Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to a special bonus episode of Out There.

Today we have a guest story from a new podcast called Shelter in Place.

The podcast is about finding daily sanity in a world that feels increasingly insane.

And the story we're going to share with you is about a backpacking trip on the John Muir Trail.

It's a story that takes us out into the mountains and explores how the lessons we learn in the

wilderness can help us navigate the challenges we're facing today.

Here's Shelter and Place host Laura Joyce Davis.

I've been missing nature this week.

We live just a couple of miles from Oakland's regional park system, but it's been

weeks since I've been on those trails. The time I used to get there in my pre-COVID-19 life is now

spent trying to do school with the kids. Lately, the little exercise I'm getting is whatever I can

squeeze into the half hour after dinner when it's starting to get dark.

The other day, my friend Laura sent me a photo of the two of us backpacking on the John

Mirr Trail. Seeing that photo of our grubby, smiling faces filled me with an immediate ache

to be there again. It brought me back to what the trail had done for me, to the lessons I'd

managed to bury in the busyness of my life this past year, but that I could really use right now.

So today, while nature feels far away, I want to take you back to the trail.

Lauren, I hit the trail in August of 2019, but my story begins nearly three years before that,

when I picked up Cheryl Strait's book, Wild.

I'd heard about Wild for years.

It was an immediate sensation when it was published in 2012, and two years later it was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. It was one of those

books I'd been meaning to read for a long time. It's the true story of Cheryl's decision

...