Chapter 1: Start Where You Are. Take a Step. Repeat.
It’s 5am and less than 32 degrees fahrenheit. I know this because it’s snowing. I am huddled in the small pocket of warmth that I have created in my down, summer-weight, mummy bag. I’m wearing a colorful wool hat that my mom knit for me. It has a poof on top of brightly dyed wool. I love the hat for its color and right now, I think that it’s saving my life - keeping the warmth in my body as a sort of mummy bag lid. Evan is in a nearby tent and he is doing the same - namely, keeping warm in much colder conditions than we expected to have on the trail.
Our camp is below Forester Pass next to a frozen lake with no name on my map. The altitude is about 12,000 feet and we are well above the tree line.
‘Yes.’ The answer comes through the thin opaque fabric of my tent fly.
It’s still mostly dark and I can hear the patter pat of snowflakes falling outside. Evan and I decide to sleep for another hour to see if the storm clears, hoping to avoid breaking camp in the falling snow.
It’s the 3rd morning of our adventure and we are planning to hike up and over Forester pass. It’s our first major pass and will be the highest point (13180 ft) on our journey. Without any snow-gear, it’s possible that we will be unable to pass Forester and that our journey will end almost as quickly as it had begun.
I fall asleep again and dream of snowy passes and icy chutes that slide down to deep crevasses. My boots are slip-sliding all around and my pack conspires with gravity, pulling me down with each step as I climb the switchbacks of Forester. I dream that at the top of the pass, just before the summit there is an impassible chute of ice and snow across the trail and over and over again, I come to that point in the journey and have to turn back.
When I wake up again at 6:30am, the snow has stopped and the inside of my tent is glowing with the warm light of dawn. I feel encouraged as the spark of the days adventures ignites inside of me. I hear Evan stirring in his tent nearby and we have a brief conversation concluding that we will keep going unless we get to a point where we cannot continue. It is this mentality that has brought us this far. We had known that there would be a storm coming though on about the 3rd or 4th day of our journey and that it might dump enough snow to make the crossing of Forester treacherous. After worrying for most of the previous day about whether or not we’d make it, Evan and I decided that we would keep going until conditions dictated that we could not continue.
‘Go for it.’ I think to myself. Then, I remember my snowy dreams and the slip-sliding plummet of an ice-chute that may or not be await us at the top of Forester. I become aware again of the small pocket of warmth in my sleeping bag. My body is naked and the air that’s touching my nose is very cold. There is snow outside and the looming climb is much bigger than I am. Slowly, I begin to feel overwhelmed by the task of climbing Forester pass. ‘I can’t do it.’ I think. ‘I don’t even know if we’ll be able to make it once we get up there to the top. I don’t even know where to start.’ I begin to feel the big wilderness around my tiny tent. Outside is so much bigger than me - so cold and unforgiving.
‘Wait a minute. I have to do something. I’m not going to just lie here all day in my sleeping bag.’ I stop the spiral of doubt and fear by focusing on the rise and fall of my breath. I imagine that my breathing is filling me with the warm sunlight that is now glowing in my tent. I reason with myself. ‘Well, whether I make the pass or not, I’m going to get out of my sleeping bag at some point.’
Getting out of the sleeping bag into the cold happens in steps from top to bottom. My hat is already on so that’s a good start. I release the pull-cord at the top of my mummy bag and wiggle out to my waist. My skin is taught in the cold air as I pull on my black long-sleeved base-layer. I decide to put on all of my clothes - you know, everything that I brought with me. After the base-layer comes a blue button-up camping shirt and then, the down jacket that doubles as my pillow at night. The clothes begin to hold and amplify the body heat in the top half of my body. I repeat the process from the waist down. I Wiggling out of the bag, feel the cold air on my skin, then come underpants, base layer, convertible hiking pants, and wool socks.
Under my breath I thank the sleeping bag and the hat my mom made for me for keeping me alive overnight.
Now that I’ve taken the first metaphorical step in the direction of Forester Pass, I’m starting to see some momentum build inside of my self. At least I’m no longer naked as I trudge through the snow in my minds eye.
When I open the tent, I’m encouraged again. This time by the clear, crisp air and the beautiful white blanket of snow that’s covering the treeless rocky landscape. A little gasp of joy escapes from my lungs and passes my lips as my eyes twinkle and widen to take in as much of the scene as possible. Wow!
In physics, there is a law that states that static friction is greater than dynamic friction. This means that an object that is not moving experiences greater resistance to movement than an object that has begun to move. Taken one way, this law could be used to say that the most difficult part of a task is getting started. I like this because it reminds me that everything is done with small steps and that if I am able to identify and take the first step, I’ve already overcome the static friction of my thoughts, doubts, and fears. Furthermore, It reminds me that it’s impossible to take the 2nd and 3rd steps without taking the 1st. At the beginning of something, the first step is literally the only one that I am capable of taking. Everything else is commentary.
If you were to ask me how to hike the John Muir Trail. My answer would be, ‘one step at a time.’ For me, this statement is at once obvious and profound. The practical question that follows is, ‘what is my next step?’ and can be used when doing pretty much anything on the planet. I’m using it right now to write this book. One step at a time. One word at a time.
