The map lies unfolded across my living room floor, its creased corners held down by a half-empty coffee mug and a dog-eared copy of a trail guide. In this moment, the plan feels not just possible, but reasonable. The Rattlesnake Wilderness stretches across the paper—73 miles of trail weaving through an area half the size of Zion National Park, yet somehow it feels both immense and intimate.
What strikes me first isn’t the elevation gains or the mileage, but the proximity. Seven miles as the crow flies from this wilderness sits a Costco, its parking lot likely full of shoppers loading bulk toilet paper into their SUVs. The coexistence of wildness and wholesale retail creates a peculiar tension—the knowledge that true solitude exists just beyond the edge of our everyday consumption.
The numbers themselves tell a story of repetition and return. Those 73 miles aren’t a straight line; they’re a web of interconnected paths requiring retracing steps, doubling back, and discovering new routes through familiar terrain. It would take multiple outings—short runs, twenty-milers, perhaps a marathon or two—to truly know this place.
And then there’s the final piece: a 50K route with 5,000 feet of elevation gain that would connect the last guarded sections of trail. The distance alone felt significant, but the vertical gain added that extra layer of challenge that made my legs ache in anticipation. Coincidentally, running a 50K had been my goal for the year, though I’d imagined it would happen in an organized race with aid stations and cheering volunteers.
As my finger traces the contour lines on the map, the idea takes shape: maybe I could run that 50K and cover every inch of trail here, all in one season. The thought arrives not as a dramatic epiphany but as a quiet certainty, the way you realize you’ve forgotten something important but can’t quite name it yet. The wilderness whispered, and I found myself leaning closer to listen.
From Pavement to Pine Trees
Training for a road marathon felt like tracing the same gray lines day after day. The predictable rhythm of pavement underfoot, the measured distances between streetlights, the monotony of asphalt and concrete—it all started to blur into a single, endless track. I followed training plans with religious dedication, hitting target paces and weekly mileage, but something was missing in that mechanical precision. The runs became tasks to complete rather than experiences to savor.
That’s when I started taking my long runs off-road. At first, it was just for variety, a change of scenery from suburban sidewalks. But something shifted during those initial trail runs. The ground beneath my feet became unpredictable—soft soil, loose rocks, twisting roots that demanded attention. My focus narrowed to the next footfall, the next turn in the path, the next breath of air that smelled of damp earth and decaying leaves.
The transformation happened gradually until one run made it absolute. I remember emerging from a tunnel of ponderosa pines, the trail carpeted in their rust-colored needles. The valley opened suddenly into a sun-drenched meadow, and the world expanded in every direction. Warmth spread across my skin as sunlight broke through the canopy. Birdsong echoed from the treetops. Red-brown cliff faces reached into a sky so blue it seemed almost artificial in its perfection.
In that moment, a profound warmth washed through me—something beyond runner’s high, bordering on rapture. And with that feeling came an unexpected thought: “I’m going to miss this.”
Two weeks later, I stood at the starting line of my meticulously prepared road marathon. The energy was electric—thousands of runners bouncing in place, crowds cheering, motivational signs waving. I ran according to plan, maintained my pace, and crossed the finish line right on target.
And felt absolutely nothing.
The crowds, the music bouncing off downtown skyscrapers, the achievement itself—it all rang hollow. The medal around my neck felt like a foreign object. I realized then that the marathon wasn’t the point. It was just the excuse that got me into those woods, onto those trails, into that state of being where time dissolved and only the present moment mattered.
The truth settled in my bones: I hadn’t been training for a race. I’d been training for those moments of connection—with the land, with my body, with something larger than myself. The structured road running had served its purpose, but it was the unstructured trail running that had captured my soul.
That realization changed everything about how I approached running. No longer about personal records or finish times, it became about immersion and experience. The trails offered something the roads never could—a conversation with the natural world that required listening more than speaking, receiving more than achieving.
That winter, as I planned my running goals for the coming year, I knew exactly what I wanted: more of that connection, more of those moments, more time in the places that made me feel both insignificant and completely at home simultaneously. The marathon had given me discipline, but the trails gave me meaning. And meaning was what I needed more of.
Brendan’s Big-Ass Loop
The idea took shape not as a race against others, but as a conversation with a landscape. An ultramarathon, yes, but of a different sort. It wouldn’t be on closed roads with cheering crowds and mile markers. It would be a route. A specific, wild, and personal line drawn through the wilderness I’d come to love. It was a goal that felt less like a competition and more like a pilgrimage.
