If you told me five, six, seven, ten years ago that I would devote months of my life to hiking I would have called BS. For the first 31 years of my life I rarely ever hiked. On paper it should have been a no brainer but for whatever reason it wasn’t.
As a kid I was obsessed with animals and nature but also a tad lazy and not someone that would “exercise” outside of organized sports. In college, the only outdoor activities I participated in was golf and day parties. As a yuppie I got lost in city life and most of my traveling revolved around visiting cities in the US or abroad and trying to eat drink and look at the best things I could, mostly indoors.
At all those time periods I was perfectly content doing what I was doing and also can’t imagine that for me right now. I think that’s a good thing, to grow, change, find new things that interest you and maybe surprise yourself. At the same time there’s a slight twinge of pain having not discovered hiking sooner. It’s just my brain playing rearview FOMO so I try to remind myself that what I was doing when I was doing it for the most part was what I wanted to do at the moment. Which is all you can ask.
So why do I now like to hike? The views obviously. The photo opps and incredible vistas I’ve seen in my short career in Switzerland, Upstate NY, Montana, Canada, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Peru, and Nepal. But also the feeling of having accomplished something. Trying to get somewhere as quickly as I can to see what my body is capable of. The feeling of being along in the forest with only the sounds of nature. A cold plunge into a mountain lake. The rare impressive animal sighting. The ability to mostly turn my brain off and walk in a meditative state for hours at a time and truly unplug.
From someone who never dreamed I would be a hiker I highly recommend it. If you can, start somewhere ridiculous like Switzerland like I did and it will make you appreciate the hikes closer to home. If you need to, bring a stuffed animal dog as your companion.