Back home, back in Israel, back to work. The last weeks have been a daze. We’re walkers and life around us seems only to run.
It is wonderful to be home; we have missed family and friends and it is pure joy to be reunited. 
But we are sad, too. This is difficult and overwhelming and overstimulating.
First things first- our last week on the trail:
We met Yael in Darrington, WA., spent a day at the computer and hit the trail from Rainy Pass, eyes on Canada. Our first day was very sunny- unusual in Washington. No complaints fro
m us.
We set off on a brief climb to a ridge, and once near the top, began what was to be a constant stream of alpine (above treeline) trail, a dramatic end to our hike. Jaggedy teeth of the North Cascades peered down at us from all directions. We dipped into forest from time to time, but spent most of our final 60 miles in open highland, landscape with vistas everlasting.
We spent Shabbat in a peaceful gully, reading, thinking, collecting our thoughts for the end. Two basic thoughts occupied our minds: Wow. This thing is almost finished. And we’re going to have salad soon- you know, cut vegetables, dressing, the works.
In all of our blog-bonding together, we’ve not covered the subject of Shabbat on the trail. Shabbat in general is a time for listening, for appreciating, for stopping, looking around and realizing, "Hey- things are okay." Trail Shabbatot make such a realization hard to avoid. With no human act to develop the status-quo, it is evident that beauty exists without our footprints.
We leave Shabbat with a renewed sense that our job here is merely to uncover. Perfection exists. The view from Shabbat proves that. During the rest of the week, we need simply to dig It out from hiding.
Back to our week. Sunday was long- a thirteen hour, 25 mile day pulling Canada that much closer. We met Achilles and Jen, a thru and section-hiker, respectively, and paralleled them till the end. 'Twas another taste of how easy it is for us to befriend fellow hikers. How special for Achilles to finish his trek- from Mexico to Canada, over 2700 miles!
Monday was our final day on the PCT. Before midday, we reached our highest point in Washington, inhaled a final panorama and climbed down, en route to our trail's end below treeline. A few miles later, we glimpsed the meter-long clear-cut that marks the US-Canada border.
Under mostly cloudy skies, we reached the country line: a miniature Washington monument and funny little towers marking the northern terminus of the PCT. Chana remembered to knock down the Washington Monument, which bizarrely hides the PCT
register, a journal for finishing hikers. Ignoring the symbolic value of tumbling the US-Canadian border, we read 
comments written by fellow hikers, many of whom passed us along our way. We signed our own names and wishes to the PCT community, put the border back together and continued seven anticlimactic miles to the highway.
Thankfully, we made it to the road and the Manning Park Lodge before dark. And just like that, we were done. We were in a kind of shock at that point and didn't fully comprehend our achievement. That shock lasted a while- the following days of travel to Vancouver, to Seattle, the plane ride to NY, even the extra day in Dublin and return to Israel.
As our responsibilities expand beyond the capacity of a backpack, our daily interactions beyond one another, our biggest challenge is to take our walk home with us. To be honest- it is not easy. Harder than we anticipated.
We look back on pictures, and sometimes find it hard to believe where we were. Ireland, Scotland, the Sierra, Adams, Goat Rocks, Rainier, North Cascades.
How do we contain such a journey in day-to-day life?
For the first time, we are beginning to understand the miraclulousness of Tzimtzum- God's constricting of Himself within the constraints of this world; His extraordinary kindness in allowing us to access His Infinite-ness despite our fragility. He took this giant Thing, full of unfathomable Light-i.e., Himself, and packaged It special for us to be able to taste at just the right dosage.
For the two of us, maybe for you, too, it seems intuitive to take pictures of “big,” almost infinite experiences like this trip of ours, to remember them with sentimentality but leave them as “other” to everyday life- to define them as “vacation.” Or time "off.”
But we are told to imitate God. And we do not want to just close our trip between the bindings of a photo album. So how do we do it? How do we blend something so huge into the nooks and crannies of day-to-day? Human beings are the world's greatest juxtaposition of spiritual and physical- perhaps because we're the greatest Tzimtzum of all, it is our job to make sense of the whole thing, and uncover the limitless-ness that the illusion is covering up.
Our guess, at least a major ingredient in cracking the mystery- and in turn, a blessing and a prayer that we offer and beg you to offer us back:
Slowness. Perhaps the greatest gift the two of us can take from walking so much is learning to walk. When we walk, we appreciate. The most mundane of objects is Divinity's hiding place. The same can be said of us: Our mundane activities and possessions and business and daily interactions are hiding places for magic and depth that can only be fully appreciated at a slow but sure pace.
We felt it as we walked. We could meet each other, ourselves and our surroundings in an un-blurred, unhurried fashion. We could make out the details and fine tunings and fall completely in love with them.
Our prayer for us as a couple is to take this walking speed home. No running, just walking. We pray that we not move too fast to dive into a water source. We pray not to rush past a viewpoint, even if it is off-trail. We pray not to run past the chance to listen. We pray not to dash to the store for something new, before finding the depth in what we have already. Through it all, we pray that we take the time to know ourselves, because if we are here, some Greater Power finds us interesting enough to be here. 
John Muir, our dear friend from the Sierra once wrote: “Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate,
long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.”
Five months of mountain days behind us, we joyfully embark on years of enjoying the generous wealth provided us. And as wealth generates wealth, we dream, and plan, on many more 'a mountain day. Nope, we surely not done just yet.
Windows into Him, windows into ourselves, windows into each other, windows into us. Wealth, indeed.
Gratefully,
Chana and Yannai
