by Jessi Kirby
I reread Bri’s note to herself again, all the way through to her P.S.
I know I need to call my mom, that she’s probably beside herself with worry, but the thought of talking to anyone, let alone trying to explain it to her, is exhausting. I don’t think I could if I tried. I dig in the pack and pull out my phone, power it on, and now that we’re in range of service, watch as the missed call and text notifications register. They’re all from my mom and aunt. I swipe the most recent text from my mom open without going back to read all the others. And then I type:
Hi Mom. I’m so sorry I didn’t answer before this. I know you must be worried, but I want you to know that I am safe. And I’ve decided to hike the whole trail. I just got into Red’s Meadow, where I finally have service. I was able to pick up Bri’s resupply box, so I’m going to keep going. And I’m not alone. I met a great group of friends to hike with, and we all keep each other safe, so please don’t worry. My phone is about to die, but I’ll call when we get to our next resupply stop at Muir Trail Ranch, which should be 4 or 5 more days, depending. Please don’t worry. This has been good for me, and I’m safe, happy, and with friends. I love you. Mari.
I pause, and glance out the mesh window of my tent. My “friends” are nowhere to be seen, but she doesn’t need to know that. After I hit Send, I turn my phone off and tuck it back in my pack, feeling guilty for taking the easy way out with a text, but I’m shivering now, and there’s a hot shower waiting. I grab the fresh clothes along with my camp sweats, the little bottle of shampoo and tiny towel, and the twenty-dollar bill and head for the showers.
The hot water is a luxury after rinsing in icy lakes, and the fresh smell of the shampoo and conditioner top it off. But being clean afterward is the best thing about the day. It’s dark by the time I get out, and I wish I’d remembered my headlamp, but then I look up at the sky, crystal clear now, so that all the tiny points of light are visible, and I don’t mind the dark. It’s like the storm and the clouds never even happened. I marvel at how quickly things change out here, and I guess it’s the same with me. Today has been an emotional roller coaster, but right now, walking through the campground, with the smell of campfire smoke drifting by, and the little bits of conversation carried along with it, I feel restored.
I wonder, as I walk, where Vanessa and everyone else are, and I decide that after I put my stuff in my tent, I need to find them. At least to apologize for this afternoon and thank them for their company, but let them know that I’m okay going it alone for the rest of the hike. It’s the easiest out I can think to give them, and after today, I’m sure they’ll take it. I feel a little twinge in my chest at the thought, so I tell myself it’ll be good for me to be solo again.
But when I round a curve to where my campsite is, it looks like maybe I won’t have to be alone. I first recognize the tents that are set up in a semicircle around mine, and then as I get closer I can see the five of them are gathered around the fire pit, blowing life into a teepee of kindling to start a fire, talking and laughing like they always do.
It puts a lump in my throat, and I stand there a moment, not sure how to approach them.
Beau glances up from the fire and sees me first. “Oh, hey, BA. Hope we’re not imposing. Just thought we’d get a fire going.”
I walk slowly toward them, still feeling sheepish. “BA?” I ask.
“Yep,” Colin says. “We decided that should be your trail name.”
“You and Beau decided that,” Vanessa says. She looks at me. “Sorry. I didn’t get a vote.”
“It’s a COMPLIMENT,” Beau says. He looks at me. “It stands for Badass. Which is what we think you are, for being out here, doing this whole hike to honor your cousin.” His voice softens. “It’s pretty awesome, you know?”
“That’s not . . . I don’t think you understand—”
Colin stands and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I think it says somewhere in the hiker’s rules that you don’t get to argue when someone gives you your trail name. You just gotta accept it.”
Everyone else looks at me, their faces sympathetic in the firelight.
I force a smile. “Thank you, really. But I need to explain . . .”
Josh catches my eye. “No you don’t,” he says gently.
Vanessa takes a step toward me, arms out for a hug. “He’s right. You don’t need to explain or apologize. Everyone out here has things they’re dealing with.”
She wraps her arms around my shoulders, and I hug her back. Then it’s quiet a moment, like no one knows what to say next.
“Yeah,” Colin says solemnly. “I’ve been dealing with some serious digestive issues since dinner.”
Jack waves his hand in the air, like he’s clearing it. “Dude. We know.”
Vanessa rolls her eyes and then looks at me. “You know what I mean.”
I smile. “I do.”
Beau comes up and wraps a heavy arm around each of our shoulders. “So are we all good? Because I have a little something to toast with if we are.”
I glance at Josh again, and he nods. “We’re good.”
And just like that, they move on.
Jack and Vanessa grab two pans of Jiffy Pop they bought in the store. Beau proudly produces a bottle of Fireball from his resupply box, while Colin walks around to each of us, gathering our camp mugs. I go back to my tent and grab the hot chocolate packets and the whole bag of candy bars to contribute. It feels like a small gesture after the way they’ve just forgiven my behavior and rallied around me, but they seem to appreciate it.
