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Suzanne Roberts provides a feminine perspective on nature.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 8, 2024

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In a reflective narrative, a woman recounts her experience hiking the John Muir Trail in 1993 shortly after graduating college. She kept a journal during the hike, which later inspired her to write a memoir as no other woman had documented this journey. After pursuing a PhD in Literature and exploring various female nature writers, she realized she wanted to share her own story. Over the years, she developed her writing, eventually publishing the memoir in 2012, with a new edition released recently.

She describes the trail's rugged beauty and isolation, noting the challenges faced during her first hike, including injuries and a lack of experience. The journey also fostered camaraderie among the hiking group, particularly after a male member left due to difficulties. This video video experience taught her the importance of mental strength over physical ability.

Reflecting on her recent re-hike of the trail at age 51, she contrasts her previous struggles with the resilience and gratitude she now feels, celebrating her ability to traverse the landscape despite life’s hardships. The narrative highlights her personal growth, the evolution of the hiking community, particularly regarding the increased participation of women, and the changing accessibility of the trail. Ultimately, she encourages people, regardless of age, to embrace the outdoors and enjoy the healing and empowering nature of hiking.

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In 1993, I hiked the John Muir Trail right outta college,

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and I kept a journal, a daily journal,

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and I didn't have any idea back then

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that I was going to be writing a book.

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But I, you know, I liked to write and I loved hiking,

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and I took notes and drew pictures of the things that I saw.

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And, so many years later,

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about 10 years later, I,

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I started a PhD program in Literature in the Environment.

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And I read, so many women writers,

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writers I hadn't been exposed to, until then,

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I had been reading a lot of sort of the male, you know,

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nature writers, the traditional nature writers like John

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Muir and Edward Abbey and, Henry David Thoro.

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And so when I discovered these female writers

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that were writing about the places I love,

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like Mary Austin writes about the Sierra Annie Dillard,

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Leslie Morman Silko writes about the

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environment in really interesting ways.

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I realized that no woman had yet written a book,

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a memoir about hiking the John Muir Trail.

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And so I thought, well, I guess I'm the one to do it.

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And so I had that little journal,

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and I just started, you know, chapter by chapter, sort

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of fleshing it out and, and writing almost somewhere.

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And couple of years later, it, it turned into a draft.

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And then a couple of years later

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after that, it, I, you know, edited, revised it

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and sent it out.

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And it was published in 2012,

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and it just came out this last year in a new,

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anniversary edition when I realized that I, I sort

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of had a book on my hands that I was writing a memoir.

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I had previously written four books of poems,

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and I used writing poetry as a way to sort

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of obfuscate my life, right?

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Like, get a poem. It might be true, it might not.

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And when you write memoir, it is true based on your memory.

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And so I realized, okay,

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well now I'm gonna really tell the truth.

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You know, warts and all, you know, I'm not gonna try

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to make myself look better than I am.

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And, and so I think it took not just sort

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of soul searching and,

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and it really thinking about who I am now

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and who I was as that 22-year-old young woman

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who set out on the trail.

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Um, so I, I thought a lot about that, but I also went out

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and re hiked the trail.

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Um, and this time I brought a biologist with me.

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And so she helped me key out, you know, the trees

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and the plants,

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that we saw at different elevations and in different places.

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And of course, every year is different because of the snow.

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Some years we have big snow years,

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some years we have small snow years.

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Um, but it was, you know, it was enough for me to sort

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of feel confident that when I talked about a, you know,

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white bark pine

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or a Clark's Nutcracker, that I knew that

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where I was seeing them was the right place,

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the right elevation, because I wanted to get it right.

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I wanted it to be a, a book that was sort of a,

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a natural history of the John Muir Trail,

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but also my journey as a young woman on the trail.

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The John Muir Trail runs along, people may have heard

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of the Pacific Crest Trail.

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Uh, Cheryl Stray wrote a very famous memoir called Wild,

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where she, you know,

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undertook hiking the Pacific Crest Trail,

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which goes from Canada to Mexico, the John Muir Trail,

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which she skipped in her book

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because it was a heavy snow year, runs along

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that trail on the spine of the Sierra.

