zhanna's adventures

Twenty five years! Yes, this year is the twenty-fifth annual Death Hike outing. This event has been a consistent feature for more than half of my life now, through all kinds of weather from snow to 39° deluges to 100° thunderstorm days, trail closures, hiking onto prison property, jury duty, house moves, marriages and divorces, a multi-year global pandemic … basically all of the things that make up our lives. No matter how much or how little of each other we see during the rest of the year, it is a given that Ken, Gina, some students, and I will gather in May to celebrate whatever life has given us over the past year.

We have been fortunate. For us, the past year and a half was different, tough at times, but mostly business as usual or easy enough to adapt to. The one thing we really missed was traveling. We were so sure when we had to cancel our Maine trip last September that we would be back, and everything else would be back in normal working order too, in 2021—certainly by September 2021.