We sit around the fire, sipping our cinnamon-spiked hot chocolate, and I listen as they trade funny stories and laugh and talk in the easy way friends do—or that I’ve imagined they do. For the last few years, I isolated myself from anyone I might’ve been friends with in real life. I chose strangers instead, because at the end of the day, they could never get too close or see more of me and my life than I wanted to show them.
But today, I didn’t get to control what this group saw. They caught a little glimpse of the truth, and based on what they found out about Bri, they decided I’m brave for being out here, and that it’s admirable, what I’m doing. And sitting here with them in the fire’s fading glow, I wish those things were true. Or that I’d had the courage to tell them they’re not.
But it feels like it’s too late, and now I don’t want them to know—because the whole truth of why I’m out here is more complicated than that.
And infinitely less admirable.
Invisible Weights
I LIE IN my sleeping bag, listening to the birds outside and watching the sky lighten through the mesh window above me. Our camp is still quiet, which isn’t surprising after last night. We stayed up well past hiker’s midnight, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a slow-moving morning. I’m already dreading getting back on the trail.
I reach for Bri’s journal, and flip to the page marked by the ribbon to see what she had in mind for today:
I don’t know how far that is, and I don’t want to think about it just yet so I set the journal down and pick up my phone instead. The screen lights up, and I stare at the dots that mean I actually have a connection. I’ve gotten so used to not having it that I almost wish I didn’t. There are multiple replies from my mom to the text I sent last night, but again, I don’t read them. I already feel guilty about not actually calling her, but I’m afraid that if I did, I’d let her talk me into coming home instead of continuing on. And I’m not ready to go back to whatever is waiting there for me. Not yet.
For a moment, it’s tempting to check up on myself—to see what, if anything, is being said about me, or if I’m already long forgotten. But I don’t. Instead, I open the Instagram icon and go to Bri’s account, because it’s her I want to see right now. I stare, for a moment, at the last picture she posted, and it hits me square in the chest that that’s it. There won’t ever be another photo that comes after this one. Her story ends right when it was really beginning.
Right now
I’d give anything to be able to see the next chapter. I know from my mom, and from some of Bri’s posts, that she had big plans for after the hike. She’d joined an outdoor education program for girls that would bring her around the world as a mentor for the next two years. Thinking of all the things she would’ve experienced and lives she would’ve touched that way makes me sad, so I scroll back in time because that’s the only way I can go.
I go through her last months in reverse—her hitchhiking trip to Canada, beyond the beaches of Tenerife, all the way back to the time she spent in Italy, and there’s a photo there that catches my eye. It’s of her, smiling up at the camera looking calm and happy, holding a basketful of something she’s collected. I tap it and read the caption:
I think this is what I’m going to miss the most about the Italian countryside. I spent this morning picking and collecting walnuts and chestnuts. I’m not really quite sure how to explain what I felt, but I was probably the most relaxed and happy I have been in a long time. There were no noisy cars or planes, just the sound of wind blowing through the trees and birds chirping and the occasional cat that stopped by looking for some attention. My thoughts were so clear it was like I was hearing them for the first time. I have finally started to take the time to get to know myself and just enjoy being in my own presence. I didn’t feel the pressure to do anything or think anything, I could just be.
I look at her words, and somehow they soften the edges around the sadness that sits in my chest. Her life was full, if not complete. She experienced big moments, and small ones, and everything in between, and somehow it makes me feel better that she got to experience the particular moment she captured here. It makes me think of the first day I left, and what the lady with the little girl said about how going out is really going in. I wonder if that’s what Bri was hoping to do out here on the trail—to get back to that quiet place of being at peace within herself before she went out into the world to lead others to it.
She’s already helped me find glimpses of it.
But I want to find more.
So as much as I don’t want to get up, or put my hiking clothes on, or get ready for another day on the trail, that’s what I do. Before I put her boots on, I walk them over to the campfire ring where we sat last night, and snap a photo of them beside it. She may not be able to add to her story, but I can.
We have a big but quiet breakfast at the café, break camp, then leave Red’s Meadow Resort laden down with full packs and a plan to carry them thirteen miles to Purple Lake. We move much slower than we did yesterday, when we had the resort to look forward to. Now, it’ll be another fifty miles before our next resupply stop. So between the new weight in our packs, the overcast sky, and the leftover haze that everyone seems to feel from the spiked hot chocolates, morale is low when we take the short junction back to the main trail.
No one talks as we begin the first climb of the day, up toward Crater Creek, and soon enough we have our first creek crossing too. There are enough fallen trees here that we don’t have to wade across, so that, at least, is a relief.
Next, the trail takes us up a ravine, over a short pass, and through wet meadowlands. We trudge on silently, each in our own way trying to get our heads back in the trail game after our brief taste of civilization and the comforts that came along with it. It’s back to the work of putting one foot in front of the other until we reach our next destination.
This section of the trail is pretty, but kind of monotonous. There are no towering granite domes or cascading waterfalls like in Yosemite that inspired that awed kind of hiking where you pay more attention to the landscape than your aching body. I shared the Advil all around this morning, and that seems to have helped with most aches and pains, but the new weight of my pack rubs uncomfortably on the raw skin of my shoulders and hips, and I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling like we’re in for a long day with little reward at the end.
