The walls of my apartment are plastered with pictures of mountains. Most of them are from trips I’ve taken over the years and some of them capture special moments in time that mean a lot to me. I have goals of going on as many adventures as I can and dreams of seeing the most beautiful places on earth that can only be reached by following a trail. I push my body and my mind, sometimes to the edge, in order to feel this burning rush of life pumping throughout every cell. I know this. I know who I am and I know that there are many like me. Feeling lost, misunderstood, and like they don’t fit in anywhere but the backcountry. Is it escapism or is it returning to where I belong, like Jennifer Phar Davis says? I think it's neither and here’s why.
For this post I’m going to get a little more on the psychoanalytic side of things and go head first into deep introspection, so buckle in! As I’ve grown as an outdoor enthusiast, I’ve started to question a lot about this super niche world known as long-distance hiking. From the very start, I was hooked and awe struck over the fact that regular, every day humans could test their limits in nature. Soon, I was falling into every rabbit hole possible on this subject, researching everything between short, local backpacking trips to these crazy, elite athletes setting FKT’s on popular trails. I started really looking up to and admiring the abilities of prominent people within the endurance sport community which included ultramarathoners, serial thru-hikers, and various hiking influencers (you know the ones). I wasn’t totally obsessed, but I was heavily intrigued and fantasized that maybe one day I could be like them too. Badass, resilient, wild, and the stereotypical granola outdoor chick who wore Altras and could do anything.
As my views of hiking became more intertwined with my eating disorder (I talk about this more in a previous post) and as I made attempts to repair this relationship, I started realizing very perplexing things about the long-distance hiking community. By this point, I had been following many different hikers on a few social media platforms and I noticed patterns in their behavior. Their story always starts with a thru-hike, typically the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail and most of the time is spurred on by this desire to “find themselves” or “figure things out in life.”
Then when they finish the trip and try to acclimate to life off trail, they feel even more lost and try to cope with shorter backpacking trips when they can fit them in. They eventually complete another thru-hike because they are trying to get back to the feelings they experienced during their first long hike. Suddenly, they find themselves stuck in a cycle of constantly trying to chase the high that comes with endurance sports. This can look differently for each person, but could manifest as tackling increasingly challenging thru-hikes, signing up for ultramarathon races, or even launching into FKT attempts.
As I stated in a previous post, I am not a mental health professional in any way. However, this is a very interesting observation and I don’t think it's talked about as much as it should. I say this because I know what it's like to have an unhealthy obsession with exercise, particularly running and hiking endeavors. I recognize many of the same disordered signs in these folks that I went through myself, including the aspect of endlessly pursuing and striving for something to fill this dark void I feel in my body. Hikers or runners may not totally be able to recognize this “dark void,” but I think it almost always originates from not knowing how to healthily cope with the stressors of being human.
So, some drink, do drugs, engage in disordered eating, or any number of other maladaptive coping mechanisms. And some throw themselves furiously into hobbies or passions and establish an identity outside of who they are in order to survive. However, this is extremely tricky, gray territory and is almost never seen as a detrimental thing to the general public. It’s not always negative and I don’t want to give people the impression that hiking or any endurance activity is bad (this is far from the truth!). I just want to point out an interesting collective phenomenon that is experienced by many that can teeter on the cusp of being unhealthy.
Let’s go back to Jennifer Phar Davis’s quote: “Hiking is not escapism; it's realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong” While I agree that people who spend time outdoors are not necessarily escaping or trying to outrun their problems, at least for me, I don’t think I’m returning to where I belong.
I used to believe that the only place in the world where I felt totally safe was when I was hiking deep in nature. I realize now that this is not how I want to live my life. Of course I want to feel at peace in the backcountry and I want to feel like I can be my vulnerable self in different situations throughout life. However, most importantly, I want to belong to myself. It didn’t take a long, grueling hike for me to come to this conclusion. It was during my break from all forms of movement where I understood that I can’t keep retreating into the woods every time I feel a bubble of darkness creep into mind. I have to learn how to walk, breathe, tolerate, love, and fall apart on my own. This is more powerful than anything I’ve been able to feel while on a trail.
Disclaimer, I’m far from perfect when it comes to processing my emotions and coping in a healthy way. There’s no textbook, step-by-step guide on how to be comfortable with myself, but if there was, I’d patent the shit out of that stuff and be rich. My point is that, if you're reading this and struggling with feeling forced to keep putting one foot in front of the other, it’s okay to stop. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to surrender and face what you’ve been suppressing. It’s okay to be scared and above all, it’s okay to feel what you need to feel. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my refuge is not the mountains. My heart does not lie underneath the cracked roots of a tree. My mind does not belong to the clouds or the sky or the trail before me. I belong to myself first and foremost. If I don’t have her, I have nothing.
Hope some of this resonated with you and as always, stay tuned for more content!
See you out on the trail!