I mentioned this nascent, half-formed idea to my friend Brendan over coffee. He’s the kind of guy who thinks a 50-mile training run is a reasonable Saturday morning. He listened, nodded, and a few days later, a notification popped up from Strava. He’d sent me an activity. The title was simple, but the map told a different story: a massive, lasso-like loop that seemed to encircle the entire Rattlesnake Wilderness.
35.15 miles. 5,194 feet of vertical gain.
The numbers were one thing, but the geography was another. The loop started at the familiar trailhead, a place that already felt like a second home. It didn’t just go into the wilderness; it traced its very perimeter. It climbed from the valley floor into a realm of 8,000-foot peaks and hidden subalpine lakes. For a stretch, it skirted the boundary of Tribal-Only Land, a tangible reminder of the deep history embedded in these mountains, and ventured along the edges of known Grizzly country. It was a line that promised to show me every facet of this place—the accessible and the remote, the gentle and the severe—before finally turning back and delivering me, spent and changed, to the outskirts of civilization.
It was the entire perimeter. The very loop I needed to run to connect all the fragments of trail I’d already covered. He’d unknowingly mapped my obsession.
“Yeah,” I told him the next time we spoke, the words leaving my mouth before my brain could fully vet them for sanity. “I’m gonna do that. I think I’m gonna try to cover every inch of trail up there this summer, too.”
The moment the declaration hung in the air, I felt a familiar heat creep up my neck. It was the visceral flush of commitment, a mix of excitement and pure terror. I immediately wished I could snatch the words back, stuff them in my pocket, and just quietly work toward the goal without anyone, including myself, truly holding me accountable. But it was out there. It existed in the world now, a challenge issued and accepted.
So, I did what any reasonable person would do when faced with an unreasonable task. I formulated a plan built not on unwavering confidence, but on a flimsy hope: just get started and hope for a socially acceptable excuse to pull out later. A minor injury. A conflicting work project. A forecast of apocalyptic weather. Anything that would let me off the hook without the shame of outright quitting.
Unfortunately, the universe, it seemed, was fresh out of acceptable excuses.
Getting to Know These Woods
The red lines snaking across my topo map began connecting in ways that felt less like abstract planning and more like a conversation. Each run was a sentence, each route a paragraph in a longer story I was having with this place. I wasn’t just accumulating miles; I was learning a language.
The initial phase was straightforward: pick a route, run it, trace the line on the map with a satisfied swipe of a red Sharpie. The focus was on the metrics—mileage, vertical gain, pace. But the wilderness has a way of shifting your focus from the quantitative to the qualitative. The deeper I went, the more the landscape began to reveal its layers, its secrets, its history.
I started to notice things that weren’t on any map. The crumbling foundation of a homestead hidden just off the trail, a silent testament to someone else’s dream of life out here. A little further on, a cluster of irises, stubbornly blooming year after year long after the hands that planted them were gone. An old apple orchard, the trees gnarled and wild, still offering up tart, small fruit. These weren’t just landmarks; they were stories. I began deliberately planning my runs to pass by them, a silent nod to the people who came before me. It was a humbling reminder that my attempt to “cover” this place was just the latest chapter in a much longer book.
Then there were the current residents. My first few encounters with the local bear population were pure, knee-wobbling adrenaline. Every rustle in the brush was a potential catastrophe. But repetition breeds a strange sort of familiarity. The fear didn’t vanish, but it morphed into a deep, respectful fascination. I learned to read the signs—the overturned rocks, the shredded logs, the distinct tracks in the mud.
I became acquainted with one bear in particular, a magnificent cinnamon-colored sow with two healthy, curious cubs. I saw her often enough that I started to understand her patterns, the routes she favored. We had an unspoken agreement: I gave her a wide, respectful berth, and she tolerated my fleeting presence in her world. It was no longer a tourist seeing a bear; it was a neighbor acknowledging another.
My education continued with the flora. The landscape transformed from a green blur into a collection of distinct individuals. I learned to spot the sunny yellow face of Balsam Root, the purple cascade of Cow Vetch, the elegant white spires of Bear Grass. My runs slowed as I began pointing them out, calling them by name like old friends. “Hello, Balsam Root.” It felt less silly than it sounds. It was an act of recognition, of belonging.
