One thing any backpacker will tell you is that it's tedious and monotonous. You're bored sometimes, so you really have to make the fun in your head.

In your twenties you're becoming who you're going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole.

Every time I set foot on that trail, I feel grateful for the PCTA for doing the work it does to protect and preserve it

That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.

The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods. It took me four years, seven months, and three days to do it. I didn't know where I was going until I got there.It was a place called the Bridge of the Gods.

I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her. My whole life sort of ended when my mom died. I had to remake it again and be a new person in the world without my mom. It was a very primal rebirth, that time after my mom died.

My mom said there's a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there or not. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.