Looking back at hiking, you probably have a year that changed you. When it became an obsession and more than just a hobby, you did it once in a while.
Mine was in 2001. It seems so long ago, yet it feels just like yesterday. I picked up hiking as a hobby after my oldest child was born in 1997, but it was day hiking, with Ford often in a jogger stroller, as we walked all the trails on our island.
This hike truly changed me. In the fall of 1998, I was in the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington State. It was a hike that changed who I was. I walked out that day and knew I would return to hike and backpack it. Which, yes, I did. And yes, he came with me, toddling behind me in those days. There’d be a hike though that changed me even more, and it was 3 years away.
Sometimes on the beach. Exploring the tiny world we lived in then. He was so tiny then.
As he grew and got stronger, I started taking him camping, starting in 2000 or so. I was trying to find other women to hike with so I could feel more comfortable going out farther. I wanted to backpack again. I had backpacked a couple of times in college, and for some odd reason, it kept popping up in my head that I should start doing it again. I was often on the cliff above the Salish Sea, staring off into the Olympic Mountains, wondering what was over there. All I knew is wanted to hike the Olympic Pennisula.
2001 dawned, and Ford was 3½ years old that Spring. We were hiking constantly. I convinced two local women I knew to go backpacking with me. I picked the Ozette Loop. It was a long drive for us, but I was hung up on doing this loop for some reason. It was two hikes in the woods and one beach section. We’d do it in 1 night and enjoy it. It was nine or so miles. And that seemed like so many miles then – but also, neither of my friends were hikers.
Sitting in the camp at Sand Point, on the Olympic Coast, on the Pacific Ocean. (The odd black spot on my face is my trekking poles). My little orange tent was my first real backpacking tent, that I had bought that previous winter.
We did do the hike. It ended up being more than I had bargained for. Due to the tides and my inexperience in beach hiking, it took us a lot longer than expected, but we finished it. I didn’t realize then that I’d have to pull myself up dirt paths using a rope. I could never climb a rope in the school gym, but somehow I did it on the coast. Then we had to drop our packs down to the beach and go down another rope to the next beach. It was enough; I never repeated that hike. My poor arms hated me.
The return hike in the forest breezed by. Walking on the elevated boardwalk, I felt like a real backpacker that day.
The drive back was so long. I never backpacked with either friend after that. They were not so much into it as I was.
Yet…..
I had done it. I had planned and successfully made a backpacking trip on my own. I’d awakened something in me. And it didn’t stop for a very long time.
A month later, I’d backpack high in the mountains with a friend from work who was actually into it.
Those trips in 2001 changed who I was.
One foot in front of me, and repeat. That’s all it took.
I still see hiking like that: Never quit moving. Keep going, and the miles fall behind you.
~Sarah