Hiking

It was a quiet day out on the mountain. Among the trees, there was little more than the sound of the wind blowing, a few birds chirping, and Jeremy's feet crunching the dirt beneath him as his pack shifted from side to side as he walked. He was on his last full day on the trail, moving between campsites, and his pack was the lightest it had been since he started, seeing as he only had a few meals left to eat. He carried out his trash, too, of course, but that was a whole lot lighter than the food that was in his system had been.

Jeremy's muscles were sore and tired, but it was a good kind of sore - one that he could work with and keep pushing through, and that he knew would only amplify how could the bath and soft bed would feel when he returned home the next evening. This was a kind of sore that he looked forward to. The kind that made him remember that he was alive, and that he was capable of incredible things. Most people didn't understand that feeling. They didn't enjoy being tired and sweaty and gross. And, to be fair, he wasn't a big fan of that part of the adventure either.

But there was so much more to it than that. And as he broke over the peak of the hill he was traversing, the sight that greeted him only reminded him of that. He looked out over rolling hills, covered in green trees that swayed gently in the wind, housing all kinds of wildlife. He saw the blue sky, reaching out over the earth like a protective blanket. And later that night, he would be witness to the colors changing as the sun set, and cast reds and oranges over the land and sky in vast ways that would easily be missed while at home, staring at brightly lit television and computer screens. It was a serene kind of beauty that could hardly be replicated.

For a long moment, Jeremy stood and took it in. It was the kind of thing that he and his father had looked upon in his younger days, and believed in. It reminded them that there were things in this world beyond the hands and minds of humans. That somewhere out there, there was a greater power, and it had made these wonders that they were free to go out and enjoy.

But his muscles cried out to him, urging him to move on before they no longer could, and so he stepped back onto the trail, and back down the hill which he had finished climbing. From that point forward, there would not be many uphill climbs left to make. Most of the journey would be downhill, and gravity would be on his side, rather than against him. That night, he would set up camp alongside a river, where he could refill his water bottles for the day ahead. It would be a shorter one than those prior, but that didn't mean he could or would take it any lighter. What was the point, after all, if he did not give himself the tools to appreciate all that he had come out to be amongst?