Hiking, or the art of not tripping

Someone on one of the podcasts that my fiancée listens to (and thus I listen to through osmosis) made an interesting comment. It went something along the lines of, “How do people have a good time hiking? Isn’t the idea to enjoy the scenery? Whenever I’ve gone, I always just stare at my feet so I don’t trip.”

I’ll admit, I too spend a good portion of my time hiking making sure that my feet don’t get tangled up with rocks, branches or…well, themselves. I feel even those more coordinated than myself monitor the path below them with at least some frequency when traversing trails. But regardless of how acquainted I get with the tops of my shoes, I still find myself trekking up and down mountains, through woods, around rivers, or wherever the paths take me (or sometimes where they don’t… whoops.)

Last week, my fiancée and I traveled to Colorado for a wedding. Mikaela had been to the area before, but it was my first time in the Rocky Mountains, so I spent more than my fair share of time gawking out the window as we drove from Denver to our Airbnb just outside of Breckenridge. Winding roads and tunnels shuttled us through the valleys between the massive pine-littered peaks, a world almost as vertical as central Wisconsin is horizontal.

We would get to experience this world up close later in the week. We had some free time the day after the wedding, so we took the opportunity to hike the McCullough Gulch Trail with a friend that we had met there. Only a couple minutes from where we were staying, this trail was by far the shortest and least demanding of the options available to us. As such, it was probably the best choice for three humans that had just spent the previous night at a wedding reception and were not quite used to the altitude.

The trail ascends up a face next to Quarry Peak (which one can get to if one wants to engage in an eight-hour, 14-mile endeavor), vaguely following a small creek and passing by White Falls before culminating in an alpine lake at the peak.

We started our journey a good mile and a half from the trailhead, renting a space in a designated parking area with the somewhat foolish intent of walking the rest of the way to the starting point. Luckily for us, the city of Breckenridge is sponsoring shuttle rides from the parking lot to the trailhead, so instead of slogging along a fairly uninteresting gravel road for what would have likely been the better part of an hour both ways, we were transported to the beginning of our hike in a matter of minutes.

Our gregarious driver, whose real name I cannot recall, partially because his other moniker, “the Chicken Man,” sticks much more clearly in my mind, regaled us with tales of the miners who had lived in the area and his favorite restaurants in town during the short trip. We parted ways with the Chicken Man and his bus southeast of our final destination and started our trek upwards.

The trail and the surrounding area was a mixture of confoundingly beautiful opposites. Though it was nearly 70 degrees out, the cool wind and barely melting snow on the ground made it seem much colder. We had approximately 8,000 feet less of atmosphere between ourselves and the harshness that is solar radiation than we were accustomed to, and as such, we could feel the sun beat down on us regardless of how cool it may have felt. The grey, rocky terrain to our south was juxtaposed against the green of the evergreen forest that we navigated through as we slowly but surely made our way up. A stunning vertical realm, perpendicular to mine.

Then, when we reached the waterfall, another intersection of opposites. Free, rushing water that would continue to leap forward even in the coldest of winters bursting forth from a mound of frozen snow, trapped in its solid form even in the midst of summer.

We stopped to take pictures, an attempt to capture the moment. I’m not sure if I did an adequate job.

We continued our trip up, Mikaela and our friend conversing as we climbed. I occasionally would add a comment here or there, but I mostly listened, observed. Because that’s something I appreciate about going on these trips. The time that one gets to just silently contemplate the world around you, even if you just spend most of it looking down making sure you don’t fall.

And yes, I did invest a good amount of time staring at my feet. I tripped over enough things as it was.

But sometimes that’s what you have to do. Sometimes you have to put your head down and persevere. And if you do, then hopefully you will get to see the incredible views that lie just ahead.

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD

REPORTER