Your Wellness Journey isn’t a Day Hike – It’s more like a Pacific Crest Trail thru hike.

Every so often, someone asks me why they can white-knuckle their way through a diet or a fitness push for a few weeks, feel amazing… and then completely fall apart. If that sounds familiar, I want to tell you about two very different hikes and what they taught me about sustainable wellness.

Hiking Half Dome in a Day

Back in 2018, I hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park with my husband Chris and a group of friends in a day. If you’ve never been, Yosemite is one of the most breathtaking places in California, and Half Dome is not a casual walk. You need a permit just to summit, and the round trip covers roughly 18 miles with about 4,800 feet of elevation gain.

We started at nearly 1:00 a.m., hiking up under a full moon, genuinely magical. We reached the summit just after sunrise, about six hours in, and the feeling of standing up there was exhilarating. We’d trained, we’d pushed, and we’d made it.

Then came the way down.

The descent took another six to seven hours, and it hit me harder than the climb up ever did. By the time we got back to camp, I was completely wiped — barely able to keep my eyes open. Twelve to thirteen hours of all-out effort, and I paid for every bit of it on the back half.

What Half Dome Has in Common With Crash Diets

That day sticks with me because it mirrors something I see all the time in wellness: the all-or-nothing approach. Think about a strict ketogenic diet — cut out all sugar, focus almost entirely on protein and fat, and your body shifts into ketosis fast. You get quick results. It feels exhilarating, just like reaching that summit.

But it’s brutally hard to sustain. Eventually you crash — physically, mentally, or both — and tell yourself I can’t do this anymore. Next thing you know, you’re back to eating all the carbs, right back where you started, maybe further.

That’s a day hike. All the effort goes into one big push, and then you’re depleted.

The Alternative: Think Like a PCT Thru-Hiker

Instead, I want you to think about your wellness journey the way someone approaches the Pacific Crest Trail — the trail that runs the length of California, up through Oregon, and into Washington to the Canadian border. If you’ve seen Wild, the film based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, you know it’s not something you rush.

Thru-hiking the PCT takes real planning:

• Knowing your checkpoints — where you’ll resupply gear, refuel, and rest
• Checking conditions ahead of time — like weather through the highest points in the Sierras, so you can move through safely
• Constant check-ins — reassessing and adjusting your plan as you go
• Taking it step by step — not sprinting, pacing yourself for the long haul

That’s what a sustainable wellness journey actually looks like. Some days you plan to cover 12 miles and only manage six — and that’s not failure, that’s data. The question becomes: how do we adjust? How do we still get to the next checkpoint, even if the pace changes?

Plan With Intention, Not Intensity

We have to start asking ourselves better questions each day: What are we prioritizing? How are we showing up for ourselves? Are we pouring all our energy into other people and never bringing any back to ourselves?

Those are the questions worth sitting with — because they get to the root of what’s actually sustainable.

This is exactly where coaching comes in. My job isn’t to hand you a plan for a single, intense summit push. It’s to help you stay on the trail — checking in along the way, adjusting when the terrain changes, and keeping you energized for the whole journey, not just the first six hours of it.

Ready to trade the day-hike burnout cycle for a plan built to last? Let’s map out your trail.

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