“When my oldest son Nathaniel was in the seventh grade I said, ‘Hey, you know, before you start high school, I want to do something special just you and me like a guy thing. We could go on vacation together, you know, whatever you want to do.’ He turned to me and said, ‘Oh, I already know what I want to do, I want to go backpacking with you.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ Nathaniel was the smallest kid in his class skinny as a stick, you know. So I pulled out the old aluminum frame pack. We start resupplying stuff. I think we borrowed a few things from friends. I bought him a pack. I got new shoes. And we went, not knowing what we’re going to do. We went to a ranger station, got a map, got a permit. We had been looking on a map a little so we figured out what we were route we were going to do. Looking back at it now it was almost comical. We did a 30 mile hike. For us now that is a day and a half trip, but that first time, I think it took us four days and three nights.
Nathaniel didn’t talk to me much at home. He was a teenager you know, but once we got on the trail, he would tell me about everything. So it was great and over time I got in better shape. I started hurting less. And he, from day one, he just took off on the trail, little guy and he could hike all day. I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ I mean, he was skinny as a stick, but he could hike all day, up a mountain high elevation down a mountain didn’t matter. Nothing bothered him. It’s like, ‘Wow, he really takes to this.’ He told me years later, it was his peaceful place. It’s where he didn’t have to worry about anything but us. Everything on his back is all he had to worry about. He liked that simplicity. You know, he loved nature. He loved feeling like we belonged there.
A couple of years later we did the John Muir trail — 200 miles. It was not easy. You know, we were hungry. We were exhausted. We were tired every day. But it was probably the most bonding Nathaniel and I have ever done in our lives. One night at the campfire I said ‘I was hoping you and I would find something as you became a young man that we could do together the rest of our lives.’ We were looking at the stars as we were talking and he says, ‘Well, we just found it.’”
