Seeking the Path

Where the path reveals itself, follow it.

Cheryl Strayed

The chaos of Christmas has passed, and though it was a special day spent with family, I am always glad when things settle down and I can return to the quiet of my home. With this quiet comes a time of reflection for me each year. I do not exactly come up with New Years’ resolutions, but I do spend time pondering my intentions for the new year.

I think of them as paths, much as I think of the trails that invite me to explore them each summer. I do not exactly know where they will take me, but I am happy to take on an adventure and see where it leads.

Most years I spend this time pouring over maps and trip descriptions, making plans for various hikes I would like to take, and backpacking treks that lead me into country I have not yet explored, as well as special places I would like to see one more time.

This year is different. There are no maps spread out on the table. Instead I am pondering whether it is time to stop backpacking altogether. As my readers know I carried a heavy pack on my small frame for many years. In recent years I have greatly reduced my pack weight. That makes for shorter trips but eases the weight on my aching back.

Unfortunately these days the aches and pains do not go away when I return from a trip. It is with me everyday. I notice it first thing when I get out of bed in the morning and reach down to put my slippers on. An aching hip also gets my attention. These are reminders that I have lived an active life and been to spectacular places I would never have seen without that pack on my back to set up camp at the end of a long day on the trail. I am grateful for this lifetime of adventure on mountain trails. I would not have traded those adventures for anything, not even being pain free in my aging years. Hardly anyone gets to say that when they reach my age.

These days even the wrinkles and age spots feel like badges of honor for a life well lived. I am not done with it. Whatever decision I make, I plan to continue hiking. I am grateful to have the stamina to take long day hikes with a small pack. It seems that I can still hike as much as twenty miles a day, and this winter I plan to work out aggressively so that this stamina remains strong.

In my last post (The Way of Flowers, December 22, 2024) I wrote about a long hike I took as a young woman in the 1970’s, when a snow covered high country basin in the Olympics exhibited a profusion of wildflowers blooming at and through the melting snowfield.

The last time I returned to that basin was a few years ago following a winter of almost no snowfall. I remember looking towards the mountains from my home on Marrowstone Island and wondering if the snow would ever fall. It did not. The result was a die off of mountain flowers, which depend upon a warm blanket of snow each winter to keep them warm. The basin was also criss-crossed by hiker trails making their way to and from the small stream. There were only a few straggling flowers blooming in that basin where once there had been a profusion of color.

Perhaps that is the real reason I may not return to backpacking this summer. I do not want to be disappointed, to bear witness to another meadow that has been trampled. Yes, I am sure there are still undiscovered places where I could pitch my tent and have a cup of tea undisturbed, my journal on my lap. There are ways to avoid the crowds, even on popular trails, by braving the weather off-season.

It is January. There is already plenty of snow in the mountains. Just as the Cheryl Strayed quote suggests, I prefer to follow the path when it appears, to see where it takes me. I hope that it will take me once again to a mountain meadow, my cup of tea sitting on a log, my tent pitched nearby, a meadow of wildflowers…untrampled.