I have way too many trail stories to fit them all into my memoir-in-progress about the impact of hiking long trails in midlife. Here’s one that ended up in the delete file.

At 3:45 am I was startled from sleep by the sound of footsteps near my tent. It must be one of the other hikers who was sharing the site with me, maybe getting up to pee. But the sounds continued for a long time, circling the campsite carelessly, clumsily breaking sticks. I was so tired, but the noisy night visitor kept tromping around camp, distracting me from the sleep I desperately needed. In the morning deer tracks were scattered around in the dirt surrounding my tent.

Each time I got back on the trail, I ended up starting the hike exhausted after all the preparations I needed to make to get home and family ready for my absence. Then there was the packing, and the travel to the trailhead. In ways, section hiking a long trail is more difficult than committing to the 4-6 months it takes to do a thru-hike. But with work and family obligations preventing me from doing that, I was left with piecing the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) together, section by section. The yellow highlighter lines on my map were getting longer, and beginning to connect in places.

That summer, I had prioritized covering as many miles on the PCT in Oregon as I could. This early August trek was my fifth of the season. The second day I stopped just shy of twenty miles at Jefferson Creek, with the potentially sketchy crossing at Russell Creek one and a half miles ahead. I would cross it first thing in the morning, before the heat of the sun melted the upstream glacial ice that later in the day would add to the raging torrent.

Loneliness crept through me as I sat eating my freeze-dried dinner, alone at my campsite. I hadn’t planned on doing this section by myself, but my partner had backed out, claiming pressures at work. The hollow feeling inside of me swelled as I remembered all the people I had seen hiking during the day — the Boy Scout troop, twelve-year-olds carrying their dad’s dated and heavy gear like a hermit crab, top heavy in a new shell; the cheerful trail family led by Tami, a strong blond in fluorescent pink shorts; the family out for two nights with a dog. I seemed to be the only hiker alone out there.

The next morning Tami’s happy group went by as I was brushing my teeth. I hurriedly rinsed my mouth with my water bottle and packed the last of my gear, hoping I would be able to catch them before they crossed Russell Creek. The guide book described it as a potentially dangerous crossing, and I preferred to do it with other people nearby, just in case.

But when I got there the last of the group, with Tami in the rear, was disappearing up the trail on the other side of the raging, silty creek. When she looked back I waved, pointing to where I thought would be best to cross. She waved her arms and shouted something, but I couldn’t hear her over the roar of the water. Backtracking, she returned to the edge of the creek and showed me a couple of options. Not trusting my balance to hop on slippery boulders, I decided I would just wade in and walk using my poles to keep three points of contact at all times. The milky torrent pressed on my legs, covering them in frigid water to mid-thigh, but I made it across safely. I thanked Tami profusely for coming back down to help me.

On the other side of Russell Creek the PCT headed up from the creek bed and into Jefferson Park, a stunning scenic area of the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness. The glaciated russet and grey volcanic peak, stood crisply against the cloudless sky, a luminous green carpet spattered with crimson and pink paintbrush, and deep periwinkle lupines, with clear teal lakes in the foreground. It felt as if I was walking through a magical postcard.

After leap-frogging with Tami’s group for much of the day, I joined them for the last few miles before evening. At one stop she gave a lesson in foot care, when one of the guys in their group stopped to deal with his blistered feet. She had expert knowledge to share in preventing and treating blisters while hiking, techniques that I still use, a decade later. The heavy layer of loneliness that had been clinging to me dissipated as the five of us walked along the dusty trail, playing an alphabet guessing game. I felt like a kid at summer camp.

Tami is an author of multiple hiking guides, as well as her memoir Long Lost: Three Trails, 8,000 Miles, One Unexpected Journey Across America’s Triple Crown.

