Are we there yet?
I’m done with the state of Maine now, so I though I’d pass on a few tips. Hiking here can be challenging because there are no switchbacks. It is as if the creators of the trail said, “Lo, there is a mountain. You will now walk straight up it.” Often, the trail is actually a stream that you follow to the top. The top soil in Maine is only 4 inches deep so the roots of the trees grow out because they cannot grow down. So, as you are climbing straight up this mountain on a wet, rocky trail, count on tripping over many roots. In fact, just count on falling. A lot.
With all of this in mind, I would like to share two guidelines for climbing a mountain.
1. Don’t look up. I know, you’ve been told to not look down, but looking down is ok. You can say, “Wow. Look how far I’ve come.” Or, you can look out and say, “It’s so beautiful here.” But whatever you do, don’t look up. The top is always much farther away than you think.
2. And, if, like Lot’s wife, you cannot resist looking, Never guess how close you are. You will only break your own heart.
“Look, the trees are thinning out,” Mango Mamma says to me. “We must almost be there.”
Because I do not want to crush her spirit, I say, “Maybe.” But of course we weren’t. As a hiker, you may reach what looks like the top only to discover, as I have many times, that you are on a ridge and must keep climbing. Or, worse, you may have to descend for a while before you get closer to the top.
“The air is changing, we must be near the top,” Mango Mamma says.
I think, “She is so cheery and optimistic, maybe this time, against all odds, we have actually reached the summit.”
But we hadn’t reached the top, and I suppose that at this point you already knew that. We would repeat this pattern many more times, each of us thinking: surely, now, we’re there, right?
So when you are climbing a mountain, never look up, never make a guess about how long it will take you, and never, ever, say you are almost there. Hike well nigh on into eternity, up and up, until finally you see what you have been longing for: a little brown sign that says to you, “Rest now. You can stop deluding yourself with false hopes, wishing with every footfall that the climb would be over as you grunt and curse and claw your way to the top, because you are now, in fact, at the summit.” It will then say the name of the mountain and the elevation.
Hold onto these moments as beacons of hope on your next hike. As Mango Mamma would say, “Little brown signs are our friends.”
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Brilliant! Funny, true and brilliant
Thanks. It’s funny the things you write when you’re exhausted and a little delirious from so much time alone.
I agree completely. You probably don’t remember me but we met on the trail in southern Maine, you and an older gentlemen had just finished summiting the west peak of the Baldplate mountains and me(big guy in a flannel shirt and scally cap) and my friend( tall lanky guy with tattoos) where headed to the peak. We didn’t chat for long but your trail name left an impression in us two. Imagine my surprise when im just surfing the web and come across your website. Well, i just wanted to let you know i enjoyed meeting you and hope the rest of your Maine hiking was enjoyable(well what little left you had of it).
-Dave