Submitted by Nancy
Stats
Mountain: Mt. Flagg (2,390)
Date: November 12, 2024
Weather: Sunny
Mileage: 4.08
Elevation Gain: 1,487
Oh I love the feeling when the hike is over…the tingling all over my body, my hands and my feet, my calves and thighs, my chest, even my face. I’m aware of my lungs, the ahhhh moment when I first sit down in the car after a substantial one-foot-in-front-of-the-other effort, my breath slowing after hours of sucking wind heading up. My muscles slowly untense after the downhill slog, where we picked our way around the boulders, intently focused. My heart is open from the comfortable silence shared with Pat in the ethereal beauty of nature — the moss was bright green, the hundreds of birch trees like sentinels ushering us along the sometimes-hard-to-follow trail. Even the oak leaves covering acorns couldn’t dampen the quiet joy. We were alone in the woods, what a gift, not another soul around, the forest silent except for the wind gusts, making a promise to greet us at the top.
Taking my boots off, I savor the moment, perhaps the best of the day, knowing I checked another mountain off the list.
As Pat brings me back to my car at the Village Kitchen where we met for breakfast, we start our conversation slowly, honoring the stillness on the hike, and our gentle reacclimation into the busy world of traffic and noise and cars and people.
On my two hour drive home I’m humming inside, a happiness behind the tired, as I set the cruise control just above the speed limit on route 93. I’m just one in a long line of traffic – no radio, no music, no book, just me. I am content, a feeling that only comes from getting away from the news and the soul sucking debacle we find ourselves in as a country and out into nature with my friend. The woods are my haven; the hiking trail my path to a simpler understanding; the Mount Flagg summit a chance to see the world spread out below my insignificant self and catch a glimpse within if I’m open to it.
I pull in my driveway and gingerly, ever so slowly, lower myself down from my rust-orange jeep wrangler…recognizing the stiffness will have set in, hoping my feet still work. I hobble inside, an indication to my husband I worked hard. I dump my pack and head upstairs for a long steamy shower. There is unfathomable joy in this journey.