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And it runs from, Yosemite Valley

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to the top of Mount Whitney.

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But of course, you have to get to the top of Mount Whitney

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and hike to the Whitney portal.

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So it ends up being about 220 miles or so.

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It passes, 10 major mountain passes, most

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of which are over 11,000 feet.

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And for non-US, you know, people

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who use the metric system, that's about 3,350

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meters, something like that.

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Um, and it's a very remote trail,

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and it passes through three national parks, Yosemite

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Kings Canyon, and, Sequoia National Park.

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And, some days you're three days away from a,

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a three days walk away from any road,

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many days, in fact.

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So if something happens

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or you injure yourself, you know,

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you have to be self-sufficient.

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And, you know, and, and there's no way to go

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and have a McDonald's hamburger or get a shower.

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Um, so you, you know, you have to be prepared to spend,

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you know, three to four weeks in the wilderness.

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Yeah, maybe two weeks if you're fast.

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My friend Erica in college asked me if I'd like to hike it.

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And I had no pre-college plans.

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I, was a biology major,

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and I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life.

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I thought I, maybe I wanted to work out outdoors.

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The United States was in a recession.

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It was 1993,

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and, you know, college graduates hate

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that question, what are you doing next?

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And of course, I had no plan,

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but when my friend Erica said, would you like

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to hike the John Muir Trail?

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I all of a sudden had a pre-college plan.

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So that sort of became what was next

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for me as a young woman.

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Erica invited me.

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She was very strong and fit

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and experienced in the outdoors, and I was not.

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And so I knew that a month in the wilderness

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with her might kill me.

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And so another friend, Dion,

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my, my housemate at the time, it was his girlfriend, Dion,

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and he actually asked me to bring her

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because she had a very severe eating disorder.

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Um, so she had anorexia, combo of anorexia and bulimia.

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And I was so young and naive back then that

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I agreed not realizing how dangerous that could be,

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because I believed like my housemate did,

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that maybe being out in the wilderness

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for a month might cure her.

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I didn't understand the nature of eating disorders.

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I didn't understand how, how dangerous it was,

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but I also knew that it could ruin our

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plans to hike this trail.

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And so I kept that secret from Erica.

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So I knew, I knew the reality of the situation.

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Erica didn't, which was totally unfair to her.

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You know, she'd spent so much time

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and energy planning this hike,

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and I could have, you know, completely thwarted it, right?

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By bringing someone who not only had a severe, illness,

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but also had never even camped one single night in her life.

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So she was even less experienced than I was.

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So the three of us were setting out on

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this month long journey.

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And remember this is back

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before the internet,

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so you couldn't just get on the internet

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and find out what to bring and how many days it took

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and where to do resupplies.

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It was like we had guidebooks, we had paper maps,

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we didn't have cell phones with us, we didn't have GPS.

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Um, we really had to rely solely on ourselves.

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And, and so when we met this guy, he was a friend

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of a friend, Jesse in Mammoth

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who said, I'd like to come.

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That sounds like a fun trip.

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I immediately was like, yeah, come, it will maybe sort

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of help our little group, which is,

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is probably not gonna make it.

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But as it turned out, he was no help either.

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He ate most of our food.

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Um, and he left about a week, nine days, I think,

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into the trip because he, he,

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it was not what he expected, right?

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He had these three women who were inexperienced.

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Um, Dion and I both injured our knees.

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We had broken equipment, we ran out of food

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and we were crying and we were arguing,

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and he was out of there, right?

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He bailed. But when he left

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and it became just the three women the way it was supposed

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to be, we really found our inner resources.

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And instead of sort of being in competition with each other,

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the way unfortunately so many young women are,

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we really became a, a more tight knit community.

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And we really started to look out for each other.

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And, at one point, Dionne and I were gonna quit

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because we, you know, we were injured

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and we sort of made a pact to finish.

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Um, what I realized is that it's, it's

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so much more mental than it is physical, you know?

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Um, I was, I was in such bad shape.

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I had a terrible, you know, knee injury.

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Um, but I, you know,

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if I just kept walking one step in front

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of the other, I knew I would make it.

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And I knew that if I could hike one day,

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then maybe I could hike the next day.

