It’s not always bad news…
Note- just a reminder that this was written and published before my wife, Nadyne, passed away. I will be continuing to hit the road and visit family around the country, as I described.
Reason #31- Hiking Trails
My first hike occurred when I was in the Boy Scouts at age 14 in the Los Angeles area. My troop’s leaders drove us up into the San Gabriel Mountains to a trail head and we proceeded to hike 6 miles up into the forest. I hated every minute of it.
We set up camp for the weekend and, on Sunday, we broke camp and hiked back down the trail — a bit easier walk, but I was still not a fan. I had overpacked, which wasn’t ever going to happen again. A few months later, we hiked one of the Seven Peaks trails in the San Bernardino Mountains. That was the first time I had climbed to a mountain peak. Looking down over the valley below was exhilarating, despite poor visibility through the smog.
Health-wise, hiking is one of the best all-round activities you can do. Here are the Top 10 from Health Fitness Revolution and author of the book, “ReSYNC Your Life,” Samir Becic: hiking increases fitness, allows you to take control of your workouts, tones the whole body, helps prevent and control diabetes, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, and may improve the antioxidative capacity in the blood of oncological patients, helping to fight off the disease. It’s a social activity that increases creativity, increases happiness levels, curbs depression and allows you to commune with nature.
My own preference for hiking really stems from my vagabond spirit — there is only so much of nature to see from the highway. On one of my hikes in the mountains when I was in my 20s, about 5 miles from the road, we came across a car, probably circa 1920s, terribly rusted and nearly completely imbedded into the mound of dirt in which it was sitting.
On another walk at Lake Mead, outside of Las Vegas, I found a dilapidated pleasure boat from the ‘50s or ‘60s sitting on the desert floor, in an area exposed from the lake’s recent retreat due to drought. You just never know what you’re going to see. Also, the farther you are from civilization, the more apt you are to witness wildlife — in the wild.
In America, we are so fortunate to have city, county, state and federal departments that create and maintain hiking trails in all 50 states. You can hike in so many terrains, too, including sandy desert, rocky mountains, thick forests, alpine elevations, spongy tundra, dripping wetlands, lake or ocean beaches, and so much more. Although public abuse of those trails has begun to force some trail closures or additional fees, there still seems to be a commitment by the appropriate agencies to keep lands available to use. Also, there are many volunteer groups that periodically tend to trails and trail heads.
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I’ll end with a quote from American journalist Nicholas Kristof, who said, “Wilderness trails constitute a rare space in America marked by economic diversity. Lawyers and construction workers get bitten by the same mosquitoes and sip from the same streams; there are none of the usual signals about socioeconomic status, for most hikers are in shorts and a T-shirt and enveloped by an aroma that would make a skunk queasy.“
You can find the complete collection here:
https://www.amazon.com/50-Reasons-Happy-Always-News-ebook/dp/B091B72L5X
Trappings of the Years 