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Hikers who have completed a 2500 mile thru-hike, whether it be on the PCT, CDT, or AT, like to think of themselves as badass. Regardless of experience, conditions, or time, hey, you had to be something special to come all that way. You now consider yourself a full fledged mountain goat, right? And then there is Oman.
I open my eyes after what felt like a lifetime of silence and solace to a desert view complete with twenty story tall red and sandstone walls. It’s still dark out, but the sky is no longer black but a nice light hue that hangs over the canyon that we are comfortably tucked away in. My feet are cool in the sand and my muscles tell me, “Stretch, please, stretch!”
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In the morning, despite low clouds, I hiked up to Santa Marina with Chris. Nice hike to kick off the day but difficult to find a takeoff, and hard to imagine how I would clear the very shallow, never ending ridge with see of trees on the one side and no road and no landings on the other side, which by the way is in the airspace...
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X-Pyr is a one weeklong adventure race zigzagging throughout the whole Pyrenees, from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean Sea. The athletes can move only by flying their paragliders or hiking and caring their flying gear on their back. It takes place every other year and attracts the best pilots and hike & fly athletes in the world. This year I was the only woman qualified.
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Before I started bikepacking in 2015 I had been camping and spending nights in the woods during several weekends during my late teens. I had slept on the ground under a cotton canvas tarp, in lean-to shelters that we build out of scrap materials or if we were lucky we had rented a big half-platoon sized canvas tent previously used by the Finnish Defence Forces. During my conscript time in the Finnish Defence Forces we mostly slept in squad sized canvas tents, field hospital tents or island bunkers.
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