Hiking to Heal: Finding My Strength on Trail by Kirsten Anderson

I’ve always been someone who thrives on goals, but I often find myself questioning why they hold so much power over me. To others, my goals may seem insignificant, but to me, they are everything. They help me build a plan, they help me hold myself accountable and they minimize decision fatigue. And, I’ve come to realize that my goals are the driving force behind achievements I never thought possible.

But there’s another crucial element that has shaped my journey: failure, pain, and obstacles. Without them, my goals would be meaningless and would have never taken shape. It’s only because of the challenges I’ve faced, most recently a painful neck injury, that I started setting audacious goals. Nothing was stopping me, but I didn’t have the motivation, drive or belief that I could accomplish something I’d never even dreamed of. My physical limits have opened up an entire new world of audacious goals. And ironically, my physical limits have pushed me to explore physical feats I never thought possible.

We all know what happened in 2020. The world shut down and we all struggled to find our way in a new and changing landscape. Could we be outside? Could we go on walks with friends? For a while we didn’t know what we could do, what was safe and what activities might be risking someone’s life. On top of the collective trauma of the global pandemic, I had a major medical situation come up that I thought might change my life forever. And it did, but not in the ways I imagined. 

In December of 2020, after ignoring some signs of nerve damage for several months…to my credit, I really didn’t know what it was and thought more exercise would help. Oops! Anyway, after several months of tingling down my arm, I woke up one morning and couldn’t use my right arm and was in debilitating pain. I couldn’t type. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t write. My right arm just hung there limp and in pain. 

I was in my early 40s. I had been doing crossfit five times a week before the pandemic shut down gyms. I had gone on a climbing trip to Colorado and Wyoming a few months previous. I had done a 60 mile bike trip with my husband in the fall. And I had a season pass to the local ski resort. I considered myself active. And I intended to be active for many more years. Sitting on the couch and popping narcotics to manage pain was devastating, and not in my life plans. 

I was finally diagnosed with a bulged disc in my cervical spine, and they found a torn labrum in my shoulder. I didn’t know where the pain was coming from, but it was debilitating. I took medical leave from work and focused my energy on navigating insurance, doctors’ offices and my mental health. I started seeing pain specialists, getting images and eventually talking to three neurosurgeons to see if I was a candidate for surgery. All my practitioners said I needed to pause all activity. I wasn’t sure if I would ever hike, backpack, snowboard, climb or do yoga again. But they said I could walk.

At first I only walked around the block, often in so much pain I was almost in tears. Eventually I made it around two blocks, and then a few more blocks, and then, slowly I worked back up to a mile. 

My pain eventually subsided, I weaned myself off narcotics and went back to work. My doctors said to keep on walking. So I did. But I needed a goal. I was depressed, and I wasn’t sure what my future looked like. If I couldn’t do anything else but walk…what was I walking for? Where was I walking? 

I had heard of a 30.2 mile (48.6km) trail in an urban forest nearby, the Wildwood Trail, a national recreation trail. I decided to make that my goal. It seemed totally crazy, but maybe not impossible. I built a training plan and slowly worked myself up to 5 miles, 8 miles, eventually 15 and 20+ miles. And I started section hiking the Wildwood Trail. And then 6 months to the day of my first MRI, I walked the Wildwood Trail in a single day. My husband was my support team and met me along the way so I wouldn’t have to carry a backpack because I still wasn’t cleared to carry weight. He was my mobile aid station. He made me food and had beverages waiting for me every 5-7 miles. And I did it. 

I walked 30 miles in one day! Six months earlier, I was in so much pain I could barely walk around the block. And before my neck injury, I never could have imagined walking 30 miles in a day. Setting an audacious goal gave me the motivation to build a plan to accomplish my objective.

I realized my life might look different going forward, but it wasn’t over. 

Eventually I was cleared to start more strenuous activities and I knew I needed to try backpacking again. When I first started backpacking, I was definitely focused more on affordable gear, and honestly did not care about the weight of my pack. In fact, I likely thought that the more I could carry in and attached to my pack, the better. Needless to say, I have definitely carried cans of chicken, regular rice and a bag of wine on a multi-day backpacking trip. 

I also needed a new goal. I was capable of more than I had ever imagined. I wanted to take a sabbatical after being at the same organization for 10 years. And I knew I wanted to have a big adventure during that sabbatical. With the pandemic still making international travel challenging, I decided to look in my backyard and narrowed in on doing a section hike of the PCT. This would require a lot of training, research and even more gear upgrades as I continued to recover from my neck injury. 

There were some quick wins: I traded out a heavy water pump for the Sawyer squeeze, cutting almost a pound. I upgraded my sleeping pad and cut about a pound. I got a smaller and lighter pot. And then I started looking for packs. I had been a diehard Osprey fan for years, and quickly bought their version of the UL pack, but something still wasn’t right about the fit, and my neck and shoulders hurt, even with the lighter gear upgrades. 

As part of my gear research, I started following thru-hikers on Instagram and joined numerous Facebook groups for ultralight gear and thru-hiking. I don’t remember how or when, but I came across the Six Moon Designs Swift X with a flight vest originally designed for people with back pain. Hallelujah! I had to try it and decided this pack was the only way I was going to manage a thru-hike. Excited to test it, I took it for a shakedown hike, and liked it, but couldn’t get it to fit just right.

The day before I left for Hart’s Pass, to start my SOBO section hike of the Washington PCT, with my full-packed pack in the car, I stopped by PCT Trail Days. I didn’t really know much about trail culture, and was stoked to be immersed and surrounded by thru-hikers, many of whom I’d pass days/weeks later as they finished their NOBO hike. I fangirled over a few hikers I recognized from Instagram, and drooled over the gear. But even though I was packed and ready to go, I just couldn’t decide which pack to take: the Osprey or the Six Moon Designs. They were both in the car, but the Osprey was fully loaded. It’s what I was familiar with, even though I knew it would aggravate my neck, and cause me pain.

Desperate, I asked the Six Moon Designs staff at PCT days if they could help me with a fitting. They happily agreed and I ran back to the car, unpacked the Osprey, and packed the Swift X pack, and ran back to the Six Moon Designs booth. “Allgood” looked at my pack settings and shook his head. The flight vest was too big. The pack came off, he found the right size vest and the vest settings were adjusted. The belt wasn’t the right size, and he traded that out as well. He taught me how to adjust the pack appropriately and boom…it fit like a glove! 

And just like that, in the final hours before I left for the trail, I changed out my pack and I felt 100% confident that it was going to work perfectly. And it did. 

The Swift X carried all my belongings and was my home for about 500 miles across the state of Washington. 

After six weeks on trail, and with most of the Washington PCT complete, I was back home at my 9-5 desk job, and I started getting anxious. I was in great shape. I had accomplished my goal. I was more capable than I had imagined before my neck injury, and I wasn’t in pain. I felt strong, but more importantly, I felt determined to find a new challenge. What audacious goal was next?