The Little-Known Spiritual Benefits of Hiking
If you told me there were spiritual benefits of hiking 6 years ago, I probably would’ve deleted you from my life.
My boy Arlan told me a long time ago that hiking is the most metaphorical thing that you can do.
To which I replied, “Nigga you trippin. That don’t even make sense.” He tried to explain what he meant by saying that there are spiritual benefits of hiking. But you know how Arlan is. Always hyping some shit up.
Time travel a few months later, me and Arlan are in the grueling final quarter mile of the Pinnacle trail hike at Crowder’s Mountain, just a half hour away from Charlotte, NC.
Neither one of us had much hiking experience before this but, by all measures, he was my hiking buddy.
My legs were already on FIYA from mad squats (fuck leg day) a few days before. My spirit is wavering.I look at Arlan and he’s struggling right beside me.
FEET DON’T FAIL US NOW!
I stop to chill out and I tell Arlan that I really don’t feel like I can make it up.
I tell him my thighs were on fire, and I don’t even know how much longer we have to go.
I tell him the sun is gonna set soon, so maybe we should turn back.
I tell him all the excuses I could come up with, pretty much.
Arlan said “C’mon man, I can feel it. We’re so close to the top bro. I can just feel it. I know we got this!” He grabs my hand and starts pulling me up the hill.
Something about his belief in us getting to the final destination gave me a second wind and I started pushing like I never thought I could. Keep it real, I couldn’t even feel my legs anymore.
As we made it through the last bit of the trail I was looking at Arlan like he was Moses leading me to the promised land. I saw the yellow aura around and him and all.
We finally made it to the pinnacle of Pinnacle trail where you have a sick view of the Carolina landscape. I was so relieved to just chill at the peak and rest my burning loins.
As we break out our bojangles chicken biscuits on the mountaintop, like some real ones, I take a good look at Arlan’s silhouette eclipsing the sun and I tell him I get it now.
Hiking is metaphorical
Spiritual Benefits of Hiking
Freeing The Mind
Ya see, if I was alone on that hike or with someone with the same willpower I had, then we woulda turned around and rolled our asses back down the hill before getting to the summit.
When he was dragging me up the hill I realized that you need to surround yourself with people that are gonna lift you up in life. Not people that are gonna drag you down or let you sell yourself short.
Too many people view hikes as something that you just do for fun and fitness. While it does fit the bill for those things, it’s so much more.
There are people in this world that can will you to higher heights with their spirit and belief in you and your rightful final destination.
That’s a life-changing spiritual benefit of hiking that came from something so “fun & simple”.
Journey & Destination
As we watch the sun gracefully fall behind the horizon I think about how keeping the final destination in mind is the most important thing in getting somewhere.
You can never lose sight of the goal, no matter how tough the journey there is. Even still, once you get to the top and you have everything you were looking for, the thing that keeps you smiling is reminiscing on how you got there.
The dripping sweat, burning muscles, weak mind, and negative thoughts. The second wind, holy visions, and glorious triumph. Was it all worth it?
I look out at the vista and I say HELL YEA, FUGGIN’ RIGHT!!
The facets of my brain that have been unlocked with every hike I make is the reason I stress to people the importance of getting out there and experience the spiritual benefits of hiking.
Physical Benefits
I was 21 when I went on my first hike. A late start, you could say.
Once I fell in love with it, I realized that I just wasn’t exposed to hiking as a child, and none of my friends that I grew up with were exposed either.
So I started telling all my peeps that we gotta hit the trails. Some were like, “Ain’t that some white people shit?”
Some were like, “Hell yea, let’s do it. I’ve been wanting to hike but I just don’t know how?”
Once I see the effect that it has on the people I love and the way that it cascades down to them taking people that they love, I understand the power of hiking.
It validates my passion for trekking and makes me want to spread the word even more.
When I first took my big brother Ben hiking, we had to stop every 2 minutes because he was so out of breath.
I can’t lie, about halfway through the hike it got annoying as hell, but I was proud of him for pushing through it.
When your body ain’t ready for the grind, you gotta take your breathers and drink plenty of water. The last thing you want is to pass out mid-trail.
Once we got to the summit, the first thing he said when we sat down was “I ain’t know how outta shape I was. I’m hitting the gym when we get back.”
I realized that he was hesitant about hiking for alotta reasons. He thought it might be boring. It might take too long. It might even be dangerous.
But the one thing he didn’t think is that hiking would physically be too hard!
I mean it’s essentially just walking a lot, right? We walk everyday.
Yea but we don’t realize how inactive we are on a typical day. Sure, we’re moving but we hardly push the limits.
Even most people that go to the gym work hard enough to maintain but barely ever go beyond what they feel they’re capable of. Once a workout starts to burn we say, “Wooh, that’s a good set. Aight let’s call it a day.”
