My grandad is a storyteller. A conversation with him wouldn't be complete without a reminiscence or a well told tale from his past. Let me abridge one of his more frequented stories.

On the 25th April 2024, I stood at the Southern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. Terminus implies finitude. Or at least an end. In this context though, terminus represents a beginning.

I tend to agree that a picture speaks a thousand words, and in general I want my photographs to speak for themselves in whatever way they can. In documenting my adventure in this way, I now have the pleasure of reading back through my photographs and remembering in some way, some individual moments of my thru-hike, with my partner Kim.

My Dad was into History. I don’t think I ever really ‘got’ it, at least not in the way he did - and certainly not in time to share it with him. There is a tendency to separate ourselves from our ancestors, to draw lines in the sand and assume superiority as ‘modern’ humans. We alienate ourselves from our past, pointing at science, technology and our modern sensibilities as proof of progress; proof of a distinction in the human condition. How lonely it must then be to reject this tendency. To find yourself in a world saturated with technological advancements, at the front line of the relentless march of human progress, and yet feel to share so much humanity with the people, communities and lives of the past. Would this alienation not consume you?