It's just one hill. (Lindsay)

Yesterday we hiked Mount Katahdin; Maine’s highest peak.  I have been trying to avoid this mountain for many years as it strikes terror into the part of me that is afraid of heights.  Each year, Jim would say, “I’m going to drive to Maine and hike Katahdin.  Wanna come?”  Umm no.  Not only do I not want to give up an entire weekend to drive “downeast”, I also want no part in this structure named “The Knife’s Edge”.  

Jim gazing at the Knife's Edge.  And no, I did not hike on these spikes of death.

But this time around, I had no excuse.  Baxter State Park was “on the way”; our new euphemism for anything within 100 miles of our very flexible route and the weather was going to be perfect.  I’ve always considered myself a hiker but I’m not sure why.  Before this year, I had hiked exactly five mountains in my entire life.  I was dragged up one as a teenager and hated every step.  Jim has brought me up the others – Mount Monadnock in Southern NH, a small mountain in central NH and two in the White Mountains.  I cried most of the way up Mount Chocorua, a mountain that I would now practically fly up, because I was sure the wind would blow me right off the boulders.  My legs were shaking so much at the end of the nine mile Franconia Ridge Trail that I was passed by a woman with a broken wrist sprinting down the wet rocks. (Nothing gives you confidence like a broken middle-aged woman politely rejecting your offer to help her down the mountain.)

Just because you put white paint on a boulder, it doesn't make it a trail.


Needless to say, I wasn’t really a hiker.  But as lover’s luck would have it, I ended up with a boy who is in love with the mountains.  He was fortunate to have his Crazy Aunt Denny and many family friends start him on mountains at a wee age and he can now leap from boulder to boulder without pausing.  (I readjust my balance with every step which typically invokes the "are we really going this slow" look from him). 

 

I like to do this when I hike.

Not this.

If Jim is mountains and oceans, I’m forests and lakes.  I’m perfectly happy running through a town forest.  Hills are fine, even roots and rocks; I don’t mind running into terrifying wildlife and I’ve gotten myself home in the middle of the winter when I was lost for five hours in the woods without enough clothes or any food.  In the end, I just don’t want to die.  Running through the woods without another soul in sight while Keira sprints around, occasionally checking in with me, is bliss.  Scrambling up steep rocks while trying not to look at the ravine I’m likely to slide into is not my idea of a good time. 

Until it was.

I seem to have replaced long runs with long hikes on this trip and, I have to say, it’s kinda gnarly. (Advice: if a hiker ever tells you to do a hike because it’s “gnarly”, avoid it at all costs.  Gnarly = you will probably die) So, I begrudgingly agreed to hike Katahdin because Jim said, “well, I think you’re ready for it” which is Jim-speak for “she’ll tweak out but I really want to hike this mountain so I’ll pretend she’s ready”.

 

We wanted to hike the “easy” trail up (and by “easy”, I mean only “moderately strenuous”) but this particular park limits the number of people who can park at any given trailhead and apparently 35 other people also thought the easy route would be nice so we ended up on the Appalachian Trail (AT) instead.  (i.e. “very strenuous”) For those who don’t know, the AT ends at the summit of Katahdin so we were excited to possibly see some thru-hikers (those who hiked from Georgia to Maine) finishing their four-six month journeys. 

We met our first hiker at, you guessed it, the first f’ing ladder.  Ladders are used on trails to assist hikers up a particularly steep section.  I think ladders are a park’s way of saying, “okay, all the wimps can turn around now”.  When I get to a ladder or steep section, I want to be alone with my fear of heights.  I want to whimper and yell at Jim and even drop a tear or two without an audience.  But today, a man who had hiked 2,200 miles in the past four months stood there and watched me.  Of course, when someone is staring at you, you want to be cool so I just hoisted myself up without much drama.

This is what Jim thinks of ladders. 

And this is what I think.  See any difference?

We chatted with him for awhile and another thru-hiker about their plans now that their journey was complete.  I recognized the mixture of elation and sadness now that they were finished and knew I’d see the same in my eyes when our trip is completed.  And it got me thinking about how these men (and one woman – yay!) gave six months to be in the woods, to get away from the working world and just live in the moment.  And while Jim and I like showering too much to have done the AT (we considered it at one point but our max is one shower every three days), I found many similarities in the people hiking this incredible trail. 

While running helps me stay in the moment, it occurs more frequently when I hike.  Whether I’m trying to focus on every step on a technical climb or so exhausted at the end to think about much else, I tend to find hours of blissful nothingness in my overly-planning brain.  Imagine the effects of this if you do it every day for months? 

And unlike a long run, where you could theoretically quit and call your partner for a pity ride or just turn around, once you reach a summit, you have to go back down.  Which means when my legs are screaming after five miles of ascent, I just tell them to shut up because we have to do the same five to get back to the car where the cookies are.  It’s a wonderful feeling really, to move from excitement in the beginning of a hike, to a chatty ascent, to the silent huffing and puffing in the steep sections, to the celebration at the top, to the rage at having to now climb down the same sections that made you crap your pants on the way up, to a peaceful calm in the last mile or two and that glorious feeling of taking a shower and stuffing your face because you know you burned a few thousand calories.

I see the same peaceful look in the eyes of shelter dogs (or any dog) after a good run or hike.  There is nothing more satisfying than watching a shelter dog go from anxious and hyper in her kennel to calm and serene - the world is a better place for having volunteers who run with shelter dogs.

 

Beauty, a shelter dog, after her run.

Hiking is pushing yourself and staying calm when your brain is telling you to just go home and serenity all in one.  I heard on the radio today public libraries described as “places of bustling quiet”.  I believe mountains and trails support the same culture.  And it seems, for this reason, I am now a hiker.