Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail - I Promise Not to Suffer! Interview with Gail Storey

Fit is Freedom with Kelly Howard

On this episode of the Fit is Freedom Podcast, I’m joined by the amazing Gail Storey, award-winning author for her book, I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail. From running low on supplies to intimacy in the woods, we talk about everything under the sun when it comes to braving the wilderness. Here are just some of the many nuggets of wisdom we discuss…

• Adventure’s impact on relationships
• Importance of preparing and training
• Embracing the quiet
• Expressing compassion for yourself
• Impact of meditation
• Deepening Intimacy

Hiking the PCT with a Partner

Gail Storey has written many publications and books in her career with her most recent, I Promise Not to Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail, having won the National Outdoor Book Award, Foreword IndieFab Book of the Year, Nautilus Silver Award, among others! Her award-winning book takes on the true story of her embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail with her husband because she refused to let him go alone–despite the fact that she’d never hiked or camped before.

Challenges and Rewards

Hiking long distances like Gail and her husband, Porter, endured with the PCT was exhilarating, exhausting, and rewarding. It brought many challenges on a day-to-day basis from running out of water to blisters and more, but it also brought a great deal of discovery and the building of a strong relationship.

After selling her car, their house, and throwing multiple dinner parties to say “goodbye” to friends and loved ones, Gail found herself on a spring weekend in 2004 heading out on the adventure of a lifetime–hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

Gail explains how there’s just something about hiking in the wilderness for days on end, relying on someone else for survival and entertainment, that brings two souls together. The stillness. The unexpected circumstance. The beauty of nature. The lack of escaping one another.

From this experience, Gail and Porter formed an unbreakable bond, she wrote an award-winning book, and she learned the importance of physical fitness in the connection of your mind, body, and soul. To this day, at almost 75 years old, she continues to work on her fitness and help her community through environmental activism.