This sense of reverence culminated in a personal ritual. On the long, grinding climb up to Stuart Peak, the trail passes a truly ancient Ponderosa Pine. Its bark is thick and plated like armor, and it stands with a gravity that feels earned. I started stopping there, just for a moment. I’d place a hand on its rough trunk, bow my head, and ask for permission to be in these woods and for protection on the run ahead. I named it “Grandfather.” I know it’s corny. I truly don’t care. It wasn’t about superstition; it was about acknowledging that I was a guest in something much older and greater than myself.
By late June, the red lines on my map had woven a dense web. The empty white spaces were shrinking. I stood by my dusty Subaru at the trailhead one afternoon, sipping an electrolyte drink. I had just finished a long run, a full marathon distance that felt good, strong. I’d even set a personal best. As the fatigue washed over me, a new feeling followed: realization. I looked at the map in my head, calculating the remaining trails.
A slow smile spread across my face. “Holy shit,” I whispered to the quiet forest around me. “I might actually do it.”
The goal was no longer a abstract idea on my floor; it was a tangible destination, just one last, long run away. But that final run was the big one—the 50K beast Brendan had laid out for me. The one that would decide everything.
The Day the Wilderness Broke Me
The alarm buzzed at 4:30 AM, but I’d been awake for hours already. My gear lay scattered across the bedroom floor like pieces of a puzzle I wasn’t sure I could solve. The numbers kept running through my head: 35.15 miles, 5,194 feet of vertical gain. By 7 AM, I stood at the main trailhead, squinting at the path that disappeared into the pine trees, my crow’s feet crinkling with a mix of anticipation and dread.
What could go wrong out there? The question wasn’t rhetorical. Twist an ankle in those remote stretches and you’re looking at a long, painful limp back to civilization. At worst? Well, I tried not to think about the worst. The cinnamon-colored sow with her two cubs had become familiar, almost comfortable presence, but grizzlies remained grizzlies. My knee-wobbling terror had matured into respectful fascination, but the respect part meant acknowledging the very real dangers.
The first ten miles hit like a physical blow—a blistering uphill climb with nearly 4,000 feet of vertical gain to Stuart Peak. My lungs burned with the thin air at altitude, each switchback stretching longer than the last. The Sharpie in my pocket felt like it weighed ten pounds, a constant reminder of the promise I’d made to myself and casually mentioned to Brendan. That casual mention now felt like a binding contract written in blood and sweat.
Then came the right-hand turn into the wildest parts, where the trail became less path and more suggestion. Technical, knee-shattering downhill sections forced me into a clumsy dance with gravity. Blind corners kept my heart rate elevated even when the terrain flattened briefly. Hip-high berry bushes in full bloom created perfect hiding spots, and my imagination ran wilder than any actual wildlife. Every rustle became a bear, every snapped twig a predator.
Hidden lakes appeared like mirages, their surfaces broken by flopping trout that seemed utterly unconcerned with my struggle. The sun climbed overhead, blazing hot despite the altitude. Only when I reached the higher elevations did I realize I’d been running through the smoky haze of fire season, the air thick with the scent of distant burn.
Then my stomach cramped. Not just ordinary fatigue, but the gut-clenching, sweat-beading realization that explosive diarrhea doesn’t care about your ultramarathon goals. I found myself making deals with whatever gods might be listening—just let me make it to the next stand of trees, just let there be some privacy in this vast openness.
The terrain seemed to actively resist progress. Loose softball-sized rocks shifted underfoot with malicious intent. Washed-out trails forced detours through brush that clawed at my legs. Blowdown trees created obstacle courses that would have been amusing on a training run but felt cruel here, when every extra movement cost precious energy.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, there it was: the intersection that marked the end of this section. Not the end of the run—I still had another 13 miles to go—but the completion of the A-goal, connecting this last major section of trail. I actually laughed aloud, a raw sound that startled a bird from a nearby tree.
I pulled out my trail map, the paper softened by sweat and handling, and bit the cap off my Sharpie. My hand shook slightly as I connected the last line, completing the perimeter of the Rattlesnake Wilderness. The satisfaction lasted exactly three seconds before my eyes caught on the frayed edges. Little bits here and there, still in dotted black—short spurs I’d overlooked, connector trails I’d dismissed as insignificant.
My stomach sank. Fuck, man. I can’t take any more of this.
The rationalizations began immediately. No one will know. Brendan won’t check every dotted line. The spirit of the goal had been achieved, even if the letter hadn’t. But another voice, quieter and more persistent, whispered: I’ll know.
I calculated the additional mileage—maybe another three, four miles total if I hit all the forgotten spurs. I could do it all in one miserable day. Drive over to the other trailhead, pick up that last three-quarters of a mile on Sheep Mountain, then drive to the other side for the Ravine Trail cutoff. The completeness beckoned like a siren song.
