Lessons Learned at 13,300 Feet
At the end of July, I found myself with 9 other guys in California's High Sierras for five days of backpacking. Five days of long, hard, mostly off-trail hikes, carrying in (and out) everything I need to live, with only a creek bath to keep the stink at bay. Four nights of sleeping in a tent, hanging my food in bear- and marmot-resistant bags, and trying to get comfortable with 2 cm of closed-cell foam padding between me and the rocky, scrubby terrain.
Unlike most of the guys on the trip, I didn't grow up in the mountains or live at elevation in Truckee or Mexico City. I’ve never spent considerable time in a tricked out apartment-van. I didn't hike any mountains in college or rock climb anywhere other than an indoor wall. The only girls I dated were outdoorsy in that they liked happy hour on a patio.
So the Sierras trip was hard. And adventurous. And I learned a ton—about the mountains, about backpacking, and about myself.
Hard Things are Good
Day 1 was the hardest. My pack was the heaviest it would be all trip and my body hadn't adjusted to the exertion or altitude. Each day got a little easier—I acclimated to the workload, and my pack got a little lighter every time I ate (the GOAT of win-wins).
But new problems cropped up. I dealt with a blister on my big toe, a multi-ton boulder slid at me down a mountain, I tweaked a knee, I developed an aversion to the snack and meal bars I brought, and the smell emanating off my feet would make the most fervent atheist find religion. Every day was amazing, but no day was easy.
And compared to our climate-controlled, screen-lit, DoorDash-fed, AirPod-silenced, wifi-fueled, on-demand streaming world, it felt... right.
Stress and Rest
On the trip, there were no sweeter words than, "Let's stop here for a bit." After a few miles in the blazing sun, ascending a few hundred (or thousand) feet of elevation, and scrambling over rocks and streams, shrugging off the backpack and sitting down felt amazing.
There's a symbiosis between stress and rest. Rest needs stress—real stress, not too-many-Zoom-calls stress—to feel good. And we need actual rest—not just-one-more-episode rest—to recover when we're stressed.
My daily life consists of a lot of sitting and even more stressing. But my “stress” is a constant low-level buzz fueled by screens and the news. My “rest” is checking ESPN or refreshing email one more time. I‘m better off channeling my time in the mountains—more real stress like harder workouts, deeper focus on work, and pushing myself creatively, and more real rest where I actually let my nervous system off the hook.
Beauty and Preservation
Despite being filthy for 5 days, the Sierras are easily the cleanest place I've ever seen. I've hiked in Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Utah, and Vermont, and always saw trash. In 5 days in the Sierras, I didn't see a single piece of litter. Our guide told me that people take preservation seriously out there.
But despite preservation efforts and following leave-no-trace principles, the Sierras will never be the same as when we were there. Trees grow, rocks shift, plants and animals live and die, even the mountains themselves are changing, growing at a rate of 4 inches every 1,000 years (or .000055 inches during my time there).
The mountains constantly evolve, just like everything else in life. We wish our kids were babies again. We rue the one that got away. We pine for simpler times (like those creepy AI '80s nostalgia videos). But there's true beauty in evolution—my wife somehow gets prettier by the day, my kids are becoming amazing little people, and every new year brings more perspective along with the extra gray hairs.
Nothing in life stays the same. The more I embrace change, find its beauty rather than fight it, the better.
We Need So Little
Backpacking means, unsurprisingly, carrying everything in a backpack. Food, water, clothes, toiletries (SO MUCH Gold Bond), hiking gear, tent, sleeping bag, and a tiny shovel to dig a hole when nature calls. Excluding water, my pack weighed 26.5 pounds at the start of the trip. 25.6 pounds, and I needed nothing else through 5 days.
Compared to my daily life surrounded by stuff, living life out of a bag made me realize what "needs" and "wants" really means. Some of the stuff I have are needs—clothes, food, shelter—or nice-to-haves like pictures of my kids or a good coffee grinder (and yes, those are on the same level). But I don't need daily Amazon deliveries, a new iPhone every year, or another Vuori order.
Not to sound like store-brand Marie Kondo, but I don't need a solid 50, 60, 70% of what I own. How much have I bought because I think it's the thing that will finally make me happy, content, loved, or worthy? How much have I kept because of emotional connection or because "I might use this someday"? If I could live off what's on my back for 5 days, throw in laundry, food, and a bed and I could've lived off it for months.
How much simpler, unburdened, and just lighter would life be if I only owned necessities and nice-to-haves?
Life is Good
I went into the mountains looking for... something. I don’t know what, but I assumed my first time backpacking would lead to some life-changing epiphany.
And my biggest revelation at 13,300 feet was that I don't need a revelation.
Life is really f%#&ing good. I have my health. And a wife who's WAY out of my league. And two little boys who mean the world to me. And a few close friends that I can talk to about anything. And a fulfilling, challenging job that teaches me something new every day. And a roof over my head, food in my belly, and more books than I could ever read.
And with all that as my foundation, I also have the opportunity to live 5 challenging, enlightening, awe-inspiring days in the High Sierras with a great group of dudes.
Having spent my adult life looking for the next thing, I need to lean into just how damn good life is right here. Today. For the first time, I can stop searching and just... be. I can accept what is and appreciate all that I have rather than search for what I never had a chance of finding.
And that's something.
