There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb
The Climb - Miley Cyrus
Happy New Year! Oh wait, I am a little late aren't I? No matter. I'd like to talk to you today about hiking and the lessons that we can draw from being on the hiking trail. Why don't we start with a story. The year was 2018 and I was a strapping young man bursting with dreams and ideas, but not much of a sense of adventure. One day as I was parting with a friend, he casually asked me, "Joe do you hike?" I replied yes with some hesitation despite the fact that I had only hiked once before in my entire life. He asked me if I was ready to attend a hike and I again replied yes. A few weeks later I was on a bus on my way to Naivasha for a hike on 3 hills, all to be done on the same day. It has been a year since then and I am still hiking. Last Saturday, I went for the toughest hike that I have ever attended and these are the lessons that I learned from it.
In hiking as in life, one requires a clear goal. For a lot of people, their goal in hiking is be fit. For others it is to have fun and still for others it is to meet new people and to travel. Everyone who hikes regularly has a reason as to why they hike and so it is in life. One of the things that everyone needs to be happy is something to do, something meaningful. Goals give us something to pursue, something to work towards, something to focus on and something to apply ourselves to. The feeling of achievement that we experience in reaching these goals reinforces who we are and makes us more confident of pursuing other goals.
Beyond our individual selves, goals unite us with people who have similar goals and allow us to be more effective. Hikers often hike in groups. It is not only more fun to hook up with other people in pursuit of a common passion but it is also immensely rewarding since it allows you to learn a lot of things much faster.
I once heard of a story in which a bunch of girls showed up for a hike in high heels. Needless to say that this was ill advised. Hiking is not an ordinary day to day activity, it requires some preparation. For one, you need to hydrate for days before the actual hike, this is because the hill will cause you dehydration, dehydration will lead to several issues including; headaches, weakness, dizziness and lower blood pressure. None of this is good on a regular day, on a hike they are especially perilous given the many dangers associated with hiking, such as falling from high points.
You also need hiking gear including but not limited to a bag to carry the things you will need for the hike, two or more bottles of water, light food, hiking boots and hiking poles. You may need more or less equipment depending on the mountain or hill that you intend to climb.
In life as in hiking, you must prepare yourself adequately in order to pursue your life goals. Good things don't come easy and you must be prepared to pay the price to get to where you want to be.
You may start together, but you don't finish together
Hiking is every bit a competitive sport as running is. In particular, hiking is a lot like a marathon. You may all start at a common point but as you go along, divisions start to occur. Some people naturally move faster, mostly because they have hiked before and are thus better prepared for it. In the same way, in life there are people who move through certain stages in life faster than others. These people don't always reach the summit or the finish line before everyone else.
In Hiking as in most marathons, it matters not that you are the first one, it only matters that you finish.
It's not about the destination, it is about the journey
Success means nothing without the challenge.
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value...” - Thomas Paine
Oftentimes people curse while they are climbing the mountain. Why? The climb is tough. You fight against gravity, both on the way up and on the way down. You fight the heat and the cold. It might rain or it might be windy. Yes indeed, you might have to climb through treacherous terrain while battling hailstones, I know I have. Such is life. While pursuing your dreams you will encounter hailstorms. You will face adverse conditions when you thought that you were already facing your worst day, again, I have been there.
Have you ever had such a bad year that you thought it couldn't get worse and then it did? Yeah it's not funny at all.
You will go through things in life which you will not understand while you are going through them
- Les Brown
When you reach you destination, when you achieve that long time dream, when everything culminates into that one dream that you have always had then it will all make sense. Adversity makes the man, remember that. Therefore, enjoy your journey. If you fall seven times, rise up eight times! The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.
The Higher Your Goal, The Harder It Will Be To Reach It
When we were hiking last weekend, we kept seeing a summit. We would climb hard and reach it, only to be told that it was not the actual summit of the mountain. It took six and a half hours to get to the fifth summit, which was the real summit of the mountain. By then, everything in my body was screaming in pain, but it was nothing compared to my exhaustion. I had never had a hard hike prior to last weekend and this was a tough hike. By the time I made it to the summit, I was dead tired. I collapsed onto a rock and lay there like a dying soldier.
