I’m parked on a dirt road a few dozen miles north of Lassen Volcanic National Park, the namesake peak barely visible in the night sky, wreathed in stars.

From the backseat of my car, a little string of LED lights hanging over my head, my fingers are cold as I scribble in my notebook. I suppose I should mention that when I say “backseat” what I really mean is “bed-length platform with a sleeping pad.” That’s right, y’all, I’ve joined the #VanLife movement. Well, sort of.

Taking it easy with Luna the Highlander at the base of Steens Mountain

This is Job. Named after the guy in the Bible who totally got screwed over, he’s a prayer plant who lives in the passenger seat/on the back table/upended at the back of my car. I’ve put him through a lot, and he’s never wavered.

I got sick of paying Seattle’s exorbitant and ever rising rent, bought a Toyota Highlander, decided to call her Luna, and putzed around my friend’s shop for a few days, drinking Rainiers and providing moral support while he tricked it out for me. It’s a little cramped, but its dry and cozy and it can manage most of those gnarly BLM and Forest Service two tracks I’ve found myself following more recently.

Squeezing through a short slot

First time climbing outside!

I took off from Seattle last Thursday, and I don’t know when (or if, really) I’ll be back. Through a stroke of luck, more than a little self-advocation, and leaving a lot of voicemails, I landed a seasonal job as a wilderness park ranger in California’s Sierra Nevada. It still feels pretty surreal; I keep waiting for something to go awry with my paperwork or the position with lose funding. I am beyond excited to live amongst those stocky granite peaks which both so fueled me and conquered me as I clambered up their desolate passes two years ago.

Spent a day camped out on the playa of the Alvord Desert in southeast Oregon

Looking south to the Pueblo Mountains and into Nevada. Here, there are no trails past the muddy, clay-filled two tracks that curl along the base of these hills. A remote land of old-school ranchers, it’s hard to believe this places hardly sees any dedicated recreation.

Since leaving Washington’s dreary skies last week, I’ve swerved south, east, west, east again, and further south, chasing the sunshine that’s so elusive in the Pacific Northwest, visiting friends, ordering up blackberry milkshakes at general store counters in remote towns, pulling off onto unnamed dirt roads to snag a hike or a snowshoe or just set up shop for the rest of the day.

Steens Mountain

Tumalo Falls; Bend, OR

Lots of post-holing on this hike up to catch a glimpse of Three Fingered Jack in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness

Wiley the crag dog; climbing and hiking at Smith Rock

An intimidating view of the Strawberry Mountains near John Day, OR

Reconnected with a fellow classmate from the Wilderness First Responder course I took for a day of hiking and climbing at Smith Rock.

There’s a place on the PCT I haven’t stopped thinking about since my thru-hike in 2015. There are a lot of sections I’ve thought of often, but there was some quality to these memories–some intermittent but vivid snapshots of the day it took to traverse–that drew me back to the place. It’s not particularly beautiful; the trail here is inhospitable and exposed, a nearly 30 mile dry stretch comprised almost exclusively of gritty volcanic rock and cow pies, it wanders a geologic rim not far south of the town of Burney, CA.

So I went back. It wasn’t especially meaningful or fulfilling, nor was it any more pleasant than in my memory. The unforgiving sun curdled my pale skin and water evaporated off my lips, leaving them chapped and bleeding, and I was surprised how specifically I recalled even the small twists and turns of the trail.

Maybe there’s something to reliving one of my more miserable days on trail. Maybe there was something I felt like I needed to conquer, or needed to remind myself I could still persevere. Whatever the reason, it felt good to be home, there on that small boot path, back when I knew where I was going.

Hiking the Hat Creek Rim

Though this lifestyle has its perks–freedom, openness, new opportunity for community and connection, and minimalism, I’ve found it exacerbates some of my more muted stresses. Having a place to be. An inherent loneliness. A seated feeling of rootlessness that is at once both exhilarating and isolating. I’m not sure how this life will pan out for me–the van life or life in general–but I’ve spent the last year figuring out how to be ok with that. I might not be ready to embrace the unknown, but she’s in the passenger seat, and for now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Met up with a PCT friend for beers and foods and good views of Lake Tahoe