Jessica S. McKenzie

Dear reader,

I’ve missed you! I’ve missed writing to you; I’ve missed hearing from you. I just don’t quite feel the same when I’m not newslettering.

They say that chronically online people would probably benefit from just keeping a diary already and not putting everything out there (I’m almost entirely sure this is true). But—I like thinking aloud, and I’ve missed doing it.

I still know my “vacation” from Pinch of Dirt the past couple months was absolutely necessary, as a kind of burnout prophylactic, or Hail Mary.

Has it been successful? Well…I don’t think I’m crying as often, and I’m certainly less likely to start weeping while reading a news article on a Friday evening, specifically. So that’s something!

When I start to feel bad about letting this newsletter wither on the vine, like other relationships I’ve neglected this summer (if I owe you a text, call, or email, I know, and I feel positively wretched about it), I remind myself that we can’t all be our most outgoing and happy and productive and healthy and creative selves all of the time.

And, I don’t think I’m alone in having a tougher-than-usual time this year, which is why I’m cautiously oversharing: So if you’re in the same boat, you don’t feel quite so alone. In the immortal words of Jane Austen, “They must retrench.”1

Or, as a more modern self-help author has written, “do less.”2

Earlier this year I went through a mini-crisis of sorts, where I questioned whether I even wanted to still be a journalist, especially right now. Of course, then I had to ask myself what I would want to do instead, and short of “be an independently wealthy heiress and professional long distance hiker and sometimes writer, when I feel like it,” I came up short.

So I decided to take a step back from my hobby writing here and focus more on my day job writing, at least for a while. Like going into “Low Power Mode” but for a professional journalist, not an iPhone. If the goal is to do this (writing, reporting), well, indefinitely, then I have to weather the tricky bits and hold on until I can tap into a new energy source. Ugh, sorry this battery metaphor is getting really annoying.

The good news is I did manage to write something I’m quite proud of this summer.

Earlier this year, not one but two organizers of climate events in Europe reached out to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to invite someone from the staff to come speak. One event was in Milan, and one was in Athens, and they were only a week apart. My boss asked me if I’d be interested in going to represent the Bulletin at both of them, and while I’m not the world’s most eager or comfortable public speaker, you’d be amazed at how quickly I can get over that fear when a trip to Europe is on the line!

So I said yes, duh, and he said, OK, find something to do in between the events, and pitch me.

My very first thought was heat—both cities are hot and getting hotter, maybe I should just track down the respective heat officers in both Milan and Athens and interview them? But then I thought, eh, that sounds kind of boring.

I remembered headlines about a national park near Athens burning in a wildfire a couple years ago, and I looked into it and found out the park, Parnitha, is the closest national park to a capital city in all of Europe, and that large swaths have burned twice in three years. (And there was another really devastating fire back in 2007.) And I was like, ok, there’s something here. Plus, maybe I can go hiking during work hours…

I’m quite happy with what came out of that trip: “A perfect firestorm: The social, political, and climate forces that keep Athens burning.”

I’d be thrilled if you wanted to just go read that now. I’ll also share a few details here about my hike in Parnitha that didn’t make it into the final copy, but that PoD readers might appreciate.

I arrived in Athens on a Saturday, spent all of Sunday with a group of volunteer firefighters, and was planning on hiking in Parnitha on Monday. I had hoped that there might be an enthusiastic hiker or two among the firefighters who could recommend a specific trail, and I heard there were, but they weren’t on duty that day. (The firefighters seemed concerned about me hiking alone, and I had to assure them that I was fairly experienced and very cautious and I wouldn’t do anything stupid.)

After a lot of fruitless searching on the internet, where English-language resources and guides were extremely limited, I ultimately turned to AllTrails, which really came in clutch. I found a ~7.5 mile loop trail, and even better, the reviews mentioned BURNED FOREST. Which, given my mission, was ideal.

(At first I thought I would take a teleferik up to a casino in the park—which is surely a story in and of itself—and start hiking from there. But then I found that the teleferik didn’t start running until 9 am or something, and I wanted to get an earlier start to beat the heat and stay safe. This turned out to be a good thing because on Sunday evening one of the firefighters texted to warn me the teleferik was closed for repairs that week.)

I couldn’t find a paper map (or even a good digital map of the park) so I got a free trial of AllTrails so I could download a map to use offline. I packed my backup battery charger so my phone wouldn’t die on me and then went out to buy three 1.5 liter bottles of water, and breakfast/snacks.

