“Okay,” I said, my voice lighter than I felt. I felt a deep weight settling into the pit of my stomach, sinking down to my feet, holding me to the earth. Grounding me. “Okay,” I repeated, as the hikers ahead of me crested the hill and disappeared into the shimmering heat. “I’m coming home.”

So, no more shame, I decided, and when I came to a crossroads, where I could follow the PCT over a series up pointless ups and downs, or road walk, I decided to test that conviction. I had been a purist on the Appalachian Trail, until I realized how that mindset had been holding me back and blue-blazed on the very last day of my thru-hike. It was time, I knew, to give myself grace, walk a continuous footpath, but hike my own hike.

Sure, I had scrambled up vertical rock faces and outrun microbursts and survived bone-chilling cold on the Appalachian Trail; but the challenges the PCT posed were its own version of difficulty, and commanded my respect. Like the stretch of trail before me, I felt uprooted, torn apart, washed away. I was a stranger in a strange land, and while I was captivated by the beauty of this wild place… I missed Appalachia every day.

On the decision to thru-hike for a second time, why the PCT, the fears I no longer have... and the new ones I do have.