Send us Fan Mail Three years after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I set out on another long journey: the Continental Divide Trail, almost 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada along the spine of the Rocky Mountains. But what happens when the goal we have set ourselves begins to fall apart? In this first episode of a new Quo Vadis series, I return to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and follow my own journey from the calling, through the threshold and into the Desert. Along the way, I explore why we need a goal at all. A calling may begin as a vague longing, but a goal gives it direction and turns it into action. For me, that goal was Canada. But the goal and the calling are not necessarily the same thing. The goal is the destination we set for ourselves. The calling may contain an invitation whose meaning we do not yet understand — and may not understand until much later in the journey. At the Mexican border, my hiking partner Dave and I take our first steps north. “We can do this.” But the Continental Divide Trail has its own plans. And before long, the journey we thought we were setting out on begins to change.