Embrace the Wanderlust, Embrace the Brutality

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I suppose if you're here, you must be curious to learn a little bit more about my adventure from Mexico to Canada. Well, thanks for coming along for the ride.....or should I say walk. :)​

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You may be wondering how I came to this crazy decision. Well, I'm glad you asked. 

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Life is short, and I want to live it. I've been fortunate enough to do that so far and want to continue on that journey. Simple enough! 

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From 2019-April 2022, I had the pleasure of working with Living Lands & Waters, a non-profit organization that has the mission and goal to help keep America's Rivers clean. I lived on a barge for 6-9 months each year not only serving as a Garbage Grabbin' River Rat, but also an Educator: educating students on the importance of water quality, facilitated clean ups where we would pick up thousands of pounds of garbage each day, and get to see a part of the country that most people don't by traveling up and down these rivers by garbage barges and 30 ft. jon boats. This job gave me so much more than I could have ever expected - the people, the experiences, the eye-opening perspectives of the stories that were shared by folks in a small town or a big city, the places I got to see from a barge...living a life where no two days were the same. Life can get repetitive at times. This job made me realize, even more than before, how much I enjoy the unknown of each day. I always knew a job like this would help guide my way to the next step, and that's exactly what it did. 

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Though a tough decision, I was ready for my next adventure. But what that decision was, I didn't have a firm grasp on. I was deciding on whether to buy a house and settle back down in Wisconsin, take a seasonal job somewhere out west for the summer and then come back to Wisconsin to find a full-time job…..or the idea of maybe going on a thru hike kept coming to mind. The hike sounded the most intriguing and adventurous which is what I was looking for, but the biggest risk, as well. Lots of decisions and a lot of indecisiveness were present on my side. I didn't want to make the wrong decision. I didn't want to lose what I had been building up for the last few years. I didn't want to miss out on experiences and people. I didn't want to force my decision. Who ever does? But I also knew...I didn't want to miss out on an opportunity. 

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Time was ticking, and a decision needed to be made. Well, time makes you force some things; sometimes a push that you didn't know you needed bumps you into the unknown, yet exciting, direction.

In the past several years, Ross and I have gotten more and more into backpacking. Starting off in 2016 with our first "long-distance hike", we decided to hike on Oak Island at Apostle Island National Park (Lake Superior, WI) with a whopping 4-mile hike to our site. As the boat dropped us off at the southwest side of the island, we were due to hike those 4 miles to the most northern point on Oak Island to spend 2 nights there. We didn't have sleeping pads or bags, we brought a small cooking pot from our parents' kitchen that we used to cook rice and beans (not dehydrated ones, but beans from a can) in, and our tent was bought onsale for $40 when I used to work at Dick's Sporting Goods. With a heavy wind storm coming that first night, we made a last-minute purchase on the mainland of a tarp in case the winds and rain were bad. The site straight west of us was shut down the day before our arrival due to black bear activity. We didn't know what to expect, but our hearts were racing knowing we were set for this wild, unfamiliar adventure. 

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It's funny on how things start out like that; being so unsure and nervous. Whenever our memories remind us of this first backpack trip, Ross and I shake our heads side to side while a smirk covers our faces and we can't help but laugh, thinking about how big of rookies we really were. Those 2 nights were not the most well-planned or prepared, but we decided to keep going with our backpacking experiences. Maybe not well planned, but sure fun enough to keep trying this backpacking thing out.

We've now upgraded our gear, continued to learn through resources, research and experiences, went on hikes in the Midwest (SHT, Ice Age Trail and Porcupine Mountains). We made a roadtrip out east to the Great Smokey Mountains in Summer 2018 and just recently started to travel out west for some big mountain views. Ross has a bit more backpacking/hiking experience under his belt, as he completed the Pacific Crest Trail (2,600 mile thru hike) in 2019. But even with a bit more experience and confidence from both of us, we still get that butterfly feeling in our stomachs every time we throw on our packs to begin another hiking adventure. To me, that feeling is one of the worst/best feelings out there; something along the lines of being excited, yet staying humble. Balance, if you will. 

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Ross and I made the somewhat abrupt decision mid-March 2022 that we were going to go for it: we were going to attempt hiking the Continental Divide Trail. A path that would take us from Mexico to Canada, somewhere along 2,000-something miles, all by the pack on our backs and with our own two feet. After some planning, ticket buying, and several "we're really doing this?" to each other, we were set to start hiking the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) on Thursday, May 5th. The anticipation, packing, moving items back home, quitting our jobs, financially prepping, and the anticipation in the next month in a half seemed to go by fast. Fast enough to have no way of turning back on this commitment when our doubts arose, but slow enough for our excitement to linger in our everyday thoughts and conversations. 

The evening of Tuesday, May 3rd was the start of our journey. We had our backpacks packed, said goodbye to our sweet black lab, Carl, along with families and friends, had one last home-cooked dinner, and then rode with our parents to the Chicago airport: some conversations, some silence. After a 4 hour flight from Chicago to Phoenix, a few hours sitting on the floor of the Greyhound Station due to cancellations, a 5 hour long Greyhound bus ride from Phoenix, AZ to Lordsburg, NM, one last stay in a hotel in Lordsburg and, finally, a 3 hour shuttle ride from the CDTC to drop us off at the Crazy Cook Southern Terminus, we began our hike on Thursday, May 5th around 10:30AM MT. A hike that was expected to take 5 months. 

The CDT would take us through some of the most beautiful places in the country: deserts, wilderness areas, mountains, forests. The trail would also challenge us to our cores through some of the most rugged, rough and quite honestly, boring, terrains as well. Good, bad, ugly and everyting in between, the trail would take us through the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, hug the Montana/Idaho border to end in the glorious Glacier National Park. All on America's backbone, the spine of this country - some may say, taking it quite literally one step at a time.

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Well, as scary, risk-taking or some may even have said how unbalanced this decision was, I knew that attempting this hike would be something I carried with me for the rest of my life - whether I made it 100 miles or all the way up to Canada. You never know what you can accomplish until you try. 

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Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges were endured along the way, no doubt. Being out in nature is funny like that. Nature will do those things to you, or maybe even do those things for you. There were wonderful days, and there were awful, challenging days - days when I 100% wanted to quit.

Turning 30 in March 2022, I wanted to start my "new decade" with exactly all those things: the peaks and valleys. The highs and lows. I knew this experience, if I made it, would provide all of these things, and much, much more. And indeed, it did. 

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Thank you to those that have supported Ross and I with this adventure. Your words of encouragement, kindness, excitement and support have made us feel confident and secure along the way. To be able to have this as an option in life is a blessing in itself. I feel so grateful to have had this opportunity.​​

I welcomed you to this page by saying "Adventure Awaits", and the trail surely reminded me of this every single day. But the CDT is a whole other ball game. It's not just the beauty and the adventure and the highlights of traveling. The CDT is also the brutal reminding someone of their strengths, their weaknesses, and challenges someone to their bones. Not just the trail, but all that it carries with it. So, I'll add to it by including the following: "Embrace the Wanderlust, Embrace the Brutality". 

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And enjoy the journey along the way. 

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Ready to walk with me from Mexico to Canada?