The most difficult thing I’ve had to do all summer was to turn around and hike south to Tuolomne Meadows. It was painful of course, but that’s not what made it hard. Knowing when to turn back, that’s the challenge.

Knowing when to stay off trail has also proved a challenge. Once my ankle stopped hurting in town I thought I could handle the trail and hitched out of South Lake Tahoe, but it didn’t take long to realize that continuing to hike would not have been a smart choice. And so here we are over a month later and I’m still off trail and finally certain that I will not in fact make it to Canada this year. Time to pick some new challenges for myself.

I will finish the PCT next year, and after that I will move to Germany (tell you more about that one later). To accomplish both will require some hustle, but I know I can do it. At the moment I’m at my mom’s house and have started picking up freelancing work again. I know my grand overarching plans obviously, but I’m not yet clear on every single step that needs to be taken.

While I work on breaking down PCT and Germany goals into smaller bite-sized pieces, here’s one final important bite-sized goal: I am challenging myself to write here every day. I’m not promising fine artistic work, nor am I promising something as long as this post every day, but I’m going to write something. Maybe that’ll even end up helping with the other goals, who knows. If nothing else, there’s a certain sense of accountability that comes from being honest about what I’ve done to work towards Germany and towards finishing the PCT.