In my initial draft I wrote that I was “determined to not become another Daily Mail headline” but my editor—wisely, I’m sure—took that detail out.

On Sunday night I texted the taxi driver my friend and former colleague who now lives in Athens recommended—and who had picked me up at the airport—and arranged for him to pick me up at 5 am. It was a 30 minute drive to the trailhead, so I could start hiking when the sun rose at 5:30. Then I went out to a very late dinner with my aforementioned friend (remember, I had spent all day—9 to 5—with the firefighters, and didn’t get back to my room until midnight) which meant I was hiking on approximately 4 – 4.5 hours of sleep.

The scariest moment of the hike came early, when the trail left the woods and went onto a residential street and a bunch of dogs started barking at me. Most were in fenced in yards but one was a stray that followed me for a bit and I had my hand on my phone trying to remember the emergency number my CNN Greece contact had shared in the welcome packet, just in case I was mauled. Fortunately, the stray eventually lost interest.

The second scariest was when I stopped to take a break at what seemed to be a silent and abandoned shelter (Bafi Refuge). I hadn’t seen a single soul in Parnitha that morning, and it had been several hours at that point, so I was eating my melted chocolate digestif biscuits on a bench, very much alone, when a car drove up.

Cars and strangers in the woods are always a little disconcerting when you don’t expect them, but I was quickly relieved to see they were both women, probably there to open the refuge. In retrospect, I regret not staying for the refuge to open and sampling some of whatever was on offer at the restaurant. But, I was in a hurry—I was already quite hot and tired from the exposed ascent. I just wanted to get back off the mountain safely.

Third scariest moment was when I slipped and fell twice, and not too far apart, on the descent. On one of those I caught myself on a sharp rock and bruised my hand (and, I think, added a new crack to my phone). I wasn’t seriously injured, but it shook my confidence. I could tell I was a little loopy from the heat and from not drinking enough water. (In spite of bringing, what, 4.5 liters, I only drank one in the course of my hike. Stupid is as stupid does, or something.) (It didn’t help that I had decided to only bring my *road* running shoes instead of my trail runners, so I didn’t have as much traction as I’m used to.)

But, I made it back to the start in one piece! There were cars parked at the trailhead by that point, and a few people loitering around, including a woman holding a clipboard. I recognized the branding of a local guiding service; someone from the group would be speaking at the CNN Greece event later that week.

I knew the taxi driver who dropped me off that morning had rides scheduled all morning, and indeed when I texted just to check if he was available, he was somewhere near the airport, way out on the other side of the city. So I tried Uber, which in Greece contracts with local taxi drivers—so you get a metered fare like usual but pay a small online booking fee on top of the fare. I tried several times but no drivers could be found. Oh boy.

I began to examine my digital maps more closely. I knew there was a bus stop maybe two miles back along the road—this had always been my backup exit plan—but the road had almost no shoulder and it was fast, like a two-lane highway, and I was reluctant to go back that way. But it also seemed there was a dirt road/foot path through an open meadow that cut the distance to 1.5 miles, and avoided most of the road.

I crossed the road to examine the situation further, and must have waffled over the decision long enough—looking quite distressed—that a man in a very nice car pulled over (maybe he was going to the casino?). I can only assume he asked if I needed help or if he could offer assistance, but I can’t be sure because he spoke in Greek and I had to apologetically say, I’m sorry I don’t speak Greek, at which point he also looked sorry and apologetic and drove off.

Anyway, I decided I would walk to the bus stop, although wouldn’t it be faster if I jogged? And then I kept jogging when I got to the road because I thought jogging looked more purposeful and intentional, and less like I got stranded in the middle of nowhere on accident. And thank god, when I got to the bus stop, I was able to order a taxi, and quickly, too.

This was ideal because, although my phone told me it was possible to get back to the city on public transportation, it required multiple buses and the estimated travel time was an hour and forty-five minutes—assuming I could figure out the connections in a timely manner—and on top of everything else, it was a holiday, and I had no way of knowing if that scrambled the timetables, and if so, if Google maps would know about that. For all I knew the buses might not even be running!

All in all, a wonderful opportunity and adventure, and I’m just delighted I was able to work hiking into my day job.

If this at all piqued your interest, and you’re curious about what came of this reporting trip, I hope you’ll read my article here.