How I Got into Overnight Hiking

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, in a province nicknamed Beautiful British Columbia. Home to vast and lush forests, turquoise alpine lakes, majestic mountains, powerful waterfalls, and raging rivers, BC is an outdoor lover’s paradise. It might seem like a given that I love backpacking and hiking but this hasn’t always been the case.

I grew up playing competitive sports and although I have always been a very active person, I wasn’t particularly drawn to nature as a child. I just liked moving my body. But since I was surrounded by world-famous nature, I did a handful of hikes growing up. I would say I was the kind of person who hiked once or twice in the summer with a 500ml water bottle and my Nike frees. I’ve come a long way.

In 2018 I saw a photo of a lake that looked like blue Gatorade surrounded by beautiful mountains and I decided I wanted to see this in person. It was a photo of the iconic Panorama Ridge hike in Garibaldi Provincial Park. So I recruited a friend and did some rough research and headed out on the 34km hike. I was not prepared and looking back, it was quite dangerous. We did this hike when the province was covered in a thick layer of forest fire smoke. But one thing about me is that I am stubborn. When I set my mind to something, I will make it happen. That’s both a blessing and a curse. Low and behold, my friend and I did this hike but we did not see that Gatorade lake as the smoke was so thick it covered all the views. I knew I had to go back one day.

A few years went by and in summer of 2020, I began to see several photos of BC hikes that I had trouble believing were real. These landscapes looked absolutely picturesque. We all know the state of the world in 2020 and I was also dealing with an injured foot that would not allow me to walk for more than 20 minutes without unbearable pain. Let’s just say I really couldn’t do much. I knew I wouldn’t be making it up any mountains that summer so I turned to my laptop and began researching. I looked up where these hikes were, how you got there, and made a master spreadsheet of hikes I wanted to conquer once my foot allowed me to. To this day I still use this list and it’s pretty satisfying when I change the “completed” column to “Yes”.

I didn’t have a ton of experience hiking but I decided that it was something I seriously wanted to pursue and honestly, I kind of made it my whole personality. I started to build up my gear collection and invested in pieces throughout the year preparing for summer 2021; when I would summit those mountains and swim in those lakes I had seen photos of. On black Friday I bought my sleeping bag and backpack, for Christmas I got a sleeping pad, and in the spring I treated myself to some solid hiking boots. In May 2021 I invested in a backpacking tent. On every other occasion I would buy the smaller things and slowly check them off the list of items I needed to spend multiple nights in the backcountry.

My foot healed and I spent most weekends hiking, sometimes in the rain with no reward and other times we’d get lucky with stunning views in the winter and spring. Come June 2021, I felt ready to tackle these more challenging hikes. A friend and I decided to do a small overnight hike as a sort of ‘test run’. It was only an hour long but it allowed us to test our gear, see what we forgot to bring, and what we could have left at home. It was comforting that the hike out was only an hour so if something went wrong we could pretty quickly return to the safety of our car. This wasn’t the smoothest hike, it was kind of eerie to hike in a location with no one else around and I definitely brought way too much stuff, but it was the beginning of me knowing for sure that hiking was a new permanent addition to my life, and one that genuinely made me happier than anything else.

After this, I threw myself into overnight hiking and by the end of the summer I felt confident in the backcountry. I knew what I needed to do and bring to stay safe and my body could carry me up mountains I didn’t think I’d ever summit. I ended up doing a 4 day hike in August 2021 called the Juan de Fuca. It was painful, physically and mentally, but it was also an absolute blast. And before that, on July 3, 2021 I stood at the top of Panorama Ridge and looked out over the Gatorade lake I had been dreaming of since that smoky day in 2018.

After this, I was hooked.

One of the many reasons I have come to love hiking are the feelings it evokes in me. There’s nothing quite like standing on top of a mountain and looking down to where I started; realizing that I am only able to witness this breathtaking landscape because my two legs got me up here. As I stand on the summit and take in the view, I can’t help but smile an authentic smile that these days seems so rare.

Once the initial thrill passes and I sit down and stare out into untouched nature a sense of awe takes over. I feel so small and it really puts life into perspective, the everyday feels so unimportant and honestly it makes me question a lot of things.

Standing on top of mountains in the backcountry is where I feel most alive. It may sound dramatic but it genuinely fills my soul up and makes my heart so happy, and that is a feeling I will keep chasing as long as I can.