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Go Hiking And Love What Is!

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

Sometimes I don’t feel like hiking. Like right now I am not looking forward to climbing anything this weekend. It sometimes takes me a few days to get psyched for it, especially after a particularly difficult climb the week before.

What I do is wait it out. Usually by the time hiking day arrives I am ready, but once in a while I’m not. Then what do I do? I go anyway.

Love What Is

It is a matter of accepting my state of mind and believing that it may change once I am underway. If it doesn’t the I love what is.

When you go hiking you do not always have to be ready for it. There are times when you just aren’t. Those times might include snow or rain or hot days.

An Example

This last weekend it was very hot. I climbed to Camp Muir once again. One of the big reasons I climb it is because it is very hard and I believe doing hard things is important. As I said it was hot with the temperature at Paradise at close to 70. Yes, I know that isn’t hot in other parts of the country and world. It was 5:30 AM and still dark.

As I climbed it got even hotter and then wind started to blow. That cooled things down. There is always a crosswind on the snowfields so you have to make sure you have something for your ears even in summer.

Then looking west I see a storm. Rain can be seen in the distance. You don’t want to be caught in a storm on Rainier. Even low visibility makes things difficult. As the storm moves towards me the sun is blocked and it gets cool very fast. I am still on my way up and a long way to go. People I spoke with on the way up said that this incoming storm surprised everyone. Fortunately, as the storm gets close to the mountain it splits in two and goes around the mountain.

So I make it to Camp Muir which showcases even more tents than usual. My guess is that nobody is using sleeping facilities due to close quarters and the pandemic situation.

Coming back down the mountain the snow is soft and that means two things. First, it is safe to Glissade and second, it is easy to fall when jogging. I fell five times, once where it was pretty steep and I started to slide but caught myself.

The good, the bad. Love what is and go hiking!

Go Hiking and Dream Big

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

What if you have never hiked a mile in your life? So start dreaming, but don’t be a daydreamer. Take action. Walk outside your door and down to the end of the block. That’s it. It is a start.

Ok, what if you just hate the whole idea of hiking. Fine! You can still exercise. You can find something, anything to get the blood pumping.

Start Dreaming

It can start with dreaming. Planning what you are going to do. Got it down on paper. Pull out all the stops. Now use that dreaming to motivate yourself through what Tony Robbins calls the “Dickens Process.” Have you heard of it? Well, first you look at the present and ask yourself what you are missing out on and how exercise would help you. Then take yourself back into the past five or ten years and experience how not exercising has hurt you. Then take yourself into the future, five, ten, twenty years, and see how not exercising has hurt you. I am oversimplifying this process. The questions you ask yourself are critical, but it works.

Habit

If you want to make it a habit you need to have the motivation, the ability, and a prompt. That comes from one of the three big books on habits. I think it is BJ Fogg’s book.

Make the first exercise you do small. Really small. One pushup. Yes, just one. And after you do it celebrate! Really celebrate. No, not with a bag of fries or a bowl of ice cream. Jump up and down and shout. Feel it. Get excited. Over one push up? Yes! It will reinforce the habit. I like what Jordan Peterson says. He says to make it small enough that you would be willing to do it. Then you can add to it. Two pushups. Walk around the whole block.

Nutrition

Do this with your diet too. I make a lot of noise about exercise, but you can out eat your exercise no matter how much exercise you are doing. I used to run fifty to sixty miles a week, week after week, month after month. However, I ate peanut butter and toast every morning. Not one slice of toast, at least four. Not one tablespoon of peanut butter, but I had it slathered on the toast. I ate fast food too. So I stayed far fatter than I would have been if I paid any attention to diet.

And I hope you like to hike. If not just start small. Go hiking!

Go Hiking But Just Don’t Fall

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

The possibility of failure is always in the back of my mind when I am in the mountains. My balance has become worse over the years.

Still, that should not prevent you from hiking. It is like anything in life. It requires courage. To accept that you might fall, but that you can learn from past experiences to help prevent it.

Face Plants

I have done many face plants. There are several that I recall well, but the one that stands out from all the rest is falling down Pebble Creek on Rainier. It was before I began wearing Microspikes on the mountain. It was steep and all ice. My legs went out from under me and I tumbled a hundred feet into the rocks cutting my legs and my head. I was lucky that an EMT was on his way up the mountain and he bandaged me up and told me to get to a hospital.

Getting fired from a job is a face plant. I have been actually fired a couple of times. One was when I was selling stamps. You carried this 35-pound briefcase full of rubber stamps door to door. I was horrible at it. Most recently I was fired from a wholesale pharmaceutical company. These failures, just like face plants on the mountain, teach you something each time. I learned the importance of Micorspikes from my Rainier fall and learned about weaknesses I needed to strengthen after being fired. In sales of course, typically you are fired for not meeting your numbers. I have worked for over thirty different sales organizations. Most of the time I was either the number one representative or close to the top. A lot of job changes were companies going out of business or me just deciding I could do better elsewhere.

Breaking Something

Falling can also lead to actually breaking something. Once I cracked a couple vertebra after landing on my back and on another occasion I cracked a rib. These kinds of things go with the territory when you are someone like me who has never been very athletic. I also have repeatedly broken expensive trekking poles.

You can break things in life as well. I broke two marriages and many bank accounts. But once again you learn and grow. Then with some luck, things got a little better.

So get out there and go hiking!

Go Hiking And Feel Limitless

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

A couple of weeks ago I hiked up Mailbox Peak. It is one of the more difficult climbs off of I-90. I did it on a Sunday morning which is my usual time to climb. Then a friend decided he wanted to climb it the following Saturday. Usually, I don’t hike the more difficult ones the close together, but I am happy that I did. It made me feel limitless.

