backpacking

Breast Cancer Backpacking Isn’t All Fun, Sometimes You Want to Cut Off Your Feet

August 28, 2018 KimHarms 8Comment

Life is hitting me pretty hard these days, so I’ve kind of been MIA. But today I need to share one quick little story from my family’s backpacking trip this summer. And I’m going to break my own rule of NEVER posting a first draft. (I’ll probably regret it tomorrow.) I’m giving you an unedited version of what my brain is telling my fingers, because that is about all I can handle right now. Around mile 13 of our marathon 14.5 mile day on the Superior Hiking Trail, after hiking for more than 10 hours in sweltering heat, my poor…

Life The Vietnam War and Sacrifice Gave My Brother His Name

May 28, 2018 KimHarms

(I originally wrote the following post about freedom and sacrifice for inspireafire.com last year. I thought Memorial Day was an appropriate time to publish a slightly revised version.) Keith. That’s the name of my dad’s best boyhood friend. It’s also my brother’s name. My brother carries Keith’s name because Keith Kahlstorf was only allowed to carry it for a short time. The Vietnam War took his life when he was barely out of his teens. I’m sure he didn’t want to die. His family didn’t want him to die. My dad didn’t want him to die. But as that…

Life Our Family Goes Backpacking, But My Friend Tori’s Family REALLY Goes Backpacking

March 30, 2018 KimHarms

Last summer my family went backpacking in Colorado. It was just an overnight trip, and within 24 hours we had returned to civilization and were eating the biggest hamburgers we’d ever seen in our lives. It was just a sweet little trip, but because it was the final check on my post-cancer to-do list, it was a pretty big deal. My friend Tori backpacks with her family. Like seriously backpacks. She goes on monster trips – 7+ days with no potty and no shower kind of trips. My max so far is two nights, and I don’t know if I’ll…

Life The Backpacking Story that was Years in the Making

August 4, 2017 KimHarms 1Comment

Four years after sending a query to Creation Illustrated hoping to write about my first backpacking trip, I received an invitation to write the story. Four. Years. (I’ve had to wait quite a while for responses to queries in the past, but four years is crazytown. ) It was worth the wait, however, because that query turned into an 8-page spread in the magazine. I love writing for online publications, but there is something extra sweet about pulling a magazine out of the mailbox and finding your byline in print. The fact that it was backgrounded by a giant photo…

Breast Cancer Backpacking and Breast Cancer

July 24, 2017 KimHarms 4Comment

I posted the following statement on July 18, 2016. We cancelled our plans for a family backpacking trip to Colorado this summer because a backpack and chest expanders are a bad combination. (Just wearing a seat belt across my chest right now about drives me batty.) Next summer the Harms family will be climbing some mountains. On July 11, 2017 we climbed a mountain. Well, kind of. We climbed most of the way up a mountain in Byers Peak Wilderness in Colorado. We camped by Horseshoe Lake 11,200 feet above sea level where we were secluded from the world (except…