When you hike you really have no choice. It’s either push through the pain or go home. And going home’s not an option when I have the car keys.
Memories
The most weird and memorable shit happens whenever I go hiking.
Let’s jump back to the next time me and Arlan went to Crowder’s mountain and we already made it to the summit. The mountaintop has a great view, yes that’s true.
The wack part about it is it’s the best view from the mountain so everybody likes to crowd in the same 2 or 3 spots after conquering the big ol’ rock.
People are cool ‘n all, but too many in any given spot is garbage.
We look around and notice there’s a trail on the mountaintop that we can stroll down, so we did that till we came to the cliff’s edge.
Ain’t much of a view from here but it got us out the crowd. We started to head back to find a better spot to chill because a dead-end’s a dead-end. Or so we thought!
The sound of leaves rustling brought our attention back to the cliff’s edge. From it, a little kid, no more than 10 years old, emerges climbing over the edge and up to the surface.
I wish you could see the look on me and Arlan’s faces. We were like “Yo, what the fugg is going on?”.
This kid looked at us and said, “Hey guys!”, with that joy-filled smile only a kid could pull off.
At first we thought he was alone, but then we heard a man’s voice coming from below yell “Jeffrey, I’m coming up!”.We looked over the cliff and saw his dad still not start his climb up.
Jeffrey, Arlan, and I are standing at this cliff’s edge and I ask this kid “Where’d ya’ll just come from. We thought this was the end of the trail?”
The kid said “Down at the bottom there’s a hole in the wall that puts you on the other side of the mountain. Nobody knows about it. Do you want me to show you?”
Okay, now at this point me and Arlan feel like we’re tripping balls. First, why is this kid confident enough to take these two random adults to a secret location.
Secondly, we gotta climb? I’m pretty shook at this point but I’m like we can’t let this toddler show us up.
So this man of a child leads the way climbing down the mountain and we follow. The kid’s dad was just standing at the bottom and didn’t seem concerned at all.
Something made me feel like this wasn’t their first time doing this. Once we got to the bottom the kid took a couple steps forward and pointed at the mountain face. We take a look in that direction and
Lo and behold! A hole in the mountain that can only lead to the future!
For real though, this thing looked like a portal. Then Jeff said, “Okay bye, have fun!” before scattering up the mountain with his pops like a couple beasts.
Jeff’s probably an olympic mountaineer today, at 14 years old. Once we got done admiring Jeff, there was only one way left to go. The 4th dimension!
We laid down and crawled through this whole and came out on the other side as new men. We’d never been to such a beautiful summit with no one else around.
This is what we’ve been looking for. On this side, the floor was slightly slanted downwards but not so much that you can’t balance.
There was so much space to just pick a random spot and lay down to admire the incredible landscape which seemed to be staring right back at us.
We spent enough time there to munch on lunch and snacks, talk for hours, take a nap, enjoy nature in silence, do pull-ups on tree branches, and so much more.
Since then, I’ve been to many world-renowned national parks all over the USA and Europe (think, Swiss Alps), and that little state park in Gaston county, NC is one of the most memorable hikes I’ve done to date.
There’s a very good reason for that. Arlan and I still talk about that hike today and the thing that always comes up is how it transformed us.
We realized that being outdoors brings on so many thoughts, feelings, and opportunities that you just ain’t getting from chilling anywhere else.
Hiking is solely responsible for me being more in tune with nature. I was the same teen tossing empty paper McDonald’s bags out the car window.
Now I separate paper from plastic.
Viewing the world from the top of a mountain gives us all a much needed ego-death. It lets us know just how small we are in the world.
There’s something about the combo of the chemical release from completing a hike and seeing the world for miles on out that demands any given perspective to change.
Even though each one of us are the centers of our own universe, we’re reminded that we don’t live in our own universe.
Before us these mountains stood in place, and long after we’re gone they’ll still be here.
It’s one of the spiritual benefits of hiking can change the way we look at the world and our place in it.
Hiking Sounds Dope! Now What?
In the 5 years since I first hiked, I’ve trekked up countless mountains and have forgotten more trails than a lot of people will ever know.
I’ve been soaking in all of the physical and spiritual benefits of hiking like a dry sponge straight out the pack.
And yet, every time I hike I still feel myself get a little closer to the person I want to be.
If you have hiked before but can’t find a partner for your next one. Don’t be afraid to go it alone. Here’s some solo hiking inspiration from my English countryside road trip from Peak District to Lake District National Parks in the United Kingdom. Lake District was my favorite trail of all-time!
If you were on the fence about hiking and this hasn’t pushed you over the edge, then let me know any questions, thoughts, or concerns on hiking in the comments section below!
If you are feeling ready for your hike then let’s get strapped up and hit the trails my wanderers. Till then, don’t hesitate to ask questions in the comments section about how to prepare.
See ya on the trail!
Ya boi,
Zekarias
