It’s no secret that I’m a hiker. I have loved hiking and the outdoors since my parents fostered it in me as a small child. From allowing me to run wild in free in our forested back yard at the age of 4 to taking me to national parks across the western U.S. What they couldn’t know is the way that they gave me the freedom to make calculated risks and deeply connect with nature would completely change my life. It set in motion a lifelong love of hiking and the outdoors.
Hiking Has Given Me Confidence that I Can Do Just About Anything
Hiking is sometimes a breeze, and sometimes it’s really freaking hard. But over the years, as I’ve gotten more and more interested in hiking, I’ve discovered that the more I challenge myself with hiking, the more I see that I am a really capable person. I can make challenges for myself and I can crush them. I can do really hard things, and even when I don’t crush them, I know that I can put in the work to be able to do those things in the future.
It’s Taught Me the Best Things are Worth the Work
At the beginning of 2024, I was in the worst shape I’d ever been in. I felt so incapable of difficult things and struggled the most hiking that I’ve ever struggled. I had already started trying to make tiny changes, but after our trip to Big Bend National Park, I knew I needed to focus on my health again. This spring, I started to take a minimum of one hike per week and going decent distances. I’ve been really proud of the work I’ve put in and look forward to continuing the work because the payoff of time in nature is more than worth it.
It’s Opened My Eyes to Beauty I Never Could’ve Imagined
The ability to see things that you can only truly experience on foot is such an incredible experience. The earth is incredible. Its landscapes are so varied, so beautiful and it feels like such an intimate, special thing to see the beauty there because you took the time and the effort to take it all in.
It Has Fostered Some of the Greatest Relationships in My Life
I’m very lucky to have a shared interest in hiking with a good amount of people in my life and getting to get outside with people like Matt, my parents – most often my dad, Stacey, Alaina and so many other people fairly frequently. Because of the nature of hiking (see what I did there) it means you get to push yourself with a person, you get to reconnect with nature with a person and, most of all, you get to reconnect with that person! It gives you the time and space to have conversations with your loved ones that you might not have the time or space to in everyday life.
It Has Also Fostered a Beautiful Relationship with Myself
I have deeply fallen in love with hiking solo this year. I started to do a weekly solo night this spring and while there’s daylight, that involves a nice, long hike. At first, I found myself caught up in the fact that I was alone and just kinda meandering, but it only took about an hour for me to realize just how much I enjoy my own company. That I can make my pace, foster interests and curiosities and just let my mind focus, or unfocus, on anything I need or want to.
Hiking Has Given Me A Unique Love and Respect for the Planet
I think it’s hard for people to want to protect or save something that they simply don’t understand. Nature is connectable in many different ways, I’m not saying that to be a nature-lover or want to save our planet, but I will say the more time I spend outside, the deeper that connection gets. And, when I’m hiking, it’s when the connection feels most unique and most, well, connected.
It Makes Me Feel Connected to Everything Else By Making Me Feel Small
The line in the Bon Iver song Holocene describes it best: And at once I knew, I was not magnificent. Being a small part in this big world makes me feel less than magnificent, but in a way that I find beautiful. In a way that makes me understand that small things come together to make something big. Small things have a big impact. But they’re just one piece of the puzzle.
Hiking Slows Down Time
For me, when I take a nice, long hike I feel like time simply slows down. I enjoy the things around me. Whether that’s taking the time to notice the way flowers change from week to week, what my kids are taking interest in this week and what’s going on in the life of whoever I’m hiking with. Life just seems simple, slow and intentional.
It’s Given Me the Ability to Start Those Nature Connections for My Own Children
I just finished the book How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art & Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott D. Sampson and I am so inspired by it. We’ve already been fostering nature connection with our kids by getting them outside while we’re also outside, but this book has me interested in giving them more space, reshaping the way I involve them in our nature play and so much more. I am so hoping to have two adult children who feel a deep sense of stewardship and connection with our natural world.
If you’re a hiker, what are ways that hiking has changed your life? What are ways it’s changed you personally or the way you move through the world?
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