There is a saying that goes something like this: ‘Einstein or (insert your favorite genius, writer, artist, or adventurer here) put on his pants one leg at a time just like the rest of us.’ What is this statement really saying? Maybe, it’s that deep down, we are all presented with an equal opportunity to do what is in our hearts to be done - to do what we dream of and to do this, we just have to take one step at a time.
For me, breath is a particularly powerful reminder of this. I don’t know about you but I take my breaths one-at-a-time. I do not try to do more or less than that. The big breaths that fill my lungs and the small breaths that calm my racing heart after I dance are all taken one-at-a-time.
Now that I’m back in the world reintegrating from the trail (this morning is my first morning back at my apartment), I’m starting to see that one of the values of hiking the John Muir Trail was the day after day practice of one step at a time. A lesson that was made abundantly clear by long days of walking where I spent 8 hours at a time putting one foot in front of the other. No matter how steep the climb or rocky the decent or snowy the trail or rainy the weather, I kept taking one step at a time and in that way a great secret of life on the planet was revealed.
And the trick is, that I’m still doing that. I’m always doing that and I always have. The practice, I believe, is in determining what the next step is. If I want a cup of coffee and I have a tin of whole coffee beans, I’m going to need to boil some water and grind the beans before I get to the cup of coffee. This is a familiar process. I’ve been making coffee since I worked at Atarbucks as an undergrad at UC Berkeley. Making coffee is familiar. Starbucks creates recipes for their drinks - step-by-step processes that their employees follow to produce consistently tasty coffee drinks all around the world. Starbucks makes sure that the ingredients are fresh and consistent and you or I can walk into a Starbucks on any street corner from LA to NYC to Burlington to Shanghai and order a tall nonfat vanilla latté with the expectation that it will taste the same as the last one that we ordered.
Why am I talking about Starbucks? Well, I really enjoyed working there and I was good at it. I had those recipes memorized and could handle the morning rush with grace, ease, and little bit of personal flair. With training and practice, working at Starbucks became an automatic experience for me. I could perform the job easily after I had been up late studying or (more likely the case) after a Cal Football game day party.
So What? Well, what I’m getting at here is a comparison between following someone else’s recipe at Starbucks and hiking the John Muir Trail. Both are step-by-step processes. A single shot of espresso, 10oz of nonfat milk steamed to 105 degrees, 3 pumps of vanilla syrup, all in a 12oz paper cup with a sleeve and a lid. That was the recipe for a tall non-fat vanilla latté when I worked at Starbucks. But what’s the recipe for hiking Forester Pass? What are the next steps? What I’m wanting or trying to get it is that it takes practice for me to determine the next steps for myself when I’m in unknown territory - such as the snow-covered approach to Forester. And questions like: how steep? how snowy? and what weather? - seem to be insurmountable when looked at all at once while lying naked in my sleeping bag. I did not know how or if I how I’d be able to make it over Forester and I didn’t know if Evan would be able to either.
What did I know then? What was it that kept me going on that snowy morning? Let’s read this aptly titled poem by David White:
Start close in,
don't take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.
Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people's questions,
don't let them
smother something
simple.
To find
another's voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.
Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don't follow
someone else's
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don't mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don't take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.
In Daily Rituals a book by Mason Currey he quotes Twyla Tharp on her creative routine:
“I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30am, put on my workout clothes, my leg-warmers, my sweatshirt, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.”
The great thing about the John Muir Trail is that it tells you to keep going. It did not allow me to stay in one place for more than one night (I wasn’t carrying enough food for that) and the unknown beauty called me forward each morning with the possibility of what I might see and do. Jeff and Evan were also important parts of this motivation as was the itinerary that we had created together in the planning phase of the hike.
I’m not trying to come up with anything new here. I’m just trying to get down the importance of the following steps:
We took thousands of steps each day on the John Muir Trail. Each step came right after the previous one and right before the next one. Each step was equally important.
So, in many ways, hiking the JMT is like slinging coffee at Starbucks. With the correct equipment and practice one can accomplish the steps required to serve 100 drinks or to walk 100 miles. In both cases, many have come before us to point and show the way. I did not re-invent the latté while I worked at Starbucks nor did we blaze a new trail through the Sierra Mountains but in each scenario, it was me who chose my own next steps and then took them.
There are some things in my life that take place according to plan and others that I plan according to what is taking place. In either case, what happens is what’s happening and I am there, doing my best.
Perhaps there is a Divine Recipe - a code written in our hearts. And just maybe there is a golden path that we walk into the truth of who we are. We have within us a compass that guides us in all that we do. Let’s try for a moment to listen to the deep yearnings of our being-ness. Let’s allow ourselves to feel the next steps that we are called to take and when we are ready, take a step in the direction that we determine is best for ourselves. After all, isn’t that what we do everyday?
Today, move one step closer to the truth of who you are - the courageous one, the kind one, the strong one, the loving one. The masterpiece of you is calling and when you listen closely it will tell you the next small step that will bring you closer to its manifestation.
For further reading about taking small steps and identifying the next step, check out:
1. One Small Step can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer
Oh! There’s one more thing that happened on that morning before Forester Pass. While Evan and I broke camp, a solo female hiker passed us heading North on the trail. ‘Are you going for it?’ we asked her. ‘Of course,’ she said and walked on. When we left camp, there was a single set of footprints guiding us through the snowy fields to the base of Forester Pass.
