Melissa Lutz Blouin

My patience tattered, my temper lurking behind my brow, ready tears descending as I talked to friends – I was at the end of my emotional tether. So I took a day off work and drove 80 miles to the Sierras so that I could climb up a mountain.

I wanted solitude. I wanted silence. I craved the smell of pine and the touch of a cool breeze on my cheek.

These things can prove challenging to find, because many people flock to accessible trails. So when I sought out a trail that day, I looked for ones marked “difficult.” I found one with a 2,800-foot elevation gain in the first four miles, and thought, “I probably won’t have much company.”

What I did encounter, however, was an uphill battle.

Due to a wrist injury and wildfires, I hadn’t been hiking a lot. And while I walk four to five miles most days, my exercise at that time took me along a flat levee at sea level. My elevation gain and loss involved stepping off of the curb.

The trail started at 6,000 feet and climbed to about 9,000.

Everything started off just fine. I left the trailhead in the cool of morning, with plenty of water, the 10 essentials and my hiking poles. The trail headed straight up the mountain, and so did I.

I stopped after 30 minutes to drink some water, and after an hour I removed my backpack, drank more water and ate a snack.

“Rest before you get tired,” I told myself. “Conserve energy to have more energy.”

The next hour proved relentless. The steep uphill slope, along with the altitude, caused me to huff and puff. I peeled layers off my body and wiped sweat from my brow. As I walked, though, I noticed something. I quickly became still.

Nothing.

I could hear no sounds of modern society. No hum of cars, no overhead airplanes. No chatter, cell phones, air conditioners, leaf blowers.

I heard the soft murmur of a breeze through the pines.

I began to cry.

I stood there for some time, tears coursing down my cheeks, savoring nature’s soft song.

Finally, I continued on, bathed in the sounds of the woods and my own footsteps. Being surrounded by the woods eased my physical struggle a bit, but soon I panted and sweated again, despite frequent rests and refreshment.

The day stretched long, and while I wanted to accomplish what I set out to do, I didn’t want to push myself too far. That can prove fatal if you’re on a trail on your own in the wilderness.

I consulted my topo map. I stared up the hill ahead. And as I gazed, I realized that I couldn’t see the base of the trees farther up. That suggested there might be a view ahead. Of course, experience told me a shattering of the mirage might be waiting there too, with no view and another steep slope to climb. But the moment of truth felt close enough that I decided to continue on.

When I crested the ridge, an entire world of wilderness opened beneath me. A bright blue lake nestled in a deep valley, while another lake sat upon a plateau above the first. Peaks cradled them to the front and back. A larger lake sparkled in the distance. The bones of the earth stretched before me as far as I could see, laid bare to the sky but for an occasional evergreen tree.

I gazed at the landscape, devoid of visible human activity. The water, trees, rock and sky just existed, as they should.

I sat on a rock in the shade of a gnarly pine and soaked in the view for a long time.

Not then, nor on the return down the steep slope, did I once think of the things that had haunted me through the week leading up to my trip to the mountains.

I had conquered my uphill battle.