How Do You Feel About Being High?
Does the world seem surreal to you? Are you excited, fearful, or perhaps a little bit of both? Do you feel larger than life or insignificant?
How do you feel about being high (up on a mountainside)? Climbing to the top of a high place automatically changes your perspective and view of the world. For some people, that shift causes intense panic, while for others it is a thrilling experience.
Take a Walk With Me
One of the things I love about hiking is the unexpected sights that await around every bend in the path or just over the next hill. Even when I’ve hiked the same trail numerous times, surprises often greet me when I’m open to seeing them. It may be something as small as a new bloom peeking out from the surrounding greenery when you thought it was too cold for flowers, or perhaps something magnificently grand…like maybe this time I’ll be lucky enough to see a bear.
I’m a tree lover, and there’s a certain peace that settles in my soul when I hike among them. But there is nothing quite so spectacular as emerging from those trees to find a view that reaches for miles in every direction! To stand on top of the world and at the edge of time and existence, feeling like you want to take flight and explore the expansiveness that surrounds you while also sensing the stirrings of butterflies as you step closer to the openness.
Driving Blind and Holding Your Breath
A few weeks ago, I drove up Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park and continued on the road past the visitor’s center. I had only recently found out that the road went further. It narrows significantly, so that it’s barely wide enough for two cars. Most of the time, this isn’t a big deal. You’re driving through the trees.
However, there is this one hairpin curve…not only is the road still narrow, but you’re also driving blind around the bend, with a perilous drop-off on the outside edge. You’re afraid to take it slow because that allows for just a little more time for something to go wrong, and you’re afraid to go too fast because you might not be able to react in time to the car coming around the bend in the opposite direction. You hold your breath and try not to close your eyes as you steer your vehicle into the unknown.
The start of any new adventure can feel like you’re driving blind and holding your breath. How fast do you proceed when you aren’t sure of where you’re going or what obstacles might be thrown into your path? Are the potential rewards worth the risk of the unknown?
Making a Way for Everyone
The road past the visitor’s center is a beautiful drive (that includes a momentary adrenaline rush for free) that leads to the Hurricane Hill hiking path. The National Park Service paved this trail, a project that took three summer seasons and finished in 2020. It’s ADA accessible, though I can’t imagine anyone going up (or down, for that matter) in a non-motorized chair without the help of someone they trust implicitly to get them through the hard parts.
It’s still seriously cool that they made the move to increase accessibility in a place that has few opportunities for people with disabilities to see the stunning scenery due to the lack of roads in the park. (I completely love the roadless aspect of ONP, even though it means that I’ll never see most of the beauty this place has to offer.) People with children in strollers can also take advantage of the path to expose their wee ones to nature’s magnificence at an early age.
We all have the ability to do hard things, but we don’t get there without help from people we can trust. And the earlier we’re allowed to test our wings and explore our world, the more likely we are to move past our fears to realize how capable we are of doing things we love, even when they challenge us.
Hiking a Great, Big Hill
Hurricane Hill rises up from a windswept alpine meadow and ridgeline to an altitude of 5,757 feet at the summit. You can’t see the hill when you first start your hike amid the white pine and fir trees that surround the path. But, once you leave the trees, the hill that is not as gentle as it looks appears a short distance away.
You can see the cut of the trail as it makes its way to the top. From this distance, you can barely make out the people all making the climb at their own paces. But, you can tell how steep that climb is. If you stare at the summit as you make your way, it never appears to get any closer. It’s a good thing there’s plenty to see and enjoy along the way, or you may not be able to resist the urge to turn around before you get to the high place.
Even when you can see the path in front of you, the climb can seem insurmountable and too far away. If you stare at it, it can always seem just out of reach. Too far off for you to possibly make it. But when you take the time to enjoy the journey, you reach the top before you know it. The views are spectacular along the way. It’s breathtaking at times — literally and figuratively. And that’s part of what makes the climb so worthwhile. It’s the effort combined with the pauses to absorb everything around you, right where you are. And the views change with each passing step.
Getting to the Top
Once you reach the end of the paved section, there is a short spur that takes you to the summit, where a mound of rocks and friendly ground squirrels await. These ground squirrels will climb right up your pants legs or onto your outstretched hand. Sadly, this is probably because they’ve learned humans are sources of free food (don’t feed the wildlife, no matter how cute they are!). That last little spurt is a piece of cake after the steep switchbacks. From atop one of the rocks, you can take in mountains, the Strait, and Canada across the water.
You can plant your feet firmly in the center of the solid summit, or edge your toes closer to the edge to peer down into the vast space below. Standing up high like that can be disorienting when you have nothing around you to help orient your body in the space around it. It can make you feel unsure of your footing, afraid the wind or one wrong move will lift you off your feet and send you tumbling into the emptiness. It’s invigorating. Or terrifying. Or a little bit of both.
When your eyes can’t fix on anything that gives you a sense of the space you occupy, it can make you feel dizzy and woozy, as your eyes constantly try to settle on something to ground you. You feel off-balance. But if you get used to the view from the top, your vision settles, allowing you to take it all in without feeling like you are out of your element.
Take It All In
I love high places. I like seeing how close I can get to the edge, while still having my feet feel like they are on solid ground. When I see mountain climbers standing on a high point that is only just large enough for their feet, with the edges dropping off all around them…well, I get a little queasy. I could do it if I had something to hold on to, but I think that might be cheating. Even so, I like the change in perspective high places provide.
After I spent a good long while taking in the views from the summit, I took the time to explore other trails on the hill. Curiosity made me want to keep on walking, but the daylight hours were running short. It didn’t matter. I still took the time to take it all in. It was better to enjoy the moments than to rush them just to get more miles under my boots. If we don’t take the time to enjoy the journey, what’s it all for?
And if we can stop for a moment to let ourselves adjust our vision as we shift our perspective, we learn that this new view isn’t as scary as we thought. It can be a little exciting too. How do you feel about being up high? Does it terrify you, thrill you, or a little bit of both? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Peace,
Des