hiking – Kay Foley

I just returned from a week at Rocky Mountain National Park with eight women friends. Again, I feel transformed.

I have always said I’m an ocean person. Well, I am. I love the ocean. Most of these gals would love to live in the mountains. That has never been me. Driving across Colorado to see family in California, I’ve of course admired the beauty of the Rockies. I’ve oohed and ahhed at the magnificence each time I drove through, and I certainly felt lucky to be where I was. But my spirit has never been particularly drawn to the mountains.

Well, I suppose things can change, even within a 72-year-old heart. I suppose one can have more than one love, more than one heart’s destination.

Now I so wish I’d spent more time at RMNP all these years that I’ve lived in Missouri. I am only a long day’s drive from there. I wish I’d taken my sons there when they were young, maybe even every summer. Why not? We could so easily have done that. We went to the Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, Bandolier, all camping or backpacking trips–but never to RMNP, which is so much closer. Why? I can’t know. I cannot fathom a reason–but that is one of those things you just have to let go.

Everyone knows the Rockies are absolutely breathtaking! I’ve always loved the constant motion of the ocean, but in the mountains you have the constantly moving clouds, settling comfortably in a valley, sitting high enough above to cast their unique shadows across the earth, or completely obscuring the whole mountain range in a second or two–and then sailing away, rising, or disappearing. Poof! There’s that view again. I could sit and watch that dance, one that is not unlike that of the sea and the shore, for hours.

I was able to hike, and even to hike for six hours one day, despite my worries about the altitude and breathing. We were able to hike up, on foot, to the beautiful mountain lakes and to marvel at the amazing vistas spread before us. I am so grateful for that, for my friends, for my body, for the mountains which do so change one’s perspective. And I myself am changed. I am so very grateful for all of this! And I will go back. I hope to go back again and again.

So we walked and hiked a lot in the thin air, and we breathed, and we paused often, and there were magnificent views as well as pretty little wildflowers. And there was picture taking and eating and stargazing and searching for bull moose and bear and bighorn sheep, and listening for the bull elks’ mating call.

So I’ve come away from a trip yet again with many thoughts, reflections, and realizations. Though it breaks my heart a little every time I say goodbye to my dogs, travel is good for the heart, mind, and soul. And I am immensely grateful for all that I have.

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home.”― John Muir

“I like the mountains because they make me feel small,’ Jeff says. ‘They help me sort out what’s important in life.” ― Mark Obmascik, Halfway to Heaven

“She was nothing before that view, these mountains. As insignificant to any of it as one of the stones that still rattled in her boot. It was a blessed relief, to be nothing and no one.” ― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Silver Flames

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

A curious thing happened the other day. Where I live, we have many beautiful wooded parks and wild areas. The Gans Creek Wild Area is 320 acres and has lots of different trails and trailheads to explore. I love going there. In the fall there are yellow maples galore, and a couple of groves of them that are just magical. I have two favorite loops that I have followed many times, starting at Shooting Star trailhead.

The other day I went out with a couple of friends, one of whom loves starting from the Wagon Wheel trailhead. I had never been able to find a loop from there, and usually after having walked through the Yellow Forest to the creek I’ve turned back. Well. She was going to lead the two of us on a nice 3+ mile loop from there.

It was a beautiful brisk but sunny fall day. We took provisions, with the plan of picnicking on a particular bluff. Everything past the creek looked new and lovely to me although at the bluff I did notice that a blue ball cedar was perched on the right, just as on the bluff I had visited a few days before. I wondered if there might be blue ball cedars at all of the bluffs at Gans Creek?

Our fearless leader and that blue ball cedar on the bluff

We had a lovely pause there and then went on. I was telling about routes I often take and about this other bluff. My friend said she didn’t know of that one. Then she pointed to a right fork in the trail and said, “The Boy Scout camp is that way.” “It is??” I asked, perplexed. How could it be? As we walked, I thought this area looked similar to the loop I usually took. And then suddenly, we went around a bend and I knew exactly where we were! We were on my loop from Shooting Star! How could that be? We started on the complete other side of Gans and suddenly we were in the middle of the loop I knew so well.

Shaking my head.

The next morning I was writing in bed, as I always do. Suddenly I realized that bluff we’d sat on was one and the same as the “other” bluff that I’d been talking about. I just suddenly knew it. And I saw how the Boy Scout camp would have been “that way” and how I was suddenly in familiar territory. I had the sensation of a perfectly smooth piece falling right into its precisely carved place in my brain. It felt amazing. Even exhilarating. I knew exactly where we had been and I felt, too, that the whole of Gans Creek Wild Area was now known to me. To paraphrase Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, we had become the mayors of Gans Creek’s ass. Wow.

I immediately took Miles in the car to look again at the bluff I hadn’t recognized the day before, to show my brain that it was indeed the very same bluff–a beautiful spot I have known for years and had just taken photos of a few days earlier.

Why didn’t I realize it? We had approached from the other direction, from a trail I have never taken, after walking through unfamiliar territory. I expected that everything I saw on this “new” loop would be new to me. I did not expect to land in a place I had known so well. And so I did not even see it.

This taught me something about expectations, attention, and perspective. When you expect a new, fresh experience, that’s what you’ll get, even to the point of not recognizing something you love right in front of you. Expectations can diminish your experience. Attention depends upon what you expect, as well. I was definitely paying attention to the landscape, the trees, plants, rocks, and my friends. But I was on an expedition in new territory, following a leader. When you approach a thing or a place from a new direction or someone else’s point of view, you might see it very differently. I have revisited that spot in my mind from both directions several times since then, recalling how I felt both times. Maybe it’s just me, but I still find this fascinating.

I feel like I can now apply this huge discovery to my whole life. Whoa. Expectations, attention, and perspective. I am the mayor of my life’s ass.

Then again, I could have early dementia . . .

“I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.” ― G.K. Chesterton

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

Tag: hiking

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