Soon, our group starts to spread out, with Josh and Beau pulling ahead, out of sight. Jack, Colin, Vanessa, and I crunch our way over the dry pumice trail at a slower pace, heading up to begin the steep, switchbacking ascent of Duck Pass. The clouds hang low and gray in the sky, and I eye them warily after yesterday’s storm.
“I’m not feeling this today,” Colin says. He stops in the middle of the trail, and the three of us who are behind him run into each other.
“You can’t just stop like that,” Jack snaps. “Go to the back if you’re gonna pull that stuff.”
Colin gives him an irritated look and turns and takes a few steps forward instead, so we start to as well, but then he purposely stops short and Jack crashes into him again.
“What the hell?” Jack asks.
Vanessa, who is standing between them and me, rolls her eyes. “Come on, you guys. Don’t even get started. Let’s go.”
Neither one of them moves. They just stand there glaring at each other—long enough that I get worried one of them might throw a punch or something. Vanessa is unfazed by their stare down, but irritated enough to step around them both and keep going, which leaves the two of them and me. I want to go with her, but I’m not comfortable enough to do what she just did. I try to think of something, anything to say to cut the tension.
“Colin—hey. I forgot to tell you, I came up with a trail name for you last night before I fell asleep.”
This seems to get his attention. “Oh yeah?” he asks, giving me a side glance.
“I mean it’s kind of silly . . .”
Now they both look at me, and it seems ridiculous, the name I thought of. It sounded better last night in my mind, after my Fireball hot chocolate.
“What is it?” Jack asks. Now he’s curious too, and they seem to have forgotten their out-of-nowhere annoyance with each other.
“Well, I was thinking of how much ramen you eat—and how it comes out perfect every time so I thought . . . What about . . . Master Chef? Top Chef? I don’t know . . . those are pretty lame now that I say them out loud.”
They’re both quiet for a second then Colin breaks into his big, goofy grin and laughs. “Those are super lame, not gonna lie. But I like the sentiment. You can call me Top Chef. TC for short.”
Jack laughs too. “That’s actually pretty funny, since ramen is the only thing he knows how to cook.”
Relief washes over me, and I smile. “Yeah?” I look at Jack. “We’ll come up with yours next.”
“I got a few ideas for names I could call you,” Colin says.
Jack shoots him a look. “I bet you do.”
They both laugh, and it seems like, for the most part, whatever was bothering them has passed, so we get moving again. We focus on making our way up the steep switchbacks of the pass. I’m still the slowest of the group so I fall back into my own pace and they pull away until I can only catch glimpses of the backpacks in front of me as they round the corners up ahead. Every time I see one of their packs, I think about what Vanessa said the night before, about how everyone out here has their own things they’re dealing with.
I wonder what each of theirs is. Jack and Vanessa seem like a happy couple. Colin and Beau are the closest set of friends I’ve ever seen. Beau seems happy no matter what. And Josh, well, he seems happy enough despite the little that I know about his girlfriend problems. I bet I seemed fine too, before I had to tell the lady at the resort about Bri. It’s just what everyone does, I guess. We walk around carrying invisible weights, and doing our best to look like everything is okay even when it may not be.
It’s what I’ve been doing for the last handful of years. It’s what all my pictures were about—putting my best face on, choosing the things I wanted to show the world, careful to reveal only the parts I wanted it to see. It’s easy to do when you have a screen, and filters, and editing abilities standing between you and real life. But when you actually step out into the world, you don’t get those options. Life is right there in front of you, and sometimes the only choice is to be real.
And sometimes it surprises you how peo
ple react when you do. Last night, I’d expected the group to be done with me after my outburst about Bri, but the opposite had happened. It’s hard to put into words, but once they found out about her, it was like some sort of wall came down and I wasn’t so much of an outsider anymore. Maybe because they found out something real about me. The problem is that I feel like I’ve lied by omission. Last night I let them think that Bri was my sole motivation for being here because I was too scared of what they would think of me if they knew the rest.
And now I can’t let them find out.
What I can do, though, is try to learn more about each of them. I’ve never known a group like this, but I like the feeling of being part of it, so I pick up my pace and decide that from this point forward, I will do what I can to make sure I stay that way.
After a brutal section of switchbacks, I catch up with everyone where they’ve stopped for lunch just off the trail. It’s one of those vistas where we should all be oohing and ahhing over the view, but we just kind of sit in weary silence eating our protein bars and trail mix, and I start to get the feeling that either I missed some exchange between them, or that this is reality setting in. Like when you’re on a road trip, and all the initial energy and excitement eventually turns to cramped space, stale air, and clashes in music taste.
“How much farther?” Beau asks, shoulders slumped like he doesn’t really want to know the answer.
Josh looks around. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Don’t you have the book?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter how far it is. You’re gonna complain and have an opinion about it no matter what.”
An uncomfortable silence follows. I look around, and everyone is looking at Josh like he’s being a jerk, which he kind of is.
