Leif and Natalie

 This blog is cross-posted on the Kokatat team blog I grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and yet until last summer, I hadn’t yet done any of the high elevation Sierra classic overnighters. I didn’t learn to kayak until after I left home and by the time I was skilled enough to run them, I was no longer living in California. But more importantly, I never made it a priority of mine, and for years got swept up in other events and didn’t follow up on what my heart was telling me to do. Growing up just an 1.5hr drive from Upper Cherry, and yet never running it, had been a niggling thorn in my side for over a decade. This last year, I decided to do something about that missing part of my soul and I made a point to return to my roots with a best friend from college, Dan Menten and a new friend James McCleod. Leif (my husband) dropped us off at the West Cherry hike and went back to my parents’ place to hang out with our two kids (Davis 4yrs, Calvin 1.5yrs). We barely snuck in a narrow w...