What hiking has taught me about resilience

Lessons learned from my miles logged in the alpine

Anyone who loves hiking has probably dragged themselves onto the trails at a time when they genuinely didn’t feel like it. During moments when it seemed like their body was moments away from giving in and calling it quits.

That was me, standing at nearly 13,000 ft above sea level, traversing loose rocks on all fours, sheer drops on either side as I tried to keep my legs stable and my breathing easy.

Focus on the trail.

Baby steps.

Don’t think about anything but the route.

You’ve trained for this.

You’ve got this.

Flashback

Just a few years prior to this hike, I had found myself on a trail in the PNW, crawling on the path, but in an entirely different type of scenario. That time, the hike really wasn’t risky. The drop-off wasn’t steep. And frankly, I wasn’t even that high up.

But my fear of heights had me on high alert, and the only thing I knew to do in that moment was to get on all fours and crawl.

Forget being an adult. I was a toddler looking for stability, and if that involved being as close to the ground as possible, so be it.

Fast forward several years, and as I traversed the loose, exposed rocks during those chilly pre-sunrise hours, I wondered if I’d really even come that far since that PNW hike so many years back.

Was I just the same frightened girl, not able to come to grips with her fears? Unable to complete the trek. Frozen by the unbearable worry of falling.

Why was I still finding myself on all fours, after all this time?

Time Really Warps Your Judgement

I sat with this feeling. To be honest, I sat with it for longer than I would’ve liked, to the point that I started to question if I’d made any progress towards my anxieties in the outdoors.

Eventually, though, I came to the realization that no, these two scenarios couldn’t possibly be the same.

The reality is, I’d spent nearly a decade pushing myself toward the boundaries of my comfort zone.

Training my body to tackle more and more challenging hikes.

Taking on small and intentional risks that added up to massive progress in the types of hikes and the intensity of adventures I was able to tackle.

I forced myself to be resilient in the moments when it felt deeply uncomfortable. You all know the ones I’m talking about.

The point in the middle of what seems like an endless high-grade incline on the trail, where you can barely see the end of the struggle, but you force yourself to put one foot in front of the other anyway.

The moments when you’re delicately playing a game of balance beam on a wobbly log that just so happens to be your only route for traversing a water crossing, yet you somehow muster the intensity of an Olympic gymnast and keep steady.

The parts of the hike where your feet are aching beyond belief and your legs feel like they’ll collapse under the weight of your pack, but you push on.

They’re the small things, really. We’re talking about the little moments, where you make a game-time decision to keep pushing, despite discomfort, and finish the damn hike.

But when you look at them over the long run, you realize just how far you’ve actually come, and how much you’ve trained yourself to acknowledge discomfort and move forward anyway.

Here’s The Difference

Sure, you could find me on all fours in both of the hiking scenarios I depicted earlier. But the difference was in my desire to keep on.

That first hike in the PNW? I couldn’t bring myself to complete it. I did what I could, but the fear ultimately got the best of me, and I made my way back to the trailhead.

But the day I found myself on the top of that 13’er scrambling over beds of rocks, with sharp drop-offs on either side, I felt a sense of belief in myself and my abilities. Something I didn’t have on that day all those years back.

The Mere Act Of Hiking Showcases Your Resilience

The thing about hiking is that it’s one of those adventures that promotes resilience over everything. No, you don’t always have to complete every hike. No, you don’t always summit every mountain.

But if there’s one thing I know about hikers, myself included, it’s that the majesty of the mountains keeps us coming back for more, forcing us to lean into discomfort and push ourselves to our boundaries.

It doesn’t always feel grand; like we’ve accomplished some major feat. In fact, it’s often so subtle, you’ll find yourself questioning whether you’ve made any progress at all.

But isn’t that really what resilience is all about? The small choices add up, like pieces in a 1,000 part puzzle: each on its own is meaningless, but together? Together, they create something truly beautiful.

We’re a hyper-resilient bunch, us hikers. And frankly that’s something to be proud of. We take our failures and we turn them into opportunities to do better the next go-around.

We deeply understand that it’s only truly a failure if we refuse to get back out on the trails altogether. Every day in the alpine is a day you’re showcasing your resilience.

So if you haven’t yet acknowledged your grit, determination, and willingness to get at it, let this be your sign. You’re doing good, kid. Hike on.

In Case You Missed It

Last week I shared my thoughts on the way we use hiking gear and how I think we could honestly, as a society, make an effort to consumes less and repair more.