“You look like an experienced hiker, how far are you hiking?” one group asked as I made my way up the Colorado Trail.
“Another 10 miles today,” I say, “but I’ve come 400 miles since Denver . . .”
Hiking for a month, I was excited to share with others the tremendous confidence and personal transformation I had experienced on the trail. Which, fun fact, nobody ever asked me to do.
But that confident hiker wasn’t always the case.
Before I set foot on the trail, I didn’t know if I could camp in the wilderness alone or whether I could eat my weight in Pop-Tarts.
As it turns out, I’m equally skilled at avoiding bears as I am inhaling brown sugar cinnamon. Only a month before, I thought hiking 10 miles a day was impossible, and a “Nero” was a fiddling Roman Emperor. Now I was hiking 20-mile days and a “Nero” meant a day when you hike “nearly zero miles.”
A month ago, I would have been confuddled if I asked a hiker, “Are you moving with that couple?” and they said, “Oh, you mean Sonic and Mud Slide?”
But now I thought it completely normal to refer to a human being as Mud Slide.
Because over the past month I had shared the trail with the likes of Freight Train and Pipe Dream and Roaster Chicken and Cuddles, 9 to 5, Feeling Good, Caddy Shack, Sketcher, and The Wangler, who earned his trail name when, after a fruitless day of fishing, decided to go skinny dipping when the fish took the bait. (Every time I said his name, I followed it with the sound of a whip cracking and the old, whistling-filled soundtrack of a spaghetti western movie.)
Back then I was Chris. Now I was Nugget, which I earned because of my penchant for dropping facts and statistics, i.e. “nuggets of info” into conversation.
(As in: 34 percent of readers find the use of the word penchant to be grammatical overkill).
Nugget has more energy, is happier, a better listener, more confident, and less anxious.
Why was that?
Why might trail life just be the antidote to the burnout, brain frazzling, social media-addicted and argumentative world we find ourselves trapped in?
One reason is that a big thru-hike gets you away from the zero-sum mentality. Contrast that with skiing, wherein we fight over first chair, first tracks, and finding parking. Skiing feels more and more like a winner-take-all game. But thru-hiking isn’t. It’s about togetherness. There are no castes. Thru-hikers will share their campsites with Muslims, Mormons, Methodists, AND Raiders Fans. Sure, some people invest in lighter and more expensive gear, but at the end of the day, we all poop in the woods.
Backpacking can also be a great re-calibration. Thru-hikers readjust their comfort zones, and they more readily enjoy the small things. (Which is good news for The Wangler).
Thru-hikers also don’t fret bad interactions. Chris would be anxious if people looked at him funny at a holiday party if he’d call someone whom every single other partygoer knows as Scott, The Wangler.(Even weirder when, after saying this trail name, he whistles wah-WAH-waaaah… doo-doo-dooooo… WHIP-CRACK!) Nugget doesn’t ruminate. Small worries don’t bother someone who considers hot Ramen Noodles a delicacy.
Thru-hiking also gives the chance to hear everyone’s stories because they aren’t distracted by phones.
Like this one I learned from a history teacher about the origin story of the Mosquito Range.
In 1861 prospectors gathered to name their new mining district but they couldn’t agree on a name.
I imagine that argument went like this:
Prospector 1: I say Minersville.
Prospector 2: I say Minersburgh.
Prospector 3: I say Charlestown.
Prospector 1 and 2: Shut up, Charles.
Unable to agree, they left a blank spot in their meeting’s notebook. When they reconvened, they discovered directly on the page left blank for the town’s name was a squashed mosquito. The group quickly approved the use of “Mosquito” for the town’s name. Narrowly beating out the more repugnant alternatives: “Blood Smudge,” “Gross Stain,” and “Dallas.”
As I continued up that trail of the CT, another group of tourists was impressed with the idea of hiking 20 miles a day and asked, “How do you do that?”
“Well, it’s actually pretty easy,” I say. “Say you hike 2 mph, if you hike for 10 hours, that’s 20 miles. If you’re on the trail at 7 a.m., you’ll be done by 5 p.m.”
Another half a mile down the trail I was telling a couple, “Yep, that’s right, you transform over a month of hiking. It’s been 400 miles since Denver.”
To which they said, “OK, but all we asked was, ‘Do you know if the trailhead has a bathroom?’”
That would have sent Chris into a downward rumination spiral. It makes Nugget smile.
Christopher “Nugget” Stiffler
Comic and author of “Trail Headspace; Finding My Best Self on the Colorado Trail.”
Catch the full story in the newly released book: Trail Headspace; Finding My Best Self on the Colorado Trail.
