The Most Important Thing I Learned on the Trail Had Nothing to Do With Hiking

On what we carry, and what carries us

Sound bath at camp

There’s a moment at the start of any big hike — right after you buckle your pack, before the first step — when everything still feels possible.

I was holding onto that moment with white knuckles at the Highlander, a two-day backpacking challenge that bills itself as a long-distance adventure of self-discovery. Which is basically code for: No one’s carrying your stuff, and the only one getting you to the finish line is you.

Registering for this trek was my friend Heidi’s idea, and it was the kind of bold, enthusiastic plan that sounds perfectly reasonable over coffee and a pastry. She’d bring her teenage daughter. I’d bring Everest, my 10-year-old son — now standing beside me at the trailhead, vibrating with excitement. And then there was me, quietly wondering if I’d just made a very ambitious parenting error.

We’d signed up for one of the shorter options: Highlander Orion — a 22-mile, two-day loop around sunburnt ridges and wildflower meadows in Big Bear, California. I’d brought along all the mandatory gear plus a few extras, which added up to 35 pounds. Every time I stood up, it felt like being pregnant on my back.

“We’re in this together, right?” Everest had said while cramming snacks, binoculars, and a sleeping bag into his 15-pound pack.

Right. Totally. Except I wasn’t sure I could do it. Not the mileage, not parenting in the wilderness, not the constant low-grade panic that I'd forgotten something crucial.

To be clear

I’ve done big treks before. The Inca Trail. Mount Kilimanjaro. Things that make people at dinner parties raise their eyebrows and say “Wow” in that reverent, performative way. But those adventures came with porters. People who carried the weight while my job was to walk, hydrate, and feel spiritually transformed.

This trek was different. This time I was the hiker, the porter, and the guide. Most importantly, this time I was responsible for another human who, while game for anything, has the attention span of a Border Collie in a tennis ball factory.

Day one: We hiked

The first day was beautiful and brutal in equal measure — all scratchy scrub oak and soft forest dirt, switchbacks that made my thighs scream followed by sweeping views that made them shut up.

Everest was in his element. He narrated beetle sightings like a pint-sized David Attenborough and kicked pinecones down the trail like it was a new sport. Meanwhile, my brain was stuck in a loop of worst-case scenarios, flipping through my mental packing list like a browser with 42 open tabs.

We rolled into camp by early afternoon, dusty and sun-dazed. I pitched the tent while Everest asked, wide-eyed, if we could sleep without the rainfly “to see more stars.”

I was somewhere between euphoric and comatose.

That night’s camp — and the whole experience, really — was shaped by the ethos of Highlander, a global hiking series that started in Croatia in 2017. The goal is to make multi-day trekking feel more accessible and less intimidating. They now host events in over 20 countries, but Big Bear is the only U.S. stop, and luckily, it was less than two hours from my front door.

The camp offered plenty of soul-soothing, body-repairing activities: yoga, a sound bath, folk music, even a talk by the woman who runs the Big Bear eagle cam. But my plan was simpler: sit down, eat tacos, and not cry about my bruised shoulders.

That’s when the ultralight hiker appeared

He wore trail runners so worn they looked like relics that could interest Indiana Jones. His pack was the size of a large purse and appeared to contain nothing. I half expected him to pull out a crystal and vanish in a puff of sage.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked. With a mouth full of tortilla, I gestured to the bench beside me.

I don’t know what it is about minimalist hikers, but I immediately wanted his approval. I asked questions — about his route, his gear, his suspiciously good-smelling deodorant situation — and eventually confessed that I had packed way too much.

He nodded. Then he said something that undid me.

“You know what weighs people down the most?” he said. “Their fears. Don’t pack your fears.”

Don’t pack your fears

At first I thought he was just repeating a bumper sticker. But then he kept going:

“Most people pack for what might go wrong instead of what will probably go right. They’re afraid of being cold, so they bring four jackets. Afraid of being hurt, so they carry a huge first aid kit. Afraid of being hungry, so they carry enough food to open a deli. But fear is heavy. And most of the time, what we’re really afraid of isn’t the discomfort. It’s that we won’t be able to handle it.”

I sat there, full of tacos and hard truths, and thought about the bag I'd lugged across the mountain. About the backup sweater. The second headlamp. The extra snacks and electrolyte powders and multiple sheets of moleskin …

What I was really carrying was my fear of being a mom who didn’t have the answer. Who couldn’t predict and solve everything in advance. Who couldn't shield her kid from discomfort — or worse, disappointment.

That night, Everest slept soundly under the stars while I lay awake in the tent doing a silent audit of my emotional baggage. Turns out the heaviest things I’d packed weren’t tangible. Maybe they never are.

Day two: Feeling lighter

The next morning was clear and blue and so crisp it felt like a gift. We broke camp, faster now, in sync. I hesitated over each item before stuffing it back into my bag. Did I really need this? Was I carrying it out of need or out of fear?

The second day’s trail was equally difficult. Exposed ridges. Slick descents. We climbed through meadows carpeted with lupine and paintbrush, their colors so vivid they almost hurt to look at. We navigated rocky switchbacks that required attention and trust in equal measure. We stopped to gape at the lake below, sunlight flickering on the water like a thousand tiny celebrations.

By mile 22, we were both sunburned, trail-dusty, and deliriously happy. We’d carried everything we needed. But the most important thing we brought wasn’t in our packs. It was the trust we found in ourselves, in each other, in the trail. In the idea that we don’t have to be ready for everything to be ready for something.

Most of us carry too much

You don't have to be on a trail to pack too much. So many of us do it everywhere —carrying backup clothing for different versions of ourselves, extra gear we’ll never use, just-in-case answers for questions no one has asked. We bring our worries about looking foolish, about being unprepared, about not being enough.

So here's what I want to remember, not just on the trail, but in all the uncertain, beautiful places I travel:

The best adventures happen at the edge of our comfort zones, not buried beneath layers of contingency plans.

Trust weighs nothing and carries you everywhere.

And most importantly: Don't pack your fears.

What are you carrying that you don't need? I'd love to hear about your own experiences with traveling light — literally or metaphorically — in the comments below.