I hadn’t realized it until my blog reminded me, but my Pacific Crest Trail backpacking trip was eight years ago. Actually, the blog detailing the trip was written exactly eight years ago today, so I can only presume that the trip was a day or two before that, but still, it’s close enough.
It’s funny that eight years doesn’t seem that long ago. When I’ve mentioned hiking and backpacking, people nod at me, thinking it was when I was young, and I might have been younger eight years ago, but I was still climbing up in years while I was climbing up those hills.
What surprised me about the blog post, No Resfeber for the Weary, was the reminder that I took the overnight hiking trip in June. In the desert. What was I thinking? I also remember that I was just getting over a cold, so again, what was I thinking?
I do remember, come to think of it. I was thinking that if I didn’t do the backpacking trip then, I never would. And I was mentally ready.
Apparently, despite my hiking with a filled backpack for months before that in preparation, I wasn’t really physically prepared. Since I’d planned to be gone for several nights, I needed to carry one heck of a lot of water because there was no water up in those hills. I wish I could have been out longer than that one night — it really was incredible being by myself on that isolated trail, camping alone out in the middle of nowhere — but physically, I gave out. I’d heard of “hitting the wall,” but had never felt it. And then I did. Hit the wall, I mean. I was lucky I didn’t tip over and fall down a mountainside. Oddly, I wasn’t sore. Just unable to move.
My one regret is that I was never able to do a long backpacking trip, but I am very glad I managed to do that particular overnight trip. Hiking, of course, wasn’t anything new, nor was camping, but the combination of the two was what made it an unforgettable experience.
I was right about that being my only chance. Exactly one month later, my homeless brother died, which in a roundabout way changed my life. And now here I am, a thousand miles away from where I hiked that day, living in my own house, tending my garden, and trying to hold back the years still creeping up on me.
After Jeff died, I was determined to live despite the agony and angst of grief. I didn’t want to waste the years of freedom he gave me (his dying freed me from further care and I’ve always been cognizant of that sacrifice, involuntarily though it might have been). And looking back, not just at the past eight years, but the eight years before that, I see how much I have done. I bet he’d have been glad I experienced life in the way that I did — he felt bad that the constraints of his illness stole my spontaneity from me, and I made sure that I got it back so he wouldn’t have to feel bad. (Odd how that worked — he was gone and it wouldn’t have mattered to him, but it mattered to me.)
I’ve lost that spontaneity again, at least mostly. I’m certainly not going on any backpacking trips (though I still have all the equipment, just in case), but then, I have nothing left to prove to me or to anyone. Nothing left to make up for, either.
Still, I do sometimes dream of a long trail hike, and I wonder . . .
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
Bertram's Blog 
June 16, 2026 at 8:05 am
Pat, this is a deeply moving reflection. The way the trail, time, and your brother’s passing weave together gives the whole piece a quiet but lasting weight. There’s something powerful in how you still hold space for that unfinished hike, and for the life that kept unfolding after it. Thank you for sharing this.