I was standing at the Southern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) with an entire country in front of me. I was 65km east of San Diego and the U.S/Mexican border fence threw shadows across the red dirt. The great American expanse stretched out before me as the sun rose, revealing the burnt landscape of the Mojave Desert. I was with a young man from Oklahoma that I had met the night before. After a nervous laugh that lingered underneath the cloudless sky we started walking.
I had been preparing for this 4265km hike that snaked up the west coast of America for over a year. I wondered how many consecutive horizons I would reach on my adventure from Mexico to Canada. I was far away from home. For the next five months my waking hours would become fragmented into times when I was walking and time when I wasn’t. The PCT would present me with extraordinary beauty and revelations, but none more valuable than the art of walking. What I discovered all stemmed from a commitment to a seemingly straightforward act: walking. It became my practise, my craft, my guide and my teacher.
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