It is important to note here that I had been on other hikes before, most of which had not really bothered me. I have been on marathons to me too. This was different. By the time I was halfway, I was utterly exhausted. It took sheer willpower and lots of encouragement to get to the peak.
Life goals are much like my experiences hiking, the lower your goal, the easier it is to achieve, but also it is less rewarding. The higher your goal is, the harder it is to reach but also, the greater the reward.
You will make it but not alone
Now I know there are incredibly fit people who can hike the most formidable mountains in Africa in astoundingly short durations, in fact, I have met them. Some of them were at that very hike, both men and women. Can I tell you a secret? Don't judge a book by its cover. There were some short slender ladies on that hike who could carry incredible weights and who completed the hike in record time. It is absolutely shocking how some people can carry the equivalent of half their weight in a backpack and still not struggle to climb a steep mountain.
For me it was different. I weigh two hundred and ten pounds, far more than anyone else at that hike and far beyond the recommended weight of someone my height. I am a strong person and like I mentioned earlier, I have hiked before without straining too much. This was different. I ran out of water much earlier than I expected. I ran out of strength halfway to the top. My body trembled and I became frail. My heart beat erratically. Sometimes my heart pounded furiously, at other times it slowed so much that my whole body was consumed with weakness and I had to sit down or collapse.
I fell several times. Every part of my body hurt. I reached within several hundred meters of the peak but my body was too weak to continue. I resorted to making ten steps forward then pausing for thirty seconds, sometimes more. It was hard. I had been fighting the voices of doubt for several hours. I had been fighting a strong desire to quit as others had done. I had been fighting to continue but now, my body had had it. It was not simply a question of will, it was also a question of ability. Soon I was making five steps then stopping for two minutes.
I managed to get within a couple hundred meters of the peak but beyond that I could not continue. A friendly lady kept encouraging me. The two of us were the last ones. She too was suffering just like I was but she had the strength to go on, I did not. She promised not to leave me but said that we had to make it to the summit. I tried but I could not go on. I was now only able to make just three steps, then I had to stop for two minutes to heave and pant.
My heart was moving so slow I thought I was going to die. Coupled with that, I was fighting the bitter urge to vomit. The ground was muddy and it was hard to move at all. To make matters worse we were at an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters above sea level. I had never been above 2,800 meters above sea level. Even the vegetation was different. The grass protruded well above the ground and concealed the ground beneath, it tripped us many times.
Then the hiking guide showed up. He took my hand and he pulled me forward. With him I could at least take ten steps forward before resting for thirty seconds, again. With him, I made it to the peak. For the final steps to the top of the mountain, I asked him to let me do it alone. He acknowledged my request and released my hand. I leaned on my hiking pole with all my might. My lungs were burning. Every breath felt like it was my last. It was as if I was drowning out of water, it is a hard feeling to describe, panting like an ox but feeling like each breath is hardly enough. I eventually made it to the top and collapsed on a rock.
I was wearing very light clothes but the cold did not bother me, I had made it and I deserved my rest. The hiking instructor woke me up from my sleep and asked me to wear something warm. "If you sleep here like this, you may never wake up," he said. I decided to wear the t-shirt so that I could get back to sleeping. Unfortunately this was not to be. The way down would be just as long as the way up and we had to leave immediately.
I have seldom been tested the way I was on that mountain but through it I learned a lot more than I can share here, including the kindness of strangers and the capacity of the human body to adapt and endure.
The view is beautiful at the top
In other words, it is worth the pain, it is worth the struggle. Let your dreams guide you to the place your heart calls home.
You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination - Roman Payne
It is my hope that you enjoyed this article. It is also my hope that these goals will guide you in pursuing your life goals. Till next time, stay strong, stay hungry and stay foolish
