Mind Set Go

If someone were to say that they plan to hike the entire AT, all 2,197.4 miles of it, or the 2,655.8 miles of the PCT, or the roughly 3,100 miles of the CDT in one calendar year, we would “chalk it up” to being a thru-hiker. Take a moment to imagine hiking from Springer Mountain, GA to Mt Katadin in Maine on the Appalachian Trail, stepping one footstep at a time, while also climbing over rocks, boulders and roots, fording streams, summiting many, many mountains, not to mention trekking into towns to resupply and sometimes sleep. 

It’s no easy feat to trek from Campo, CA on the border of Mexico to Manning Park, British Columbia on the Canadian border when the states of California, Oregon and Washington are in the way on the Pacific Crest Trail!  Imagine embarking on a hike on the Continental Divide Trail near Crazy Cook National Monument near Columbus, New Mexico only to traverse mainly north through the entire states of New Mexico and Colorado, followed by cutting through a huge corner of Wyoming, then traversing along the border of Idaho to reach Canada near Glacier National Park after 627 miles in Montana alone.  People who have completed all three of these relatively mammoth trails are considered Triple Crowners. 

While our minds want to catalog those accomplishments with two simple terms, thru-hiking and completing a Triple Crown, imagine for a moment what that is in terms of numbers of steps.   There are reportedly an average of 5 million steps to traverse the parts of 14 states on the AT.  There are 6,100,537 steps for the PCT and another estimated 6 million steps for the CDT.  You might be interested to know that the Mayo Clinic estimates that the typical American takes 3,000-4,000 steps a day.  How many of those steps are over mountains and through deserts? 

Perhaps the most common question asked of thru-hikers is “Why?”  What compels someone to thru-hike?  Why are some drawn to the trails?  Perhaps their response should be, “Why not?”  I mean, we all mindlessly step into our lives every day.  Why not do it mindfully, minding the gaps of roots and crevices, rocks, leaves, puddles, mud?  Why not reduce life down to what it is: the nitty gritty shear beauty carved out for all of us to behold, one brazened step at a time?  What I really want to consider, however, are not physical steps, but the mental fortitude that even attempting, much less completing, these trails demands. 

Our minds like being in a state of so called auto pilot.  We like mindlessly playing Crossy Road, figuring out a Sudoku or watching a movie and/or eating—maybe even all at the same time!!  And when we’re not mindlessly existing, our minds have a way of beating most of us up with the should-of’s, could-of’s, would-of’s.  Taking a hike, where you could fall over and maybe hurt yourself, where anything could happen, reminds us of the frailty of life, itself, and of ourselves.  Those steps force us to be in the moment. 

Anything can happen every moment of the day, and not “probably will,” but will happen.  Why not be aware, in the fresh air, taking it in, when it does?  Why not move your body and clear your mind in a different way, almost forced to pay attention to at least where you step and what you sense?

I’m not suggesting you run down to REI and invest in hiking gear.  What I am suggesting is that you wake up to potential… human potential and the potential for awareness and gratitude.  You’re not in this alone.  You never were, and there’s no reason to create solitude in your mind’s made-up world today or ever.  Reach out to someone and also reach out to yourself.  Your primal “you” is in there somewhere.  Find your own way to reach out to it.

Make your average 3,500 steps today be anything but average. It doesn’t take a mountain summit or a vista to do so.  Your mountain might be the flu or a migraine, or a bad foot or no foot at all or what some would consider a boring day.  Climb your own mountain.  Breathe in the air wherever you roam and listen to the song of life all around you and emanating from your own heart.  Stop “chalking up” your life as mundane or what you deserve as your lot in life.  Start by breathing in and breathing out.  Focus on your now.

What did I just read in the book, Breath, by James Nestor?  When you breathe in, you are breathing in, in one breath, more molecules than all the grains of sand on the earth.  Marvel at this.  Marvel at the world around you.  Marvel at you.  It’s time to stop cataloging your life with some header.  Let someone else do that for you and then don’t care what they say.  What do you believe?  Whatever that is, rediscover it, believe it and live it, one breath, one step at a time.  Now that almost sounds like a walking meditation to me.  Why not!

There’s not some fancy term for this journey we’re on.  If there is, I don’t know it, anyway.  We chalk it up as life, and we take it for granted.  Start today by taking in each moment in awareness. 

I woke up today before the first bird sang with a tick causing a lot of pain embedded in the skin behind my right knee.  I knew our 4.5 mile hike yesterday was on a tick-infested abandoned railroad track.  But hey, it’s early in the season. Maybe they weren’t really out yet?  So far I have had 5 to contend with.  You would think I would be particularly worried when, like synchronicity, the first article I read this morning on my phone was about some strange, new tick-borne virus in this region.  Instead of focusing on this still painful spot on my leg, on some creature that was feasting on me, on the virus that could now be lurking, I am focusing on the fact that I was tick and mosquito bite free for almost two years.  Chemo was coursing it’s way out of my body long after infusions ended.  Who in their right mind might would rejoice over a tick bite and possible infection? 

There is much to rejoice.  And perhaps there is no better time.  No labels or further discussion necessary.  Love prevails.  Follow your heart to the prevailing love.  This is your journey.  Make it last.