The Hike

“Go out to the woods and hike, you hippie!”

So that’s what I did. Off to the woods, off to the mountains, off to the meadows, off to the valleys and ridges and open spaces where the sky is so big a man could lose himself staring off into the infinity of the universe. Where God himself seemed to have come down from the heavens and made a playground big enough for only Himself to play in. Where you feel so infinitely small in the vast wonder of it all that you realize your place in the entire universe may be so insignificant that you for a moment hesitate and wonder if anything you do even matters, in the grand scheme of things.

And so hike I did. The days were many and long. The miles were hard and tedious. The pack was heavy and cumbersome. But my steps never faltered and my resolve never swayed.

What was the purpose of the hike? I was not running from anyone or any thing; nor was I hiking to escape myself or even find myself. I am not quite sure the reason yet myself. Perhaps it was something I wanted to do for the simple enjoyment of it all. Maybe I desired to gain a taste of freedom from the concrete jungles and clockwork schedules. The sense of grandeur and my adventurous spirit surely played a role as well. I wanted to be places where a man felt free. Where he could stride unhindered, into relative unknown, and pretend he was off conquering great lands in far-off places where no human had set foot before.

Perhaps it was all of these things; maybe it was something else. Regardless, I hiked on. Day and night, my spirits grew higher. My soul felt free as can be, perhaps freer than it had ever been before. Traffic lights and corporate meetings, skyscrapers and car payments, monotonous social gatherings and daily phone calls, they all felt as if they were some figment of my imagination-some dreamt-up concoctions of a crazy person who was drawn to such things.

The blisters went from few to many. Muscles were sore every evening and to say I was uncomfortable often would be an understatement. Legs and lungs alike burned upon summiting each peak. Each one was well-worth it however, as each peak rewarded me with views as spectacular as any known to man.

This seemed to be what it was all about-being completely present in the here and now, with few cares in the world. Meals eaten at night around a single-burner stove, passing out each night on a paper-thin mat, gazing up at the stars high overhead. Life could not get much better than this. Alone, in the mountains, with no one but the creatures of the wild and God for company. Peace.