Find her at https://tamiasars.com

Ten years ago, relatively new to backpacking, I was on a mission to hike all of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon, piecing it together in sections. As I edit my memoir, Finding My Footing: My Midlife Path to Independence on 4,000 Miles of Trail, some of the scenes I’m cutting out still tell relevant little snippets of the story, so I figured I’d share them here. Looking back on my early days on the trail helps me realize how much we can learn simply by doing the thing. This was the second time I had ever gone backpacking alone.

Just north of Mt. Thielsen, snowdrifts covered large sections of trail, something I hadn’t anticipated when I planned this trek for mid-July. Sometimes the consolidated drifts were over ten feet high. Kicking steps in with my soft trail runners to climb up and over them was hard work, and I slipped and fell a half dozen times. In some places the trail crossed steep slopes that ended far below in a pile of jagged rocks. A slide would have significant consequences.

This was all made more challenging by the swarms of mosquitos. Donning my head net, I misted my clothes with the bug spray in the tiny backpacker-sized bottle I had jammed into my hip belt pocket. The bottle was soon empty, but that didn’t really matter because the chemical seemed to have no effect on the relentless bugs. I continually swiped the buzzing insects off my arms as I walked. When I stopped to collect water, I noticed the seams that ran from shoulder to wrist on my snug-fitting zip-T were lined with the proboscises of hundreds of mosquitos, like a long line of eyelashes down the outside of each of my arms.

I kept losing the trail in the snow. Even when I found some footprints to follow, I still ended up searching for the trail. Thankful for the navigation app on my phone, I’d stop, turn on the GPS, and reorient myself to my path. Just past a marker that labeled the 7,573 foot highest point on the PCT in Oregon and Washington, I pulled over in the shade for a break. A raven squawked above me, then shit on my head. Using snow to clean my hat and shoulder off, I wondered if the obnoxious bird was trying to give me some sort of warning, or just wanted me to be gone. I moved on a ways before settling on a stump for lunch. Hearing footsteps crunching in the snow, I looked up from my tortilla and cheese and saw two men, well below the trail on the edge of a copse of trees.

“Hallo!”, the taller man called. “Eez the trail up there?”

“It’s right here!” I called back, pointing to the snow in front of where I sat.

They scrambled up to the trail in front of me, and we chatted for a few minutes as I finished up my lunch. Johann and Kristof explained they were Germans, and were hiking the length of Oregon, having started a couple of weeks earlier near the Oregon/California border. When I caught up to them after my break, they were again off the trail. I guided them back to it, and continued on. Then it was my turn to lose the trail, and they shouted down to me where I was walking in circles, trying to find some evidence of the path. We hiked on together briefly, but when they stopped for a break I kept going.

That night, sharing a campsite at a small lake with a couple of other hikers, I noticed the mosquitos were different than the ones that had swarmed me in the snowy areas, away from standing water. These insects were smaller and faster, and much more difficult to smash or wave out of my tent once they were inside. The snow mosquitos were larger, slower, and grey rather than black. My campmates and I ate our rehydrated meals in quick bites, slipping loaded sporks under our head nets, then we all retreated to our tents to hide from the blood sucking creatures for the rest of the evening.

The next day, as I hiked toward Summit Lake, with Diamond Peak standing sentinel in all of its snowy beauty in the background, it was hard to discern whether the intense blue that was peeking through the trees was sky or water. My body thrilled in anticipation of the swim that lay ahead. It had been days since I’d showered. Reaching the shore, I yanked off my shirt and t-shirt and was unfastening my pants, when my entire body was covered by a hungry swarm of mosquitos. Damn! No swim.

Later, as I stepped over a log that lay across the trail, I snagged my toes on a staub and took a face-first digger. The weight of my pack, assisted by gravity, pushed me down hard onto the dirt, and I landed squarely on my nose. Stunned by the sudden stab of pain in my face, I laid there for about two seconds, until the hoards of incessant mosquitos covered me. Pushing myself up, I swiped at my nose. No blood. That’s good, I thought, and marched on toward Odell Lake where my resupply box waited at the store.

