I-Wish Hikes

I recently hiked the Devil’s Path in the Catskill Mountains, NY. It is described as one of the most challenging hikes in the Northeast. Because of that description alone, it has been on my list of hikes that I have wanted to try. It was an “I-wish-hike.”

            Do you have a “wish-hike”? A place that you would love to visit, a place that you have been dreaming about exploring? I like the idea of a wish-hike, or that bucket-list location. It drives us to step out of what we know and are comfortable with and into an unknown. I have been wanting to explore more and more of the Catskills and specifically to try out this challenging trail.

So many hikes start with a desire, with a wish to find and discover something, and then seeing if that something can be found and experienced. Have you wished to swim in a pristine lake? Have you wished to watch the sunset over the desert? Have you wished to see the Milky Way in the clear night sky? These wishes, these desires feed and inform many hikes.

            But it is not just about the location of the hike. It may be just doing the hike that is significant. I have found that when someone takes the chance and goes into the wilderness it is often also to have that chance of stepping into a different way of living. Maybe it is trying to push yourself and seeing what you can do. I have witnessed people marveling at their ability to climb a mountain and saying if they could climb a mountain, then why not take chances with other aspects of their lives? If they can hike a challenging trail then they can change jobs, start (or end) relationships, and lean into the other wishes of their lives. If have also witnessed individuals have the freeing experience of not being able disconnected with the front-country (social media, the phone, etc.) and felt a deep sense of relief. I have witnessed people connect with a part of themselves emotionally, spiritually, profoundly in a way that they have not in a long time and they wonder how it is that they can find that part of themselves again. And so much of it starts with a wish. Leaning into the wish, embracing the chance, creates a space to find and experience something different.

Wishes that are left dormant can become regrets, but the ones that are embraced can be the turning point, the hope of a new way of living if they are embraced. I go into the wilderness on solo trips because I desire to find that space where I can be immersed in the wilderness and distant from the demands of the front-country. Part of my wish for a hike is to have at least one full day when I am separate from the demands of the world so I can remember the values, the ideals, the desire that I are a core part of who I am. This includes my faith and my spirituality. Even when actively serving a church as a pastor I found that I needed to step away and reconnect and remind myself of the hopes that I for my own faith. I needed to articulate my wishes for who I was so I could walk towards them.

            The wish can become a challenge. What if things do not turn out exactly as you think they might? What if the experience is a flop? Striving to embrace and obtain a wish and desire does not mean you will obtain exactly what you may have in your mind and this can create its own layer of pain and grief. A good and positive attitude are necessary but are not enough and may not be enough. There will be work and that may not be enough. There will be challenges and they may keep you from fully obtaining what you desire. And flexibility is essential. We may have an image in our mind, but we need to be open and ready for the need to adjust our image mid-hike.

I’m not really a fan of the phrase, “it is not the destination, but instead it is the journey,” because it is trite and overused (along with “not all who wonder are lost” and “the mountains are calling and I must go/answer” … please, no more shirts or stickers with these sayings on them!). Yet it does speak to a truth in the experience of trying.

Something positive and wonderful happens in the trying. I invite you to take the chance and to see if you can still make it happen because there is good in the journey and the effort. Working to obtain and fulfill a wish means you are taking a chance, you are putting yourself in a challenging situation, and you are (hopefully) open to be influenced and changed. The journey matters because you will be changed. Or it can matter. It depends on you. It is so easy to go into the wilderness with preconceived notions of how things are supposed to go and the views/experiences that we will find.

But I will be honest. Being in the wilderness is not easy and it is often not very fun. It rains. Or it snows. Or the trail is closed. Or the bugs are really bad or it is hot or the other people on the hike are not to your liking, and on and on. On this recent trip to the Catskills it was late November and I expected some cold weather. Yet I was not prepared for the temperatures to drop below 20F, nor was I prepared for high wind and snow my second night. This impacted my wilderness experience in ways that I did not anticipate and it was a challenge. When we have only one ideal of what the experience is supposed to be then it is so easy to be disappointed, and the experience becomes only negative. Yet even in the worst of moments there are always places to find awe in the small and wonderful. On that trip there was a deer that was wondering around my tent at 2am the first night and we had a short, honest conversation about boundaries and space. And then I watched the deer while shivering in the cold and it was pretty amazing. But I digress.

One of the easiest things that we can do is to never try to do anything. We can make the decision to turn from our wishes, our possibilities, our hopes, stay where we are, and not make any effort to do anything differently. We can tend to be like water, looking for the path of least resistance and then just flowing that way. The wish that is before us, the wilderness experience, the life-changing decision, the challenge we decide to embrace, will require work. It will require taking chances. It involves risk. There is the risk that you could get hurt. There is the risk that it could cost more than you realized. There is the risk that what you are looking for is not what you find. There is not a guarantee that all will go as you hope when you follow new thing that you desired to do.

My hope is that we do not get to the place where we have regrets but instead to a place where we can state and strive for our wishes with a sense of hope. Wishes can feel different from regrets. Wishes can look forward, hold onto a sense of possibility and potential. Regrets happen from looking back and seeing what could have been. Wishes look forward at what could be. What leads us to embrace the wish is the desire to avoid the regret. This is what I am inviting you to consider with hiking and backpacking. What are your “wish” hikes?

            This is the time to start thinking about your wish hikes. Even though it is January (when I wrote and posted this), I am already starting to think about the trips I might lead and offer for the next season and a lot of them are based on the requests of individuals. Someone reaches out saying, “I have always wanted to hike in….” and I try to make that happen. I am inviting you to consider your “I wish” hikes and then to talk to me to see what it might take to make such a hike a possibility. The wish may be based on a location or it may be based on an experience. Someone may want to backpack the mountains of Virginia or someone may want the experience of being in the wilderness for four or five days. In the wish is a wondering, a curiosity, a desire to see, explore, and have an experience that you have not had before.

            Beyond the hike, with the beginning of this new year, I am inviting you to consider your bigger wishes, dreams, and desires. Maybe start small with simple risks and efforts to live into your wishes. Maybe start with a day hike. A change in your morning routine. A small tweaking to your diet or sleeping routine. Or, maybe take a chance, grab your pack, and prepare to enter a wonderful and challenging wilderness where you can lean into your wishes and desires.