Never stop hiking

Hiking in the Val d'Aosta
Italian Alps

September 8.  We've reached the second week of September.  It occurs to me that not once this summer have I been hiking in the mountains.  A wonderful hike along the Cornwall coast, back in May, sure, but that's not mountain hiking.  And yet I live surrounded by the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges, a hiker's paradise.

My friend Pat and I had plans to go for a day hike tomorrow, but we may have dawdled too long -- the weather forecast is for rain tomorrow and most of the week, and we've had to cancel.  We're now thinking about late September, but the days grow shorter and the weather becomes less predictable. 

Regret for my missed opportunities -- in a way, for a missed summer -- was reinforced by my reading for a second time Paolo Cognetti's novel about growing up in the Italian Alps, The Eight Mountains, a beautifully written work that I discussed in this blog in 2018.  The novel is the story of a relationship between father and son, and between the son and a friend, but it's also a loving depiction of life in the mountains -- climbing, hiking, walking, observing, exploring.  It was hard to read the first time, and equally hard this second time, without longing to head for the hills myself, to put on a pair of hiking boots and set off into the mountains.

Higher up again the vegetation disappears; snow covers everything until the beginning of summer; and the prevailing color is that of the gray rock, veined with quartz and the yellow of lichen.  That was where my father's world began.  After three hours' walking, the meadows and woods would give way to scree, to lakes hidden in glacial basins, to gorges gouged by avalanches, to streams of icy water.  The mountain was transformed into a harsher place, inhospitable and pure; up there he would become happy.

I'm old enough now not only to regret missing a summer's opportunity to hike and climb, but to worry about the number of summers I have left to do so.  Already there are climbs that I could have done ten years ago (or even five years ago) that today -- at least in a group of younger climbers -- I wouldn't attempt.  But much still remains open to me; I want to take advantage of my opportunities.

Cognetti's book, of course, especially suggests the Alps.  Not climbing the Matterhorn or Monte Rosa -- climbs I wouldn't have attempted at any age -- but simply walking up and down the lower hills in the area.  My nephew Doug and I did a traverse called the "Haute Route" from Chamonix to Zermatt about thirty years ago, and ten years later another nephew, Denny, and I did a similar walk around Mont Blanc.  Both were strenuous hikes, but they were strenuous primarily because of the pace we were attempting.  Similar routes wind throughout the mountains of Switzerland, passing through one Alpine village after another, with mountain refuges provided where villages are sparse.  The hiker can set his own pace. 

I'd love to do something similar in the near future, preferably with one or more hiking companions, but alone if necessary.  But I don't really need to fly to Switzerland.  The opportunities for mountain hiking around Seattle are boundless.  And the area between Snoqualmie and Stevens Passes hasn't been named the "Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area" for nothing.

I'm making a mental note, which I'll reinforce in the months ahead, to take full advantage of all my hiking opportunities in 2020.  I'm hoping to be able to hike for many years to come.  But why gamble?