Pacific Crest Trail, Washington in September 2020

A couple of weeks ago I went on two hikes, one seven miles, the other four and a half. It doesn’t sound like much, especially from someone who not all that long ago was posting regularly about hiking for weeks at a time, covering over twenty miles in a day. For days after these two hikes in one week, the 2011 Gotye song “Somebody That I Used to Know” wormed it’s way into my head. Now I’m just somebody that I used to know…

After I got sick with Covid in September of 2024, I ended up with symptoms that would not go away, and later that year I was diagnosed with Long Covid. Daily headaches, brain fog, fatigue, and blood pressure and heart rate issues made even thinking about hiking impossible. Heck, for a few months I had trouble with the motion of riding in a car, and certainly couldn’t drive.

I am eternally grateful to my sister Jenny and niece Lauren who both also live with Long Covid, and have for six and four years, respectively. The two of them shared their personal experience and years of research spent looking for anything helpful with this bewildering condition. I took a shotgun approach and tried pretty much any treatment that wasn’t harmful and was within my financial capacity. And for me it worked. Some symptoms linger, but I’m able to get on with my life now.

Last summer I went on a couple of short hikes, two or two and a half miles, tentative, happy to just be out in nature again. But more often than not, I was wiped out for days afterward. Over time I began to tolerate more activity, and now, almost two years after getting sick, I’d say I’m about 85% back to my old self. I’ll take it.

In June I loaned my backpack to a friend’s college-aged daughter ,who was going on her first backpacking trip with her roommate and a friend. I dug that beat up pack out of the heap where it had been buried for months. Holding it in my hands again, I thought about the thousands of miles it had traveled with me, carrying everything I needed. It was patched and stitched back together in places, and the zipper on the hip belt’s snack pocket was broken. When my friend’s daughter came to pick it up, I answered her questions and gave her a few tips about backpacking and trip planning. It pleased me that people still think of me as “that long distance backpacker”, but it got me wondering if I still think of myself in that way. Since 2013 I had focused so much of my time and energy on hiking long distance trails that it had become a large part of my identity, until the Long Covid. But am I still that person? Sure, I did do all those miles on those trails, I have the pictures and memories to prove it. It was a pivotal time in my life and a lot happened both on and off the trail. But can I still call myself a long distance hiker? Do I even want to? Will I ever take off on a trail for days or weeks or months at a time again?

Now that I’m in the editing phase of a book about those hiking days, I primarily think of myself as a writer. Writing is how I spend the majority of my time. I no longer work as a nurse, so have the freedom to dedicate to this new path. Still, I can’t imagine a future without hiking, so I will plug away at shorter hikes, bumping up against my limitations, and testing how far I can go.

While editing the manuscript of my memoir about the years I spent hiking long-distance trails, I am reminded how many things common to trail culture are seen as dangerous or scary outside of the hiking community. For instance, hitch-hiking. Countless times I stood on the side of a road with my thumb out. Locals who live around trail towns are used to picking up dirty backpack-toting hikers and giving them rides into town or back out to the trail. I’ve always trusted my gut when deciding if I will or won’t get into a vehicle, and, except for a couple of uncomfortable but not dangerous situations, my gut has been reliable. So it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I learned last week that I had been hitch-hiking since even before I was born.

I’ve been spending more time with my mom lately while she recovers from hip surgery, and we’ve been having some great conversations that I wish I’d had ages ago. Growing up, I never gave much thought to how my dad became a U.S. citizen, but with the current situation in our country, and the administration’s attack on immigrants, I’ve been wondering about my own family’s immigration story.

