Old Geezer on the John Muir Trail
In the spring of 2012, I read Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild: a memoir of her 3-month hiking journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. Many people have hiked the PCT, but few of them have described the experience in such an intimate and compelling way. She successfully juxtaposed the challenges and obstacles of her personal life with those encountered on the long dusty trail. My first thought was to get out there before the mobs of people who learn about this story from Oprah’s Book Club to lace up their boots. There is a mountain out there waiting for all of us. To be alive is to struggle. Sooner or later everybody has to walk uphill: fight the powers that be and overcome the obstacles. In the high Sierra, you zigzag up steep switchbacks over loose gravel and talus at altitudes of 10, 12 or even 14,000 feet. The blazing, unobstructed California, summer sun will dry the throat and cloud the mind. The air is thin: containing sometimes as