Then I looked up from the map. Really looked around me. The afternoon light slanted through the pine trees, catching dust motes and insects in golden beams. A breeze carried the scent of warm pine needles and distant water. And it dawned on me that there’s an entire world between these lines on the map, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of it.
Kevin Fedarko’s book popped into my mind—A Walk in the Park, his account of hiking the entire Grand Canyon. I’d loved it until the ending, when after years of effort, he climbs out without completing the final stretch, invoking the Navajo concept of the Spirit Line—a deliberate flaw woven into blankets to remind us of humility and balance. I’d found it pretentious at the time, a literary cop-out. Just finish the damn thing, I’d thought.
Standing there with my incomplete map, I finally understood. The trails, by their very nature, can only cut through a place. They can’t cover it all. My goal had been to collect these paths like trophies, to possess this wilderness by conquering its veins. But the land itself remained vast, unknowable, complete without my completion.
Maybe I’ll leave those edges tattered. A reminder to stop trying to collect trails, to possess places, to know it all. The goal wasn’t wrong—it gave me a reason to be out here, to notice the iris blooms where homesteads once stood, to learn the names of plants like greeting neighbors, to develop that respectful relationship with the bear family. But the goal was always the means, not the end.
The Sharpie went back into my pocket. I took a long drink from my water bladder, the water warm but satisfying. I plodded on toward the final thirteen miles, but now I reminded myself every few minutes to look up from the trail, to notice the world between the lines, to see with something like that original awe I’d felt emerging from that tunnel of pine trees what felt like a lifetime ago.
The wilderness hadn’t broken me. It had broken my need to conquer it. And in that breaking, something better had emerged—a willingness to be present without possessing, to experience without owning, to appreciate without cataloging. The map would remain imperfect, and so would I, and that felt exactly right.
The Last Threads
I kept moving, one foot in front of the other, but something had shifted in me. The urgency to connect those final dotted lines on the map had evaporated, replaced by a curious lightness. My pace slowed from a determined run to something closer to an amble, though my legs still burned from the miles behind me.
Instead of focusing on the path ahead, I found myself looking sideways—really looking—at the spaces between the trails. A patch of bear grass I’d never noticed before, its white blooms catching the afternoon light. The way the wind moved through the ponderosa pines, creating a sound entirely different from the rustling of aspens lower down. The distant call of a nutcracker that I might have missed had I been pushing for time.
That’s when I understood what Fedarko was trying to say with his spirit line metaphor. It wasn’t about leaving something unfinished out of laziness or failure. It was about recognizing that true knowing isn’t about conquest or completion. The most important parts of any journey exist in the margins, in the spaces we can’t map or measure.
Those last few unconnected trails on my map? They’ll stay that way. Not because I couldn’t do them—physically, I probably could knock them out in an afternoon. But because they represent something more valuable than another checked box. They’re my spirit lines, reminders that this wilderness isn’t mine to conquer or collect. It exists on its own terms, and my relationship with it works best when I approach with humility rather than hunger.
I’m still out here on these trails most days. Still running, still exploring. But I’m not counting miles or checking off sections anymore. Instead, I’m learning the different qualities of light through the seasons, noticing which flowers bloom first after the snow melts, watching how the bear family I’ve come to recognize moves through their territory.
The map stays home now. Not because I’ve memorized every turn—I haven’t—but because I’ve learned that getting lost occasionally leads to the best discoveries. There’s a particular satisfaction in finding your way back to familiar ground without consulting a piece of paper, guided instead by the shape of a ridge or the sound of a particular stream.
This is what I was really looking for when I set out to cover every mile. Not completion, but connection. Not achievement, but awareness. The trails were just the means to an end that I didn’t know I was seeking until I found it.
Sometimes I’ll still come across hikers with maps spread out, anxiously checking their progress, and I want to tell them to put the paper away. To look up instead of down. To understand that the real wilderness exists between the lines, not on them. But everyone finds their own way in their own time. I certainly needed my map phase to reach this point.
So I keep plodding along, reminding myself to notice more than just the path under my feet. The quality of the air changes as I gain elevation. The way the morning sun hits different parts of the valley at different times. The small animal trails that cross the human-made ones, reminding me that we’re all just passing through this landscape together.
I thought I was running to cover ground, but I was really running to uncover something in myself. The trails were just the invitation—the real journey happened in the spaces between my expectations and reality, between my desire for completion and the beauty of what remains unfinished.
