By Jarret Liotta

For one former Westporter and Staples High School graduate, the magic of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains proved a profound inspiration.

Ethan Gallogly — currently a professor of physical sciences at Santa Monica College in California, and an avid hiking enthusiast — has written a novel called “The Trail.”

“There’s an inner peace that comes from walking in nature,” he said. “a spiritual sense of belonging to the greater universe.”

“I hope to share that with my readers — to show them the importance of natural places and of taking time out for introspection,” he said.

The novel, which was several years in the making, centers on a month-long hiking trip of the famous 200-mile trail, done by Gil and his father’s former hiking partner, Syd, a former college professor who is dying of leukemia and looking for meaning in his life.

Along with other semi-autobiographical aspects, Gallogly incorporates elements of his own experiences of living in China for two years, where he became fully fluent in Mandarin.

“Much of Syd’s character in the novel comes from my Berkeley days, my hiking trips, and from my East Asian studies and readings of Chinese philosophy,” Gallogly said.

“Both characters undergo a personal and spiritual transformation from their experiences on the trail, but to say more would spoil that part of the story,” he said.

Originally from Long Island, Gallogly came to Westport at age eight, ultimately graduating from Staples in 1983.

He attended the University of Connecticut, then later relocated to California, where he first discovered hiking. After earning a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of California, Davis, he returned to teach at both Davis and the Berkeley campuses, where he continued his passion.

“Since my first backpacking experience in the eighties, I’ve spent nearly every summer and many a weekend up in the Sierra,” Gallogly said. “I’ve hiked thousands of miles.”

His immersion in hiking the west not only includes the myriad miles logged in California, Oregon and beyond, but also writing reviews for several guidebooks of those areas.

The John Muir Trail, which could almost be described as a third character in the novel, is however a personal favorite fascination — something he was quite surprised to discover linked back to Westport for him.

Gallogly had seen online postings about various trail groups by a man named Peter Hirst — another great lover of the JMT — with whom he shared the original manuscript of “The Trail” in order to get feedback.

“I’m not sure how it first came up, but I mentioned I’d grown up on the east coast and he said he had too,” Gallogly shared. “It turned out that he had graduated Staples 15 years before me.”

“I mean, what are the odds that two Stapleites would end up on the west coast obsessed with the history of the John Muir Trail?”

For those tantalized by “The Trail” toward stepping into the world of hiking, a special section at the end of the book is geared toward new hikers.

“I hope my book will encourage as many people as possible to get out and enjoy the wilderness,” Gallogly said.

To purchase the book through Amazon click here and to read a Kirkus Review of the book click here.