As I’m writing this the votes from the first “open” election in decades in the West African country of Burkina Faso are being counted. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer there from 1999-2001, and know what a huge deal this is. Until about a year ago the “dictator-president” Blaze Compaore was overthrown from his 27 year seat of power.

Tides are changing in Burkina, and was especially reminded of my time in the country when I saw the latest newsletter from the Friends of Burkina Faso.

I wrote about my CDT trip for the newsletter…and the act of sitting down to reflect on my hike helped me remember how my backpacking journey all started with those long dusty days in Burkina Faso.

2015-2-burkina-connection 9

In my attempt to narrow down the thousands of photos I took into more digestible portions, I have put together some photo galleries for each state along the CDT this summer.

It was hard to choose sometimes.

New Mexico

Colorado

Wyoming

Idaho/Montana

Montana

But so fun to look back.

You may have been voting daily since I posted about this contest towards the end of my hike, but the voting is still on and the CDT has a great chance at winning $25,000 to make trail improvements in New Mexico.

PLEASE vote for the Continental Divide Trail every day through 10/31 here: http://superiortrails.michelobultra.com/

How have I been home for 2 1/2 weeks already? Good news is that my list of things to do is getting shorter even though I continue to add to it.

I’ve been playing the hermit since getting home, probably a direct result of spending most of the last 6 months alone…I find it’s sometimes hard to make small talk, hard to sum up my 160 days in a few bite-sized snippets, hard to go right back to being the extroverted well-socialized and excitable hiker. I know that side of me will emerge again, probably once I have more of a direction with what I’m going to be doing now that I’m off the trail.

As for work I have a few irons in the fire, some exciting opportunities that I’ll be happy to share once confirmed, so really, this time can be devoted to relaxing, easing back into the fast-paced whirlwind of off-trail life, and just being. Except that’s hard to do…I find myself gravitating towards the more existential questions of life…and perhaps that’s because when I’m busy I never really give myself time to meditate on the deeper subjects.

Ok, that probably sounds a little doom and gloom, but that, folks, is post-trail readjustment.

A few of you have asked about my gear list…I’ve put together a page here...I need to get my hands on a scale to weigh all the miscellaneous things that don’t have listed weights on the product website. I never weighed my gear, so it’s kind of funny to be doing so now after the fact.

Time to keep on keeping on…

I have been sifting through the thousands of photos and hundreds of video clips I took on the trail this year and found these two from my time on the skis.

The shoe-bindings worked extremely well on the light-weight touring skis. I ended up skiing about 40 miles in the Southern San Juans…then I found steep avalanche-prone slopes were too risky for the late May-early June time I was there. Never fear, I’ll be working on putting some short films together this fall, should be a lot of fun!

We’ve been putting some miles on our boats and I’ll share more later when I’m in front of a computer. It’s been kind of nice to leave the writing for a bit, but I also have lots on my mind and look forward to getting home and having the time to dive in.

In the mean time here are some photos of adventures so far:

First of all, thank you to everyone who followed along on my hike this year! All of your encouraging and support has definitely fueled my miles.

I’ll be writing up my gear list, writing reviews of everything I used, diving into life after the trail, making some short movies…but first Kirk and I are taking a couple of weeks to road trip back to Bend. We have our packrafts and hope to get up to some adventures I can share with you.

Feels so amazing to be done!