He trekked across the Continental Divide on two feet and one wheel, grieving.
For months, for miles, Minnesotan Jamey Mossengren followed the rugged trail that runs from the Mexico/New Mexico border to Canada’s side of Glacier National Park. He hiked up mountains with his unicycle strapped to his back, then rolled back down. For 53 days, for 1,200 miles, for Amy.
His sister Amy was beautiful, loving and loved, and on the first day of this new year, she died by suicide.
“This journey was never just about miles,” said Mossengren, who learned to ride his first unicycle as a kid on his grandmother’s Minnesota farm. He parlayed the skill into a career as a performer and entertainer known across the country as the Unicycling Unicorn.
Mossengren had always found peace in the mountains. He had hiked about half of the Continental Divide Trail years ago with friends, when he was going through a divorce. But they had skipped large, challenging segments of it. Grieving, unable to entertain others, he set out alone to finish those missing pieces of the trail, his gear packed on a unicycle most people would struggle to keep upright on asphalt, never mind the side of a mountain.
“Out there, the grief came in waves, but so did the healing,” he said. “Some days I cried as I rode. Other days I laughed at the absurdity of uni-packing through storms, mud, and endless climbs.
“Slowly, step by step, pedal by pedal,” he said, “the weight I was carrying inside felt a little lighter.”
On the trail, he had time and space to grieve, to forgive himself for not realizing how much pain his sister was in and to forgive her as well. He began to share his journey on Instagram, from the Colorado peaks to the simmering hot springs of Yellowstone. And in between scenes of moose, mud and the bear that swiped his cooler, he talked about suicide. The one topic no one wants to talk about.
