Feb 8, 20233 min read

On mountains and doing hard things

"Why do we do things that are really hard and sometimes painful?"

This was the topic of conversation that the four of us had when we were slogging it through the mud on a 50-mi, 3-day hike around Cranberry Lake, NY. Our packs were heavy, our feet were hurting, our joints were screaming, yet we chose, willingly, to do this to ourselves.

We brainstormed some ideas, which made it easy to pass the time. In our pained states, we concluded it was because we wanted to be sexy monkeys. Ahem, let me explain.

Evolutionarily, the fastest, strongest, most-fit beings were the most successful. Whether it was Homo sapiens or some common distant ancestor of primates and ourselves, we wanted to achieve our maximum potential out there in the wilderness. We have this innate urge to return to nature, to thrive in it, and to be one with it. It is where we belong.

But maybe there's another explanation. We all have defined comfort zones, and by doing challenging things, we push those limits. Then, those activities that were once beyond our comfort zone are suddenly in our comfort zone. We then look towards the next thing, and then the next thing, constantly pushing the bounds of what we are familiar with. It's rewarding, and, dare I say, fun to meet your limits like they were an old friend.

This concept has come up time and again during hikes and in books that we have read during our Book Club. It can even go to the extreme. “If you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one, and it’s not long before you’re conjuring up another…harder, more dangerous,” stated Joe Simpson in Touching the Void. For context, he had a broken leg and then fell into a crevasse in the Peruvian Andes, climbing out and hopping his way home. He survived and continued his mountaineering career. While hiking around a beautiful lake doesn't compare to mountaineering and almost dying, it's all relative to our own comfort zones. I swear our hike was hard, okay.

As much as it hurts, we like the challenge. We feel accomplished having carried all of our food and shelter on our backs. We feel satisfied traveling the distance using only our body. We feel empowered by completing the adventure with each other. We feel humbled by the hard work that nature puts us through. And, despite the load on our feet, we feel mentally and emotionally rested by escaping the computer screens and the challenges of daily life by going into the forest and breathing fresh air. Plus, and maybe the best part, you can seek out a diner afterwards, take up a lot of space with your collective aroma, and not feel any guilt about those fries and ice cream.

The mountains have been the place where I am my most sexy monkey self. The glute-burning, multi-hour stair stepper that ascends me into the clouds? I worked for that. My feet, knees, legs, lungs, and heart got me there. It may have hurt, but I did it and am thankful to have been able to. The feeling of fighting for the summit and reaching the top is among the most rewarding experiences one could have.

Thank you, mountains.