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And, we all helped each other.

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Erica took some of my weight,

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and I started, my knee started to feel better.

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And by the end, we, we really

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were having a really good time, the three of us,

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and we felt really strong and really proud of ourselves.

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So it was a really important trip

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for me at that time in my life.

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The John Muir Trail, as I mentioned,

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runs along the Pacific Crest Trail,

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and in 1993 when,

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when we hiked it the first time, it was something like

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33 people had hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail.

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So it gives you kind of a sense of, of trail usage.

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Um, last year, over 800 people hiked it,

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completed it, or that was 2022, I think last year was,

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was fewer people because it was a big snow year.

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But, but it just shows you the difference, right?

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In trail usage. And so

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back then we might go a whole day without

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seeing anybody, right?

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And, we'd see maybe a few other, you know,

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through hikers and, and not very many women.

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Um, back then 13% of trail of

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through hikers were women.

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Now it's like 43%.

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So that's changed a lot, which is great.

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And, and so the trail is a lot busier now.

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Um, I just hiked it again, two summers ago

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and found myself hiking way off the trail in order to camp

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so that I could have some solitude,

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because the trail was, was a very busy place.

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It's also a lot easier now.

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Um, the equipment is lighter and better and, you know,

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and the trail is really well marked.

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And, the bridges are, you know, are built in places

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where we sometimes had to cross over logs and rocks

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and more dangerous situations.

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However, last year we had such a big snow year that one

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of the major bridges washed out.

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So people were sort of faced with some of the, the,

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you know, the things that we were faced with early on

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where we were, you know, having

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to undertake dangerous river crossings.

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Um, but it's definitely, easier to backpack now.

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It's more accessible. Um, people know more about it,

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which is great because I think the more people

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who spend time in the wilderness,

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the more people will wanna protect it, you know,

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and will come to love places that are not so built up.

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Um, and then the second part of the question was

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how have I changed?

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Um, I mentioned

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that I hiked the John Muir Trail two summers ago,

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and that's where I decided I wanted, to come out

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with a new edition of the, of the book with an afterward

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that sort of talked about that.

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So, the new edition of the book has the afterward,

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and I also included pictures from the original trip,

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and some book club discussion questions.

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Um, but in the afterward I talk about how

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on every pass, basically that I,

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that I crossed when I was 22, I cried

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because I was like in pain and I didn't wanna be there,

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and I was cold and my knees hurt.

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And this time I cried at the top of every pass in gratitude

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because I was so grateful that my 50, you know,

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I was 51, I'm 53 now.

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My 51-year-old body could still make it up over these passes

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into these beautiful, desolate places that

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so many people never get to see in the world. I mean,

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I'm so privileged and so lucky.

11:55.505 --> 11:58.485
And, and so I was, I was crying

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for a very, very different reason.

12:00.665 --> 12:04.645
And, and so I'm just so much stronger mentally now,

12:05.265 --> 12:06.365
you know, when I was 22,

12:06.365 --> 12:08.525
nothing really bad had happened to me.

12:09.265 --> 12:13.245
Um, but since then, right? Both my parents have died.

12:13.845 --> 12:15.125
A good friend has died.

12:15.235 --> 12:16.805
I've, you know, gotten married

12:16.805 --> 12:18.405
and divorced and married again.

12:18.705 --> 12:21.205
And, and I've done a lot harder things than

12:21.205 --> 12:22.405
hike a couple hundred miles.

12:22.825 --> 12:25.085
And, and so, you know,

12:25.085 --> 12:27.405
being mentally strong is, is really helpful.

12:27.545 --> 12:29.365
So when I hear people say, well, I'm 50

12:29.705 --> 12:32.165
or I'm 60, I'm too old to hike, I think, no,

12:32.195 --> 12:33.805
this is a perfect time for you to hike

12:33.835 --> 12:35.725
because you're, you're gonna be able to do it

12:35.725 --> 12:36.925
because you're gonna be able to handle it.

12:37.065 --> 12:39.205
You're gonna realize it's, it's not as hard

12:39.665 --> 12:41.285
as you might've thought when you were in your twenties.

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