Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Go Hiking and Get Beyond Order

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How do you get beyond order when you go hiking? Simple, as Jordan B. Peterson has said, nature is chaos. You can’t get much further from order than that.

Getting into the wild is, well, wild! As I write this I am planing a hike in a place known for lots of bears. When you’re out there in the woods, the bears and the cougars are the dragons in your world.

Lions, Tigers, Bears and Dragons

Here in North America there arena’t many lions or tigers unless you include Texas. Texas is the exception. I was going to say you wouldn’t find any real dragons in North America but when I think about Texas I am not so sure. After all doesn’t Tim Kennedy live in Texas?

Yes, I am digressing a bit. It happens when I talk about dragons. Peterson often tells a story of a dragon under a bed somewhere. He says we should kill the dragon when it’s small before it gets so big it can eat you. Good idea for sure. But with bears in the woods you actually want to stay away from the little ones because mom is usually close by.

Whistling In the Dark

It isn’t really dark when I hike before sunrise because I wear a headlamp. I tell myself that the bright light will scare the Sasquatches, bears and cougars away. So I Googled that and it says,
“Bears aren’t typically scared of bright lights because bears naturally have no negative association with bright light and don’t see it as a threat.” So much for that theory. I really wished I hadn’t looked for the information.

What’s left? Whistling! Noise does scare bears away. I am not so sure about cougars. I don’t think anything scares a cougar. If it’s hungry it just wants to eat you. I am not going to Google for an answer. Cougars scare me more than bears.

So go hiking, face real danger and then come home and the little dragon under your bed will seem like nothing.

Go Hiking And Love What Is!

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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 But Just Don’t Fall

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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

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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 Because “Everything is F*cked.”

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As I write this all of us are quarantined. We can go out of doors alone to exercise or for a walk as long as we stay ten feet away from people. I am not sure who determined ten feet as the magic number. I thought that a sneeze traveled much farther. Anyway, here we are waiting to see if we are going to die. I am 74 so the experts say there is a good chance I am a goner if I get this Covid-19 sickness. So I would say that everything is indeed fu*cked as the title to the book I reviewed says.

What To Do

So go hiking!! Just be sure you are alone. I go early enough that nobody is on the trail. If I encounter anyone I go by them pretty fast except for one woman and she blows by me even faster. They have closed the campgrounds, but I do not think they ave closed the trails.

So what better way to relieve the stress of waiting to die that getting out into nature. Getting some good exercise and letting the elements beat you up. You will come back refreshed and ready to take on the next week of being quarantined.

Walking

If for some reason your health will not allow you to hike go walking. Walking by yourself in a park with trees is in some ways even better the hiking. Did I really just say that? Well, think about it. It is less stress on the body and less stress means you will probably last longer over time. Hiking can beat you up pretty bad. It is bad on the knees, but even if you have bad knees or hips you can do a little walking.

Walking is my plan for when I am not physically able to climb mountains. My goal is to be able to keep climbing mountains until I am 85. Of course with this new virus trying to kill me I am not so sure I will make it.

The bottom line is if you can’t hike then walk! But if you can hike the, by all means, go hiking!

Go Hiking and Be Focused

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Focus is important in life and its no different on the trail. You need to pay attention to where you put your feet unless you want to end up on your face or back.

Once you have reached the top of a mountain you can relax and enjoy the scenery. Still, what if a cougar crept up behind you? Not good.

The Wide View

There are two kinds of vision you can use in the mountains which keep you focused in different ways. The first is the wide view. Don’t just focus on one thing, but take in the entire scene in from to of you and around you. It is a different way of seeing but useful.

With the wide view, you are scanning for danger and enjoying the differences in forest. You are very present in the moment so it is like a meditation.

The Narrow View

With this view, your eyes are focused on one thing. Usually, this is why you are climbing around an obstacle or scrambling up a rock face. You have to focus your vision or you will fall.

The narrow view is also useful in swatting mosquitoes. This reminds me that I have not seen mosquitoes in the mountains these last couple of years. I wonder why? Maybe I have just been fortunate and had a breeze blowing. But no, there are fewer birds too. Maybe it is civilization being too close.

The Inner View

If you are hiking a relatively easy terrain, which does happen during a hike, then take some time to go inside. Focus on your feelings at the moment. Focus on how your body feels. Focus on your breath. Focus on how you are doing mentally. Pray!

If you are someone who rarely takes the time to examine your life, this is an excellent opportunity to do that. You may discover things you didn’t know about yourself.

So go hiking and be focused!