Ridge Raven Trail Year

When I first started thinking about how to mark the end of the Trail Year, I knew one thing immediately: I didn’t want a badge. I didn’t want a medal, a digital confetti animation, or a loud declaration of “YOU DID IT!!!” that disappeared the moment you closed a tab. That kind of recognition has…

I used to think hiking “with dogs” was a lesser version of hiking. Slower.Messier.Less focused. I thought real hiking meant: And then I spent enough time on the trail with my dogs to realize how wrong that framing was. Hiking with dogs didn’t take something away from the experience. It gave me the experience I’d…

There’s a sentence I hear all the time from people who want to hike more: “I was doing really well… and then I fell off.” They say it like a confession.Like they broke something.Like the trail revoked their membership. And every time, I want to interrupt and say this: You didn’t fail.You paused.And then you…

There was a moment on the trail, somewhere between week fifteen and week twenty, when I realized something important: If this hiking challenge had been about miles, I would’ve quit. Not because I don’t like walking.Not because I’m not capable.But because the moment hiking turns into a performance metric, it stops being the thing that…