra again, I was appreciating that not forcing a big thing this summer has been a very good thing. Because it left me with that space to explore and discover - and get pulled into things that I want to do more and more and more of.

Like, wandering around the Sierra.

As I climbed up and over mountain pass after mountain pass, gawking at the dramatic granite in every direction and oohing and ahhing over lake after lake, I felt a deep, satisfied, excited happiness with every step. And I felt a hunger for more Sierra raging harder with each pass that I crested.

By the time we got back to our little lakefront tent home, I knew exactly what I wanted the next thing to be.

“I want to do the John Muir Trail this year,” I said to Ian, over steaming bites of mac.

“Really?” he squealed. His eyes leaping up to meet mine.

“1000 percent, yes. I can’t get enough of these mountains and I want to do something bigger and harder here. I want to do the JMT!”

The John Muir Trail is a 223-mile footpath, which stretches from the summit of Mount Whitney to the valley of Yosemite, weaving its way up and down oodles of rugged mountain passes and skirting approximately 12 zillion alpine lakes along the way, including a few gems that we’d meandered by earlier that day.

It’s a trail that’s been bopping around my brain since my first trip to the Sierra in June, but being back in those mountains cemented it onto the top of my list of asap-must-dos and I started working on making that happen before my engine had even cooled down from the drive home.

The permits for the JMT are notoriously hard to get – but if you’re a savvy internet stalker like myself and deeply committed to the refresh button, you can score permits when other people cancel theirs. Which is what I did.

I found a permit for the week after Eli’s 100 miler and started getting ready for a multi-day trek through the Sierra. I procured the required bear canister, divided oatmeal and oreos into sandwich bags, made a spreadsheet of every detail of the trek, and geeked out on anything and everything JMT. I read trip reports, listened to podcasts, and went as deep down the JMT rabbithole as the internet would take me.

And as I ran around Eugene, fetching dried fruit and stocking up on peanut butter snickers, I found myself buzzing with the familiar blend of nerves and excitement that I love so much. A tingly and terrifying reassurance that I was chasing the right thing.

But then on Tuesday, while I was grabbing a fresh tube of sunscreen for my pack, I saw a tweet that California was shutting down all of its national forests due to the dire fire situation in the state. And about an hour later, I got the email from the Forest Service cancelling my permit.

Obviously, having an alpine adventure cancelled in the midst of such a destructive fire situation is a miniscule issue. People are evacuating their homes and watching huge blazes threaten places that they love, as the climate crisis fuels yet another horrific fire season in the west. To lose a few days in the mountains is a small loss that rests in the shadows of such bigger and more devastating issues.

And also, it feels like so many other things lost to Covid and the climate crisis and fires and smoke – where there is still some grief for every size loss, even if that loss is tiny compared to what’s raging beyond it. And I feel that. The disappointment of my small personal loss, exacerbated by the massive grief and anxiety that I feel for the larger and harder issue of the climate crisis and the bigger wildfires that are devastating the west and the people who live here.

When I started writing this Trail Mix at the beginning of the week, it was to share how excited I was that I’d found my next thing and how grateful I was for the space that let me find it.

And while I’m not actually starting that thing this week like I planned, what I wanted to share is still true. I’m excited that I felt that desire for something. That desire isn’t going anywhere. And I wouldn’t have discovered that irresistible pull toward the JMT - or so many other kernels of alpine excitement - without that extra space to explore this summer.

And now I’ve got a little bit more of that to play around with. And for now, that’s what’s next.

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