The Adventure Starts Before You Leave

I have decided that next summer I want to try to hike the Colorado Trail. “Try” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The trail runs nearly 500 miles from Denver to Durango. If everything went according to plan, I would spend roughly 35 days hiking it. That is a long time to walk. It is also almost a year away, which means there is plenty of time for the plan to change. But even though the hike itself would not happen until next summer, the adventure has already started.

Choosing something difficult enough

The Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail feel too daunting right now. The Ozark Trail is closer to home and useful for training, but it presents a different experience. The Colorado Trail sits in an interesting middle ground: intimidating, but still possible. Sometimes a goal needs to be large enough that we cannot casually assume we can do it, but not so large that our brain files it under impossible.

Preparation is part of the adventure

When we talk about adventures, we usually focus on the visible part: the summit, the race, the finish line. But there can be months of activity before any of that happens. I am already researching packs, tents, water systems, food, navigation, altitude, and weather. Then there is training: walking farther, carrying weight, testing equipment when the weather is bad. None of that is administrative work surrounding the adventure. It is the adventure. The actual trail may last around five weeks. Getting ready for it may occupy a year of my life.

I have done this backwards before

In 2011 I heard about the Missouri River 340, a 340-mile kayak race. I decided I was going to do it, told people, and signed up at midnight on New Year’s Eve. About two months later I bought a kayak. I trained and started that year. Fourteen hours and about 75 miles later, I was done. I did not finish. The following year I completed all 340 miles. The first attempt was not wasted. It taught me what the race actually required. There are things research cannot teach you. Eventually you have to enter the river. Or step onto the trail.

Telling people before I know the ending

I have already started telling friends and family. It would be easier to keep the idea private until I was completely confident. That would also remove one of the things that may help me most: accountability. There is a useful difference between changing a goal because you learned something and abandoning it because nobody noticed you stopped.

The destination matters. The attempt matters too. And maybe one of the best reasons to put something difficult far out on the horizon is not simply that you might eventually reach it. It is that long before you arrive, it begins changing the way you spend your days.

Something to consider. What is something difficult you have been thinking about attempting — and what would change if you started preparing for it before you knew whether you could finish?