Hiking to Conquer?

This is flowing from my fingertips without much forethought, so excuse me if it comes off, well....bitchy.

I love living where I do because there are so many people that are into the outdoors around me at all times.  Whether they are mountaineers or hippies, they all have this glow from being outside around them.  Recently, though, I've begun to notice something in a few of these strangers and in a friend.

How valid is the act of going for a hike when the motive behind it is just to see how far you can go in a day, or how high you can climb, or how sore you can make yourself the next day?  Is that really "hiking"?

Okay, Webster...let's have a look-see:
"1. To go on a hike
  2. To Travel by any means"

Alright. Not helpful.  By those standards I could say that I hiked from my living room into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal.

Basically, I'm trying to differentiate the difference between going on a hike to say that you went on a hike and going on a hike as a means of discovering and fostering an appreciation for the area around you.

This friend, as far as I can tell, has gone from doing the latter (hiking for a love of a nature) to the former (hiking to say "I hiked Baldy, I hiked the Ridge, I hiked 30 miles", etc).  Not that I think the hiking as an accomplishment is entirely wrong, but I do think that you lose something from the hike when you do that.

So, for anyone in this crazy Internet-ed world that might be reading this, what do you think?  Am I valid in thinking that there is a difference between the two and that you lose some of the sacred aspect of hiking when you take it from purely meditative to focused mostly on exercise?

Best,
A

Struggle

I love this blog because I can literally write almost whatever I want and if you want to read it, you will, and if you don't, you won't.  I mean, I know that's how it is with all blogs, but this one I don't really care how many views I get. I appreciate them - but I'm not trying to make anything big out of it.  Not quite the same as Hike the Crown.

I learned a lot of good lessons yesterday, but the biggest takeaway lesson was on struggle.  I hate struggling.  I don't like not being proficient or better at things.  I also know that I need to change that.  Everyone struggles, and a lot of the time it's the people that have struggled the most significantly that have the best perspective.

Yesterday, I struggled.
Cross Country Skiing kind of struggled.

You see, coming from the Upper Great Plains, I'm used to flat...so in my mind...there wasn't really a trick to cross country skiing because it was flat.

I tried XC yesterday on hills. Not as easy.
Going up was fine. It was a challenge to synchronize movements, but once that was down...no big.

Going downhill, however, was a tricky trick.  I fell probably about 10-12 times in a matter of 2 miles.  That definitely takes the ego out of a girl.  (Something that is good for me, I think).

The process of falling and getting up also taught me a lot about myself.  I get angry pretty quickly after a few failures.  I think by about the fourth fall I yelled at Nathan "I'm not having FUN anymore."
But, I had to get back up...I mean, how else would I get down. And I'll be darned if I let a few pieces of wood strapped to my feet beat me.  So I got up, and by the end I could go down slight turns and slight hills without falling.

But, jeez, the bruise on my knee from one biff reminds me of the struggle it took to get there.  It's good, though, to struggle.  It makes the hot chocolate at the end so much more worth it. :)


Best,
A