So, I started hiking in 2012. Needless to say, it has been a journey. I have the cracked ribs and the fractured ankle to prove it, (we’ll get there….). But, it has been a good journey. It seems stupid to say that life is about the journey, not the destination, but it is true.
If, in 2011, I had been told that I would willingly walk 170 miles for a vacation, I would have said “You are wrong, not for me." If I had been told that I would be going on the kinds of vacations that kind of require physical fitness and training. I can’t imagine the me of that time would have been on board with that kind of vacation. I mean, I like going to Ireland and France and seeing the sights. I had even been to the French Alps at 12,000 ft.
But hiking….
The 12,000 ft elevation put me out of commission, so I could not imagine returning and hiking around on that same mountain. As a matter of fact, the first time my wife and I left Chamonix, France, I remember saying, “Well, this was fun, but its kind of a small town and I can’t imagine returning because we pretty much covered everything there was to do."
I was wrong about Chamonix. We had not even scratched the surface of what that area had to offer. We would one day, however, return.
So what lead me to hiking? In a way, it goes back to a comment my wife, then girlfriend, made as we looked out from Moll’s Gap in the Ring of Kerry, Ireland. We were on a tour bus trip around the Ring and the bus has stopped so that we could all empty out and get some pictures of the area. The tour guide, as part of his script, said that people like to ride horses, or even hike the area. My wife turned to me and said, “We should do that.”
“Ride horses?”
“No, hike!”
It would take ten years, but as good as her word, we would hike the Ring of Kerry in Ireland.
If, in 2011, I had been told that I would willingly walk 170 miles for a vacation, I would have said “You are wrong, not for me." If I had been told that I would be going on the kinds of vacations that kind of require physical fitness and training. I can’t imagine the me of that time would have been on board with that kind of vacation. I mean, I like going to Ireland and France and seeing the sights. I had even been to the French Alps at 12,000 ft.
But hiking….
The 12,000 ft elevation put me out of commission, so I could not imagine returning and hiking around on that same mountain. As a matter of fact, the first time my wife and I left Chamonix, France, I remember saying, “Well, this was fun, but its kind of a small town and I can’t imagine returning because we pretty much covered everything there was to do."
I was wrong about Chamonix. We had not even scratched the surface of what that area had to offer. We would one day, however, return.
So what lead me to hiking? In a way, it goes back to a comment my wife, then girlfriend, made as we looked out from Moll’s Gap in the Ring of Kerry, Ireland. We were on a tour bus trip around the Ring and the bus has stopped so that we could all empty out and get some pictures of the area. The tour guide, as part of his script, said that people like to ride horses, or even hike the area. My wife turned to me and said, “We should do that.”
“Ride horses?”
“No, hike!”
It would take ten years, but as good as her word, we would hike the Ring of Kerry in Ireland.
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