This is why we do it

One of my favorite indoor-but-hiking-related activities is reading the blog posts that the PCTA aggregates on their site under a section called The Journalist. This time of year is when the blogging hits its peak — no one has quit yet (either hiking or blogging) and there is an interesting mix of people in their early days on the trail and those still one or more days away, trying to express the odd mix of excitement and dread they are experiencing, or denying it by obsessing on their gear choices.

I rarely follow these hiker blogs. Once they leave my neck of the woods and start describing landscapes that I cannot pull up on the backside of my closed eyelids, their adventures lose interest for me. Occasionally, once or twice a year, I stumble upon the blog from a hiker that hits a chord. I follow them.

I stumbled…