This much I already knew — Mom is a life-long Oregonian, whose ancestors came from Europe and have been in this country for more than a century. Dad’s dad was from southern India, his mother from Georgia, a mountainous country at the intersection of Europe and Asia, that at the time was the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Dad’s family moved around, living in Egypt and Iran until settling in Baghdad, Iraq. In 1937, when Dad was four years old, his father died, leaving my grandmother alone to raise Dad and his three older sisters. Grandma was a skilled seamstress, and supported her family with her sewing, creating beautifully tailored dresses and clothing, and was sought after for her high quality bridal trousseaus. The family was Catholic, and Dad attended Baghdad College, an elite Jesuit Catholic high school. In a class photo taken when Dad must have been around thirteen or fourteen, I noticed how he stood out. With his southern Indian heritage, he was much darker than his Arab peers. After graduating from Baghdad College High School Dad worked as an accountant at a bank, then at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, before receiving a scholarship to Oregon State College in Corvallis (now Oregon State University) to study engineering, where Mom was also a student, studying home economics. He and Mom met in 1958, and were married in 1959.

According to Mom, my dad, along with his mother and three sisters, had been wanting to come to the U.S. for quite some time, but couldn’t come up with the large sum of money required for entry into the U.S. Dad attended Oregon State on a student visa, and after he and Mom married Mom applied for his permanent residence Green Card. Once he had his Green Card he studied for the United States citizenship exam, and was scheduled to take the test in May of 1960 in Portland. On the day of the exam he and my mom, who was eight months pregnant with me, headed up the highway in the Pontiac Mom’s uncle had given them as a wedding present.

Halfway to Portland the car broke down, and without any other options, Mom and Dad hitch-hiked into Salem. So picture this — it’s 1960 on a rural highway in Oregon, a smallish dark-skinned man and a very pregnant white woman are standing next to the road, thumbs out. Given Oregon’s racist history, with segregation laws still in place into the 1950s, I wondered if my parents were worried about what might happen if someone came along who didn’t approve of them being together. Mixed-race marriage had only been legal in Oregon for nine years. When I asked Mom about this, she said she was more concerned about Dad making it to his test appointment on time, although she was a little worried about hitch-hiking in general. She also said they didn’t really think about race, perhaps because they lived on campus where there were many international students. For them, Oregon State was a bubble of diversity.

Mom told me they were picked up by a professor from Oregon State, who dropped them off at the Salem bus station. They caught the bus to Portland and arrived at the testing center just in time for Dad to take his citizenship test. Afterward Mom’s dad, who lived in nearby Oregon City, helped them get the Pontiac back on the road so they could return to Corvallis where Dad was weeks away from graduating.

Seven weeks after I was born, my dad was sworn in as a citizen of the United States on July 18, 1960. I will always remember that date because in the summer of 2007, as the end of his life approached, Dad declared that, since July 18 was a good day to become a citizen of the United States, it would also be a fine day to become a citizen of heaven. But that’s a story for another time.

In Brandi Carlile’s memoir, Broken Horses, she tells her story with such raw, intimate detail I feel like I’m listening to a dear friend. She shares her doubts, mistakes, dreams, and successes with equal candor. Even though I haven’t seen the print version, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook to hear the author tell it in her own voice, and for the music she plays and sings at the end of each chapter. Then, after she finishes telling her story and acknowledging all the people who have supported her along the way, she gifts us with well over an hour of songs, both her own and covers of other musicians including Elton John, Joni Mitchell, and Dolly Parton.

While listening to this book my mind drifted back to June 2022 when I saw Brandi Carlile at The Gorge Amphitheater with two of my sisters. The music, the setting, the sunset, the camping, the energy of the crowd – all of it – added up to an experience that I find difficult to put into words. Sharing it with my sisters only enhanced the fun and joy of the event.

The thing about Broken Horses that really gets me – more than any other part, anyway – is “Turpentine”, and Brandi’s explanation of what it’s about. A heartfelt tune about relationships and coming-of-age that I fell in love with the first time I heard it, the song now brings me to tears the moment the strumming of the intro hits my ears. When I learned she wrote it about her relationship with her brother Jay, it turned into a personal message to me about my own brother Mike, and how so much had changed between us since we were two little kids playing together.

