Hike

Mountain-climbing imagery.  I've been noticing a lot of it lately. 

Is this truly a pattern to be noticed or is it merely coincidence or the result an over-active imagination?

Really, after the undeniably ubiquitous desert imagery, I am hoping I'm just imagining all the mountain-climbing imagery. After the desert, I want oasis.  Rest, refreshment, shade.  Not a hike, and definitely not one up a mountain.

My husband, king of the Mountain!  At Ptarmigan Pass in 1995

But I do love to hike... up mountains even.  When I was in my twenties (before children) and was spending several summer weeks taking seminary intensives in Colorado, I hiked a few fourteeners.  I even hiked three in one day.  (Actually four, but the dip to the saddle between one of these mountains and the others was not great enough for it to count as a true fourteener.  At the time, it definitely felt like it should count, but I digress...)

These mountains bear noble and slightly intimidating names: Lincoln, Democrat, Princeton, Quandary...  Names you want to work into conversation later.  "Well, when I was hiking Mt. Bross..."  

The reason I like hiking mountains is because it doesn't require a great deal of athleticism and skill.  (Some mountains do, of course, but not the ones I dare to scale.)  More than anything, it demands tenacity and patience and plenty of water.  Camaraderie also helps, as does a readiness to enjoy the journey, even the difficult stretches.

Hiking with small group friends near Breckenridge in 2008

Perhaps this is why I was so captured by Nathan Foster's depiction of hiking with his father in Wisdom Chaser (also mentioned here).  Foster scoffs when his dad speculates that if they hike slowly and steadily, they won't need to stop as often.  So though his father "moved his feet methodically, slow but steady," Nathan recounts:

I brushed off my father's wisdom and raced ahead up the mountain.  After about a half hour of hiking up a steep pitch, I noticed that, with all my painful stops, he was keeping up with me.  I felt exhausted.  Dad didn't stop even once, and he seemed to be gliding up the mountain. 

As is often the case in life, pain made me teachable. That day it was burning lungs and shaky legs.  My father had a lesson to teach about hard work, and I was ready to learn.  I gave Dad's theory a try and joined his ridiculously slow march.  I soon discovered that if I kept going slowly, it was easier not to stop.  I couldn't believe it....

Eventually we summited with grace and precision and a slow, steady pace.  The destination proved more remarkable than I had remembered from our last climb.... I took a bruised apple from my pack and bit in.  It tasted delicious.  (pp. 34-5)

A slow steady march up the mountain.  Eyes to see the surrounding, ever-changing beauty.  Patience as the journey unfolds.  Anticipation of even greater vistas to come.  And big gulps of water.


Okay,  I think I'm in.

Not a bad way to descend Mt. Bross after a long day of hiking -- 1995

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through 

to illuminate a small field 

for a while, and gone my way 

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl 

of great price, the one field that had 

treasure in it. I realize now 

that I must give all that I have 

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after 

an imagined past. It is the turning 

aside like Moses to the miracle 

of the lit bush, to a brightness 

that seemed as transitory as your youth 

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

~ R. S. Thomas ~