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For those who know me �� you’ll know that the woods and the connection to nature through hiking is something especially important to me. There is no other activity that I can think of in my life that brings me a real palpable rush of joy and calm as does standing on the precipice of a trail along a mountain ridge, or listening the leaves in the thick of a Maple Forest , or drinking in the sweet un-mistaking scent of coniferous smells of a trail through the pines . Every year I grow more and more bold and adventurous and spend more time day dreaming about working up the nerve to push further , do a solo overnight that may lead to a long thru hike. The PCT is on my bucket list �� but first I I aim aiming something closer to home in Canada 😊
To keep my daydreaming alive - I started a page on Facebook to Journal and share my adventures as I embark on completing the full end to end hike of the Bruce Trail ( in Ontario, Canada) . You quickly learn about the hiking community when exploring social media and ravenously I joined a whole slew of groups to take in everyone’s experiences, advice and of course the pictures of adventures amongst the tree’s, and trails. When I think about it - really only Hikers can appreciate the endless pictures tree’s, creeks, trails and rocks and keep interested 😊( I mean really after the first few pictures of tree’s one would think they’d get bored of posting the next 20!! Not avid hikers!) In joining these groups I stumbled on an All Women Hiking group that really got me excited �� as these were experiences of like minded women, sharing their love of hiking , their frustration, their fears, their accomplishments and their failures �� in such an open way that it could help but inspire women like myself to continuing pursuing the thing I love to do. As a result of joining this group I heard about this book �� of which Heather had posted herself!
Once downloaded into my kindle �� I ravenously read the pages and couldn’t put it down. Well written, raw and full of openness and emotion �� I was shocked at how emotional I was reading the chapters and truly feeling Heathers experience’s on the PCT. The daily descriptions of the hike allowed me to imagine for myself where she was and the sensory elements that a hiker can experience through varying climates and terrain. I held my breathe every time she stumbled on an animal and reacted the same I would �� fearful and grasping “what I do now?�� “Should I be loud?��, “Should I run?�� “Am I really to tired to be scared anymore?��. I cried when she made it to northern terminus and felt the accomplishment I can only imagine must have been rushing through her. I could really empathize with the numerous fears she shared as she was marching north . I felt her emptiness post hike and know that yearning for myself ( albeit I am nowhere near her trail experience!!) The fears she shares in this book are the same fears that I know I have and I hope to draw on her experience as an inspiration to push my limits further and further. This was a great read, an inspirational one- especially for like-minded women and am so thankful to have stumbled on her post on Facebook to prompt me to download it .