Growing up with my seven younger siblings, our individual alliances changed over the years, the shifts dependent on our ages and emerging personalities. It seemed no matter who you might have a beef with, there was always a brother or sister or two who would take your side. Don’t get me wrong, we were, and remain, a very close-knit family. Holidays and the annual “deSousa Palooza” reunion are full of our kids and grandkids and often non-biological family playing games, and telling stories amid abundant food and drink.

A couple of weeks ago, while completing the daily activity in ‘s outstanding 100 Days of Making Project on her Writing in the Dark Substack, I turned to my relationship with the older of my two brothers, Mike, and how it had changed so much.

In our elementary school-aged years we were the two peas closest together in the pod, shoulder to shoulder digging in the dirt, watching Star Trek, and doing “boy things”. The prompt was simple:

To think of someone you’ve lost, not necessarily to death, and make something that “carries a trace of them”, then write 100 words about it.

At the time I was traveling, on a trip to the far side of the country for my partner’s family reunion. I went out into that lush Pennsylvania yard, and picked up bits of natural things – seeds, cones, leaves, berries – then arranged them in a mandala in honor of my brother and all the time we spent playing outside when we were kids.

For me, “Turpentine” is art in the truest, most pure sense. Just the sound of it evokes intense feelings, carrying the listener through the subdued beginning to a soaring chorus. With lyrics that speak to the universal themes of growing up, and changing human connections, we’re pulled into a transcendent emotional ride.

What is it about music that pulls us to those deep vulnerable places? The ones you don’t think about until the first few notes of the song bring all the feels flooding back?

*******

Mandala for Mike

We were closest in my tomboy days. Surrounded by sisters, we bonded together over Matchbox cars and a plastic model of the lunar landing module, the soap box derby cars and balsa wood and tissue paper airplanes we made with Dad, the boy’s jobs of mowing lawns and helping fix the car. Neither of us wanted anything to do with the Barbies and dresses and housework that were assigned to the girls.

Fifty years later, after the Covid took you, I ache for those simple times, when we hadn’t yet formed divergent beliefs that kept us so many miles apart.

It’s been almost a year since the little accident at the dye party that left me with blue hair. We were gathered to make colorful tapestries by tie-dying sheets to use as divider walls for a booth at the Oregon Country Fair. I was standing shoulder to shoulder with my friend Gela, while we squirted dye from catsup bottles onto the fabric. Meanwhile Rob, her husband, stood across from us mixing more dye in quart jars, when a full jar of blue dye slipped through his hands, landing hard on the table. The impact sent a fountain of bright blue liquid spraying across the table, splattering all over Gela and me. For the briefest instant incredulous anger flashed across our faces, an accusing glare aimed at Rob. But suddenly we were all laughing and pointing out all the places that were now splotched blue -- our jeans and shirts, specks on our faces, Gela’s tongue, my hair. Then someone commented that it actually looked really good in my hair. We ran to the bathroom to wash off what we could, and I saw that, by golly, I did like the blue in my hair.

A couple of days later, Gela helped me strategically add more blue using dye meant for hair, and I’ve kept the blue highlights since then. Prior to the tie-dye party I’d never considered adding unnatural color to my hair. Not that I have a problem with it on other people, it just didn’t feel like me. My hair has changed over the years from steely grey in my late thirties to more of a pale silver in my sixties.

Having blue hair now, I can’t help but think about the stereotypical “blue hair” seniors of the 1970s and 80s who used a blue rinse on their oft-permed short tresses. I guess I fall into that demographic age-wise, but that’s not the image I wish to portray. Nor do I intend to make a statement about progressive, social-justice, left-wing politics, although my beliefs are aligned with that way of thinking.

I continue to put the dye in my hair simply because it’s a beautiful color — robin’s egg, Sierra sky, glacier blue, turquoise jewelry, cerulean — I love it. And it makes me happy that something so unplanned and unintentional brings joy into my life

.

