When we first got started backpacking, we simply chose a trailhead that led to a popular destination, and followed the trail to that goal. But over the years we’ve changed that a bit. We now worry less about a final destination, and more about areas to explore. And we worry less about staying on the trail, so that we can wander off into those areas that don’t see so many people.
And we almost never stick 100% to our plan, because we know we’re going to be curious about what is over that ridge, or beyond the lake.
But with all that in mind, we still have a long list of places we’d like to hike. There are quite a few day-hikes that are still on our list, waiting for an open day in our schedule when we’re in that area of the mountains.
And we have a few short trips that we’ve been saving for a short weekend, or when we are joined by someone who doesn’t want to tackle too ambitious a hike.
And then we have the medium-length trips, and the longer trips that we hope to get to some day. We took two of those this summer, one to Kings Canyon and one to Huckleberry Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness. But while we were doing those hikes, we found ourselves noticing a trail here, a lake there, and a whole other section of the valley over there. Reasons to go back, or to add a new hike to the list.
Which is why even though we did seven trips this summer, our list keeps getting longer.
We’ve got at least twenty hikes on our list, and that’s just in the Sierra…
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