The spark takes hold

Do you ever stop from you day-to-day to look back on how things started? I figured we'd kick off the blog by sharing how we got so stuck on hiking in the first place.

We started hiking together on the day that we met. Dan picked me up at around 7am and we headed over to Green Mountain. It's one of my favorite parts of our origin story. Since then we've not only continued to hike, but also have begun planning for a future where we get to share our love of hiking and the outdoors with others.

“Hiking is a moving meditation; a way to bridge the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional worlds we inhabit.”

Dan started hiking and camping at a young age- and later as a young adult even worked as a park ranger in Yosemite National Park. I also started hiking and camping at a young age, which lead me to explore long-distances hikes as an adult. But, while I shot for length, Dan aimed more for height! He has summited several 20,000+ foot peaks.

Co-Creating As we meshed our lives together more and more we started to settle into different ways to enjoy things alone and together. We are fond of weekend camping adventures, and international trips alike, but have neither submitted a big peak together or done a long-distance thru-hike. Before we got married in September of 2021, we started talking about the possibility of sharing our individual passions with each other. While I'm a bit more hesitant to do any kind of mountaineering that requires oxygen, a harness or a pick-axe; Dan is all for trying out a long distance hike! I started to talk to him about different places in the world we could go for an extended walk- but before we could make our choice we had to come to terms with our limitations. Namely, how much time we had to do a thru-hike. For us, that meant we had a cap of 30-35 days time for our thru hike. Shortly thereafter, I suggested to Dan a return to Spain for me, and a first-time trip for him. We're very excited to announce we'll be walking The Way of Saint James this August/September. We still don't know where we'll start, but we know we'll end at the Ocean in Finisterre.