September 25, 2025

“One year ago today I tested positive for Covid for the second time. This time, it changed everything. I was sick, but not as sick as I had been the first time I had it in the summer of 2022. After a couple of weeks I began to recover, but then worsened, and in December I was diagnosed with Long Covid. I couldn’t think clearly, with daily headaches, and I was a weepy emotional wreck. Any exertion left me exhausted for days, and I had autonomic issues that caused high blood pressure, heat intolerance, and a sometimes uncomfortably rapid heart rate.

Determined to get past this devastating interruption in my life and plans, I decided I would dedicate a year to doing everything I could to make myself well. I did two months of brain rest, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, acupuncture, counseling, and pacing. I began taking handfuls of supplements and several prescription medications.

Now, twelve months in, I’m partway back to my old self, but am still unable to participate in the activities that I used to do to fill my soul. Since last September I haven’t been skiing or backpacking, and have only been on a few short hikes. Walking across the yard leaves me breathless. I’m not going to lie — it’s been hard. I grieve the loss of opportunities and time that I won’t get back. But the headaches have been gone since last winter, and my brain is functioning as well as it did before the illness. Social events and physical activity no longer leave me wiped out for days. I hope the improvements will continue, but in the meantime I am grateful for the progress.

This new slower version of me is finding time for other things now. Like birdwatching — I’m eagerly identifying the songs and calls of my winged neighbors using the Merlin app. And I’m writing. Like, seriously writing. Back when I was a long-distance backpacking, black-diamond skiing, van-dwelling grandma, my social media posts prompted several folks to suggest I write a book. My answer was always something like, “Oh, but I’d have to sit still for so long to do that.” Well, now I’ve got plenty of time to sit in front of a keyboard.

So I’ve rounded up my journals, photos, maps, and posts and have begun working on a book about those long trails and the life-changing magic they brought into my life.

Sometimes looking at photos of myself on the trail carrying everything I need on my back, I feel the loss deep in my gut. But mostly I am embracing this new me, focused on living in this moment, moving forward, and not lingering too long in the past.”

The yarn shop is nearly out of red skeins. I choose a deep maroon Portuguese wool, soft and strong. Tender red line across my right hand, bamboo tool in my left, catches the loops that form a row along the smooth narrow rod. Then I knit and perl, knit and perl, around and around, needles clicking rhythmically.

On the television The Handmaid’s Tale. The women line up in blood-red cloaks, white winged hats on their bowed heads. They have been captured and enslaved. It is hard to hide when wearing red.

Two rounds back I dropped a stitch. Stop. Rip it out, back up until the mistake is undone. Now proceed, follow the instructions this time.

Gunshots. Two rounds: concussive cracks from the speakers. A man falls to the ground, dark crimson pool spreading outward from his body.

Six red inches hang from the needles, as they should. I continue moving the maroon fibers around and around, decreasing stitches until it has shrunk to a pointed top. Then I break it, and hide the free end by weaving it in among the rest.

On the screen a woman, the wife of a powerful commander, is constantly knitting baby blankets. The Handmaid they raped swells with the baby that they will steal from her. The wife was a published author and public speaker in the before times. Now women are punished for reading and writing. “I fucking hate knitting”, she says.

Cut nine strands, each twenty-two inches long. Thread them through the pointed top of the hat. Braid the strands to the end, tie off with an overhand knot. It will be a gift, a protest uniform.

In the dystopian fiction series handwritten letters from the women are smuggled to Canada where asylum-seeking immigrant refugees from the United States read them. “Believe the women”, they say.

“Believe the women,” he says, curly silver hair poking out from under the tasseled red hat.

* The Melt the Ice hat knitting pattern is designed after the 1940s Norwegian Nazi protest hats that were illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute.

Since I subscribed to Jeannine Ouelette’s Writing in the Dark several months ago, I’ve felt my writing grow in unexpected ways. I never considered myself much of a poet, but the exercises in her six week intensives have prompted me to write “poemish things” that I never would have come up with without her guidance.