How does nature do that for a person or does it just do it for me? Let’s explore that a little.

No Rain

First, there was a forecast for rain so I came prepared with my usual fair, an old REI jacket, hiking pants and a cover for my backpack. I never wear “rain gear.” But it didn’t rain. There were just clouds which made the temperature perfect for a hike. The younger hikers with me pushed up the mountain and I made it in a record time of under two hours.

Beating a personal record always lifts my spirit. I somehow convince myself I still have what it takes which is becoming increasingly harder to do these days. So I would add this to the formula for feeling limitless.

Lightning

As we sat on top of Mailbox admiring the decorations hikers have bestowed on the mailbox and that someone has installed a second mailbox not far from the first, we noticed lightning strikes across the valley. We could hear what sounded like a small car starting its engine.

Then as we began the climb down the lightning continued. Spectacular jagged cracks in the sky from heaven to earth. It made me feel a part of something out of this world. Sort of limitless.

Thunder

As we moved down the mountain further it began to rain very large drops and then once we were in the forest the thunder began in earnest. It was the loudest I had ever heard. I suppose that is because I was never out in the forest in the middle of a thunderstorm before. Again it made me feel part of something otherworldly. Limitless!

I could no longer see the lightning strikes, but I could hear the results. Somehow I couldn’t get used to the overwhelming sound as I jogged down the mountain. It surrounded me.

Rain

And then it began to rain. Not sprinkle. Real rain. Pouring down like it was coming from a hose aimed at the top of your head. Normally, rain is just an annoyance. You know you are going to get wet and you move through it. This was another level of wet. Rain gear would have been nice, but not as much fun.

It was like the heavens opened up, reached down, and held you in its arms. Wet arms for sure, but heavenly arms nevertheless. Once again I felt part of something much bigger. Limitless!

Go Hiking But What If You Can’t?

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

Loss is not a fun topic, but I lost my hiking. The government shut down the trails die to the current Pandemic and I am sure with good intent and probably a lack of knowledge. The fact remains I can’t go hiking.

So what does someone do when they lose something they depend on for sanity and life? Be flexible and adapt!

The facts

So no hiking trails are available. Oh, and the gym is closed too. Not good. It is temporary, but how long this will last is anybody’s guess.

There are places you can walk just outside your door. Maybe even some hills, even steep hills. You might even get to know your neighborhood. That is what I did.

Be Creative And Flexible

So I created an at-home workout that is actually harder than the gym workout I did. I filled my backpack full of one-liter water bottles and use it for shoulder presses, curls, and squats. I just put another water bottle in it every week. After doing three rounds of multi exercises including Burpees, Turkish Getups, and sprints I go for a walk. The whole workout not including the walk takes an hour.

On Sunday, normal hiking day I do four rounds each being twice as long as during the week and then add an hour walk.

Loss is Hard

Even though I was able to put together a hard Sunday workout it is not as hard as a hike. I still miss hiking. Nothing really replaces it.

Like Barbara Hansen says in her book, Picking Up The Pieces,” “Loss is usually unexpected and unwanted.” You have to be careful not to go into denial at least permanently, and make room for anger. All of the emotional turmoil has a place.

Of course, we aren’t talking about losing your ability to walk like Barbara. It is just not being able to go hiking. Poor me! But the process is the same.

Silver Linings

It is always important to look at silver linings in every loss. You can find them. I discovered that I don’t need the gym as much as I thought and that I will be changing my gym workout when I go back to make it tougher.

Not hiking saves wear and tear on my car and saves gas money. Not hiking saves me time to do other things I never seem to have time to do. Finally, not hiking makes me appreciate hiking, even more.

Go Hiking And Live the Charged Life

Go Hiking, Keep Moving Forward

Book Titles really lend themselves to discussing hiking. I mean that if you are hiking then you are living the charged life. No doubt about it. So now you want to know why that might be, right?

Here is the deal. There are four ways hiking contributes to living a charged life. So here they are for your consideration.

Nature

Just being in nature rejuvenates the body and mind, but appreciating it is even more important. You need to love that tree and the sky and the wind. There will come a time when you won’t be able to feel the wind on your face. Think about that every time you feel a breeze. You will appreciate nature and life.

Consistently exposing yourself to the elements makes you stronger. You could even take a lesson fro Wim How, the “Ice Man” and go hiking with in shorts and no shirt when it is 30 degrees or colder. No, that is appreciating nature.

Energy

Any kind of exercise will provide you with more energy, but there is something about climbing a mountain that takes it to another level. Maybe it is that you feel you have accomplished something significant and no matter what the rest of your day holds you will have that spark to face it.

It doesn’t matter if your muscles are sore and tired. The energy is still there. It will fuel you throughout the rest of your day.

Purpose

You hear a lot about having a purpose these days. Every self-help book discusses it. I don’t think people have only one purpose, they have multiple. One purpose might be to provide for your family. Another to become physically healthy and fit. All of these keep you charged.

My favorite purpose is to make it to the top of a mountain every week. There is nothing like to keep you charged and focused.

In his book “Charged,” Brendon Burchard quotes Tom Robbins on purpose. Tom says, “Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve towards a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being.” A great way to get to that state is to climb a mountain every week. You get wiser, more liberated and definitely more luminous!

Challenge

There is nothing like a weekly climb up a mountain to stoke your need for a challenge. Even if you have climbed the same mountain a hundred times (and I have done that), it is still a challenge every time.

Challenge in life is seriously important. Think about the people that enter Spartan races. My guess is most of these people are extremely successful and live a comfortable life. They need adversity and challenges in their life so they go looking for it. At my age, a weekly climb up a mountain is plenty of challenge and I don’t have to pay an entrance fee.