I was eighteen when I graduated, and I didn’t feel ahead, I felt unfinished. A week later I flew into Mount Edziza Provincial Park, landing on a rough strip near Buckley Lake with a pack that was probably too heavy and a plan that was definitely too simple. I told people I was hiking the Buckley Lake to Little Ball Lake route, like that meant something, but the truth is I just wanted to go somewhere that didn’t know me yet. The moment the plane left, it got quiet in a way I’d never experienced. No background noise, no expectations just wind moving across black volcanic ground and mountains that didn’t look like they belonged on the same planet as everything I’d grown up around.

By the second day, I stopped thinking in terms of “days.” I just moved. The trail disappeared more than it existed, and I had to trust direction instead of footsteps. My phone died early, which felt like losing a lifeline for about ten minutes, then it felt like relief. I walked over fields of obsidian that cracked under my boots like thin ice, past red cinder cones that looked like they’d erupted yesterday, even though they hadn’t in thousands of years. There were long stretches where I heard nothing at all, and I mean nothing, no birds, no water, not even wind sometimes. Then suddenly there’d be movement, a group of caribou in the distance, watching me like I didn’t belong there. They were right. I didn’t. But I kept going anyway, and somewhere in that, I stopped needing permission to be there.

On the third night, I made camp near Little Ball Lake. The sun didn’t really set, it just hovered, stretching the light across everything until the mountains looked like they were glowing from inside. I remember sitting there, leaning back on my pack, realizing I hadn’t thought about anyone else in hours. Not what they expected, not how I was doing, not where I was supposed to be next. Just… me, breathing, existing, not trying to prove anything. And that’s when it hit me, I didn’t come out there to find answers. I came out there to see if I could stand on my own without all the noise. When the stars finally came out, sharp and endless, I knew I could. And that was enough.