Here’s the microflash that came out of this exercise:

First Steps

Soft plump foot hesitantly steps

On hardwood floor.

Right foot, left foot

Sturdy legs, body sways;

And he runs a marathon, fast

To marriage, births, career, loyal dog.

And you, creaky knees and all

Trail him, slow. His silver temples shining.

Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette

For people who do language. Writing saved my life—so I teach writing as if it can save yours.

I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to coffee. When we travel in the van I usually make myself a cup before we head out for the day. But we had slept in and it was late enough that a nearby cafe was open, so I skipped my routine two-cups-before-anything-else. With the word “coffee” prominent in the restaurant’s name, I fully expected to be greeted with a steaming cup shortly after we arrived. But the one server was busy and distracted, taking orders for people who walked in after us. At last I got one cup of coffee (no refills) and we ordered breakfast. As soon as we paid the bill and were on our way, I asked Scott to please stop somewhere so I could get another cup of coffee.

At the Starbucks around the corner, a twenty ounce black coffee warming my hands, I noticed a man sitting at a large table with colored pencils and drawings spread over it. Curious, I moved closer, leaning in to get a look at the colorful pictures. There were images of roses, daisies, and daffodils on dreamy blue and pink backgrounds, some with a frog or hummingbird on them as well. The man was big with grey hair and beard, his rough hands giving the impression he was someone who used them for work.

“A million bucks or a smile,” he said. I looked at him, not realizing I was smiling, and he said, “I knew you’d go for the smile. Which one do you like?”

Hesitantly – not wanting to get sucked into a sales pitch — I pointed to a bright yellow daffodil with an emerald green frog peeking out of it. “How much for that one?” I asked.

“I collect smiles”, he replied. “All I ask is that you sign my Book of Smiles.” He pushed a hardbound volume toward me, opening it and flipping through the pages, to show me all the drawings and messages people had added. While he put the daffodil picture in a protective sleeve I signed his Book of Smiles, Volume VIII with a smiley sunshine rising from behind cartoon waves. He snapped a photo of Scott and me with the daffodil picture, and pulled out a gadget to instantly print two copies – one for his photo album and one for us. I again asked if I could give him some money, but he wouldn’t accept.

“What do you do for a living, then?” I asked.

“I’m an iron worker. This makes me happy.”

Me too, I thought as I walked out of that Starbucks into the brilliant sunny morning with my vente coffee in one hand, cheerful artwork in the other. And a big smile on my face.

This excerpt from the book I’m writing about my experiences long-distance hiking in my 50s and 60s, seems fitting for Halloween week. I was in the midst of a 250 mile section hike on the Pacific Crest Trail when I chose the cozy warmth of a hut over sleeping on the ground in my tent.

A constant chilly wind was blowing when I arrived at the unmarked narrow path that led steeply up from the PCT toward Anderson Peak. It was almost embarrassing to call it a day at 3:00 in the afternoon, especially since I had just come from a night in town. But I was tired.

The Sierra Club built and maintains several huts for backcountry skiers in the Tahoe area. This one, the Benson Hut, sits on a ridge below the rocky summit of Anderson Peak, with sweeping views to the east. Inside there are fold down bunks, a wood stove, and a table with benches on the main floor, with a large loft area upstairs. Outside there’s a two-story outhouse with a ladder up to the facilities. When there’s six feet of snow a two-story outhouse makes perfect sense. I dropped my pack inside my home for the night and went out to enjoy the view, while taking advantage of a strong cell signal. Even though the wind was brisk and continuous, sitting against a sun-warmed rock I was comfortable as I talked and texted with family and friends. When the sun sank behind the ridge I went inside and built a fire in the wood stove. A hiker out for the day came by, curious to check the place out, but he didn’t stay long. Soon I was alone again.

