SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
94 BACKPACKER.COM
MY DAUGHTER, CAROLINE, WAS STRIDING
far ahead of me as dusk settled on the Pacific Crest
Trail in Southern California. After hiking 25 miles
that day, over a rocky, hilly desert, I was exhausted
and felt the weight of my pack—but Caroline, 17, kept
cha rg ing into the horizon, with a load just a s heav y.
“Hey, Caroline, wait up!” I called. “Don’t get too far
ahead!”
No response. She couldn’t hear me.
“Caroline!” I shouted, louder this time. “Slow down
for the elderly!”
It was too late, and since shouting had slowed me
down she was now even farther ahead. My mind con-
jured cougars pouncing on her, rattlesnakes biting
her.^1 And as I trudged along after her, I thought of the
first time she had carried her own pack. It had been a
decade earlier, although it seemed as if only 10 min-
utes had passed.
She was 7 years old and insisted on carrying a back-
pack herself on one of our family’s overnight hikes in
Oregon. The rest of us laughed and suggested, a bit too
patronizingly, that this would be too much for her.
“You really think you can carry your pack?” one ofher big brothers needled her. “You’re too little!”
“First uphill and you’ll be begging us to take it
back,” her other brother chimed in.
That settled it. “I’m carrying a pack,” Caroline
declared firmly.
So we loaded a soft pack with her sleeping bag and
some clothes, trying to keep it light. She bounced up
the trail for the first few miles like a helium balloon,
but then protested that her pack was getting heavy.
I removed the sleeping bag, and she continued for a
couple of miles—then paused and asked if something
more could be taken out. So we took out everything,
and Caroline now had an empty pack. That worked
fine for another mile, but then she paused.
“Could someone carry my pack for a bit?” she asked
in a small voice.^2
I stuffed it into my own, but her brothers had a good
time teasing Caroline about that.^3
Returning from my reverie, I noted that Caroline
had now completely disappeared into the distance.
The first stars were coming out, and I began to worry.
Would she have the sense to stop before it became
pitch black? What if she set up camp 75 feet off theCaroline’s Take
1 I often wonder what my dad
thinks about while hiking. I’m
pretty sure it ’s more along
the lines of “what snacks
can I eat from Caroline’s
pack without her noticing,”
or “what dangerous country
should our family spend next
Christmas in?”
2 Lies! I didn’t ask for my
pack to be carried. It’s true I
lagged behind, but the story
changes every year—next,
my brothers will claim to have
carried me and my pack the
whole way!3 Sadly, this is a favorite
Kristof story. There are better
tales—like when my brother
removed his shoes to cross a
creek and they disappeared
over a waterfall. To this
day, we know the spot as
“Gregory Shoe Creek.”