Why the John Muir Trail?
Since making it known earlier this year that I planned to hike a 160-mile section of the John Muir Trail, I have been asked “why??” enough times that it feels right to propose a theory for such unusual behavior. Here is mine. My father died when I was five. By the time I turned eight my mother had had a few boyfriends (TMI?), each wanting to ingratiate himself more than the next by playing father-figure. Baseball games, a trip to the Treasure Island Naval Station, you get the picture. The one activity that stuck, the one I loved more than any, was being out in nature, hiking in the hills, usually on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. At age eight I wasn’t much of a backpacker, though. Overnights were a grueling affair though for some reason my mother’s current beau thought it would be brilliant to hike the John Muir Trail and take me with him. This insanity (the famous trail runs 215 miles) was apparently accepted by my mother as normal, so off we went in his 1949 Buick, itself a sketchy proposition.
I recall the dread as if it happened yesterday: from the beginning of the Muir Trail (a.k.a. the “JMT”) in Yosemite Valley we hiked as far as the top of Nevada Falls (all of 3 miles?) and I’m pretty sure I complained the whole way. I had never before carried a heavy pack into darkness. How could it be right for this to persist for a further three weeks? Vocalization of my angst was likely too much for my “adult” companion (aged 22?) so we returned to the trailhead, got in the Buick and drove a hundred miles or so to Devil’s Postpile National Monument, the next spot where the JMT came close to a road. Ugh. Same false start, same retreat, same shame. I was eight, and had utterly failed to hike the John Muir Trail. How could I face my classmates in September? In the end we did salvage a triumph on that trip, climbing Mt. Whitney in one day. That, it turned out, would become an important piece of my identity.
Fast forward a half century and I’m watching a documentary about hiking the JMT and I suddenly realized that not only might I be able to achieve it today (OK barely, on the other side of the age spectrum), but that what I’d feared then, and had been fabulously unequipped to do, I actually looked forward to doing. And so it happened that one day in January I decided to really hike the John Muir Trail.
Maybe you’ll see all of this as my need to settle an old personal score. Maybe you’ll be charitable and see it as fulfilling, at last, the expectation of my mom’s boyfriend (he became, in later years, a close friend). Or maybe you’ll see this as a needed vacation. Whatever it is, I will be doing what I found I loved so long ago but lacked the tools to achieve. And in any event, I deeply appreciate the support you’ve shown for this walk in the woods, and for our wonderful Junior Docent program. Remember, our Junior Docent give tours to kids who are eight years old. Fifty years from now, they’ll remember those tours like they happened yesterday.
Above photo of Ted Bosley was taken in Yosemite Valley, 2013.
August 9, 2015 - 2:31 pm
Ted,
You are an inspiration. Mike and I are rooting for you and your 8 year old self.
August 16, 2015 - 8:12 pm
Go, Ted, go!
September 1, 2015 - 1:48 am
Thank the mountain gods that you made it back to Pasadena!
May 5, 2016 - 1:27 am
While hiking my own little trail this morning I pondered the day ahead working with a hired hand who is a smoker . . . which led me to recall how Kathy had worked so hard to help me quit that obscene habit. Then, out of nowhere the name Ted Bosley popped into my mind . . . Teddy!!! . . . and I knew I had to Google you just to see if anything would come up. OMG . . . you filled my screen. I spent the next hour filled with pride at learning all you have accomplished. Quite amazing! But no surprise. All who knew you always knew you would make your mark. Watching your video and hearing your familiar voice was such a quintessential experience in reminiscence. I knew that Teddy. I knew all the geographic references, the architectural references, the familial references. I even hiked the JMT . . . well, part of it. We were an intimate little band of something-or-others . . . . on Sacramento . . . in East Oakland . . . at Cal. I hope you will look me up some time when you are in the area. I’ve been living in a remarkable FLW inspired treasure for the last 36 years, which looks out across Carmel Valley. It’s situated at the confluence of two little creeks. A sanctuary. Kind of like Sacramento Street. A sanctuary.
All the best.
Jason
May 7, 2020 - 3:19 pm
Lovely story.
We met when you arranged for my wife Sally Epstein to spend a night at the Gamble House and we brought along my daughter Elsbeth Collins to see the house.
I gather overnights are no longer permitted!
Sally and I will celebrate our 26th weddings anniversary in November 2020!