Sitting at the table I wrote in my journal and studied the maps of the next day’s route. Then I settled in on a fold-down bunk next to the stove, grinning to myself about my luxuriously comfortable accommodations. And I had the place all to myself.

Tucked in, reading a book on my iPhone, I heard footsteps on the stone steps leading up to the door. Since I had latched it from the inside I got up, thinking anyone out in this frigid wind at 7:00 pm needed to come in and warm up. But when I opened the door no one was there. I grabbed my headlamp and aimed it in all directions but didn’t see anyone. I called out “Hey! Anyone out there?” but the only response was the constant howl of the wind.

I crawled back under my quilt and picked up my phone to read some more. In 20 minutes I heard it again — footsteps on the stone stairs. Someone in boots clomping up the steps. Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump! But no knock at the door. I got up, and tentatively opened the door. No one in sight. Nothing in the beam of my headlamp.

After bolting the door once more I hunkered down under my quilt. This time I didn’t read. I laid there, wide-eyed, waiting for it. And it came again. Clump! Clump! Clump! Clump! This time I didn’t get up.

All night long, intermittently, I heard the footsteps. Like someone in heavy boots wearily stomping up the stairs. But no one ever knocked, or even tried to open the door. A couple of times during the night I got up and added wood to the fire. I slept – a little.

In the morning the wind had died down, and there were no more sounds of footsteps. Perhaps it had been the wind banging some loose piece of wood against the building. A couple of miles down the trail the next day I almost had myself convinced that was it.

A few days later while in town, I Googled the Benson Hut. Several accounts claim the place is haunted. People have been hearing footsteps – in boots, and there are sightings of a young woman in turn-of-the-century dress.

After my sleepless night in the haunted hut I took off early, before the sun was up. Thick squarish ice crystals poked up through the frozen mud. The wind was ferocious around Tinker’s Knob. Most of the day I walked along exposed rocky wind-swept ridges. When the trail traversed the harsh rocky ridge above Alpine Meadows Ski Area, ravens surfed the winds that were driven skyward by the steep slope. They hovered over my head, so close I could see the individual blue-black feathers on their bodies and the scaly skin of their legs.

I had walked out of September and into October. This late in the season the days are noticeably shorter. I set my tent up in a hurry after finding a level patch of dirt near the north fork of Blackwell Creek. The sun was setting. I heated some water and poured it into one of my water bottles, then tucked it in my quilt next to my body, savoring the delicious warmth.

Determined to get past this devastating interruption in my life and plans, I decided I would dedicate a year to doing everything I could to make myself well. I did two months of brain rest, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, acupuncture, counseling, and pacing. I began taking handfuls of supplements and several prescription medications.

Now, twelve months in, I’m partway back to my old self, but am still unable to participate in the activities that I used to do to fill my soul. Since last September I haven’t been skiing or backpacking, and have only been on a few short hikes. Walking across the yard leaves me breathless. I’m not going to lie — it’s been hard. I grieve the loss of opportunities and time that I won’t get back. But the headaches have been gone since last winter, and my brain is functioning as well as it did before the illness. Social events and physical activity no longer leave me wiped out for days. I hope the improvements will continue, but in the meantime I am grateful for the progress.

This new slower version of me is finding time for other things now. Like birdwatching — I’m eagerly identifying the songs and calls of my winged neighbors using the Merlin app. And I’m writing. Like, seriously writing. Back when I was a long-distance backpacking, black-diamond skiing, van-dwelling grandma, my social media posts prompted several folks to suggest I write a book. My answer was always something like,” Oh, but I’d have to sit still for so long to do that.” Well, now I’ve got plenty of time to sit in front of a keyboard. So I’ve rounded up my journals, photos, maps, and posts and have begun working on a book about those long trails and the life-changing magic they brought into my life.

Sometimes looking at myself on the trail carrying everything I need on my back, I feel the loss deep in my gut. But mostly I am embracing this new me, focused on living in this moment, moving forward, and not lingering too long in the past.

.