The essential tool for a long walk
© Eva Boynton

Rules & Reasons of Long-Distance Walking

For 22 years, Dr. John Francis explored much of the Americas on foot. A hundred years earlier, John Muir walked 1000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico.

For Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, and Francis, founder of Planetwalk, on-foot travel led to environmental activism. For others, time on the road spent in long-distance walking led simply to gratifying “Oh, I see” moments.

Cirrus Wood is one of them. Following in the footsteps of his mentors—call them globe-trotters, great pedestrians, planet walkers, pilgrims, or simply people on foot—Wood took an 18-month walk across America through 16 states from San Francisco to Seattle and on to Maine.

His vehicle? A pair of sturdy hiking boots and his own two feet.

Cirrus Wood Makes His Own Rules

Along his journey, I hosted Wood at my house in Olympia, Washington. Wood’s walk was remarkable to me for it was the first time I met someone living and traveling on foot through town, city, and wilderness.

Most of us have time and stamina for only a week-long hike or a trot through the park. Still, Wood believes:

There’s nothing remarkable about what I did. A lot of folks could do it. Left foot, right foot, repeat as desired.

New landscapes are best discovered step by step.
© Cirrus Wood

Reflecting, Wood explains how his change of lifestyle developed through a series of doors that opened and closed:

I had no mortgage, no car, no financial obligations other than the maintenance of a few cubic feet of bone and flesh. So what had been a delirious Plan B—“what if?”—became an insistent Plan A.

On May 30th, 2010, Wood decided it was time to walk the “airplane distance.” Bringing only what he could fit into a backpack, he set out and pledged two rules:

Rule #1.  No riding in motor vehicles.
Rule #2.  Accept whatever anyone offered unless it conflicted with rule #1.

Wood’s gear follows another good rule for long-distance walking:
Bring only what your legs and back can carry.
© Cirrus Wood

The Great Pedestrians

Wood had studied the travels of long-distance walkers like John Muir and Dr. John Francis.

In the 1970s, Francis, now an environmentalist and author of Planetwalker, began walking from his home in Inverness, California, to Washington, D.C., and south to Central America.

Francis began walking to work after the 1971 oil spill.
© Glenn Oakley

Francis calls the lessons learned while walking “moments of obligation to experience.” By that, he means giving time and attention to his relationship with details of the environment.

John Muir, known as the “father of our national parks,” recorded similar moments of connection to the environment:

I drifted from rock to rock, from stream to stream, from grove to grove. Where night found me, there I camped. When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell. 

At the mercy of nature’s elements and the speed of their feet, Muir and Francis were free to observe moments of grandeur and the subtleties of their environment. This was the impetus that propelled Wood to create his own rules and begin walking.

A Day in the Life

Walking changes not only the pace of travel but the very nature of daily life.

Wood found his bedroom took many forms: national forests and parks, pastures, spaces under bridges, barns, abandoned houses, culverts, and offered couches.

Bridges offer a place of rest for the night.
© Cirrus Wood

Wood cooked his own meals, comprised mostly of beans and lentils as well as the occasional meat scavenged from the side of the road. He explains:

I like to limit my necessities so I can better enjoy my luxuries. . . . I like to put myself, in small and innocuous ways, at the dependent mercy of the location.

At times, Wood’s on-foot journey was characterized by the people he encountered. Many offered an outstretched hand (food, a dollar, bed), and others doled out suspicion (he was reported to police, chased by dogs, cited for vagrancy).

Although he holds meaningful memories of people met, Wood’s travel consisted mostly of miles walked alone. He recalls solitude as the most important gift of walking:

I think I felt what I most wanted by being alone. Every joy was my own, and I could take full credit for each act of idiocy. . . . I could always stop and listen at just the right moment. What I mean is that I allowed myself to have an experience. . . . 

Pausing to view the landscape or to listen to the wind is a luxury of walking.
© Cirrus Wood

Miles Covered, Steps Retraced

On-foot travel can test a person’s resiliency. If one path does not work, turning around and retracing steps (for miles or days) is the lengthy consequence.

It’s not hard to walk 100 miles.
It’s hard to walk them twice.
© Eva Boynton

In April 2011, winter had passed and Wood set off from Seattle to cross the Cascade mountain range. One month later, he was still on the wrong side of the mountains, having retraced his steps when three of the four possible routes failed.

Back near Seattle for the fourth time, he finally succeeded when he took the highway to Stevens Pass. He was on his way to Maine.

After trekking through the Cascades, flat land is a welcome sight for any on-foot traveler.
© Nick R. Lake / iStock

Freedom Springs from Limits

Through long-distance walking, Wood discovered an overwhelming sense of freedom that sprang from being “limited” by his own two feet. Walking in his own time frame, he was free to surrender to the whims of the path, letting weather, terrain, food, and the desire to listen and look decide the course.

It took Cirrus Wood 18 months to walk across America. One moment on foot can be an opportunity to learn and pay attention. Imagine 18 months of them.

Thank you, Cirrus, for sharing your story. For more information about long-distance walking trails check out American Trails.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.