I’ve wanted to hike the John Muir Trail for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure why I’ve never made the trip — I travel plenty. But in the meantime, I’ve been content to experience it through the camera lenses of YouTube hikers and Netflix documentaries. There must be a thousand spots on the trail that prompt genuine awe in visitors. Perfect beauty in every direction
It's funny though — besides awe, the other constant among all the JMT videos is mosquitos.
It's a scene that inevitably makes it into each film, long or short.
The hikers climb over a ridge to arrive at some wild place, the likes of which most people have never seen, maybe never imagined. It’s usually a mountaintop lake. The water is marble blue — the shade of blue that aliens looking down on Earth probably think all water must be. To find the horizon is to look up at the zig-zag lines of snow-topped mountains and find that the sky somehow mirror the water, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Boulders surround the lake. Flowers surround the boulders. Trees gather in little clusters. The sun doesn't just look warm it looks strong. It’s an experience so many of us are deprived of with our busy lives — stillness. Peace.
Then, thwack! The hiker’s experience is rudely interrupted; awareness yanked back into her body by the sudden realization that she is not alone. No, she is sharing this experience with a swarm of buzzing little pests.
Has the hike been ruined? Of course not.
The people venturing onto the JMT know they will encounter a few mosquitos along the way—and they’ll show up during the moments that otherwise, are the most beautiful. They still go. They still get the awe they wanted.
I should think about the hikers each morning when I wake up and begin my journey into the day to do this or that.
There are no mountains at my home but there are still opportunities for awe. Unfortunately, its easy to let a mosquito, a barking dog, or a lawnmower ruin a moment. And sure, I want to murder my neighbor and blow up his riding mower with a pipe bomb every time he revs it up just as my family sits down outside for Mother’s day dinner — but that would be to let him steal my joy. So…
Mosquitos and lawnmowers be damned.