The world reveals itself to those who go on foot. – Werner Herzog
11,375 feet above sea level.
We had just reached the top of Elizabeth Pass. Earlier that morning, around 7:15 AM, our backpacking crew of seven had taken off from the Roaring River campsite in Kings Canyon National Park, around 7,400 feet above sea level. By night’s end, across 17.76 miles, our total elevation change would be approximately 9,500 feet, the equivalent of going up and down the St. Louis Arch 15 times with a 7-year-old on our back.
It had been a day of soulful suffering and spectacular sights. Having earlier passed by three separate cascades, the most stunning of which was a half-mile long granite slip-n-slide as wide as a football field, we had crossed through coniferous forests and alpine meadows in reaching the final stretch of our climb. Feeling like a cricket staring upward in a bathtub, we slowly serpentined up the mountain under a brilliant blue sky.
Atop Elizabeth Pass, the border between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park, the vast wilderness plunged downward in both directions. The snow barely remained from the past winter, remnants of a great source of life that drained down the mountains. We would only see two other people until we reached our camp, and yet the landscape seemed alive with countless stories and sagas of people that had traversed this area. The mountains had inspired us, but it had been the mountain trail that empowered us.
As we slowly began our descent, I found myself reflecting on the day’s events, and just what another mountain traverse had to say. Days later, life would resume its usual bustle. Hikes over mountain tops would be replaced with strolls through corridors and on sidewalks, but walking it would still be. The benefits of walking together, whether for improved fitness, mood regulation, creativity, conflict resolution, camaraderie, or opportunities for redemptive silence remain, no matter the place. One step forward, a moment enshrined.
Still, deep in the strides, something so raw and so real, beckon us to consider just what Herzog is saying. It’s the step-by step journey across revelatory mountains, sometimes the biggest ones that lie within, through which we must pass if people are to be changed and divisions are to be healed. Between the steps we’ve taken to this point, and the trail that lies ahead, just who will we become?
For more about the benefits of hiking and walking, see the following link:
