What (or who) got you hiking?

[MadRiver]

I quit smoking after 30+ years on Feb 15 2000 and started my 48’s on Moosilauke that June. I haven’t looked back.

 

[Roxi]

My dad gave me my love of nature as we often took walks in the woods where he pointed out various species of trees and other plants. I wish I could remember half of what he told me. It was during my graduate study, however, in my early 20s, when a girlfriend asked me if I liked hiking. I replied I didn't know since I hadn't done it. So she took me up Katahdin one weekend. I had major blisters and was sore for the next two weeks, but decided that yes indeed, I liked hiking! Despite lots of experience camping, however, I still don't like that, and only do it when necessary to achieve another goal. So most of my hikes are day hikes.

 

[IndianChris]

I saw a picture if Dream Lake (Rocky Mountain National Park) in a book. Had to see it for myself so I took my girlfriend and the 4 door Subaru GL sedan on a road trip to Colorado...and on to Utah for a couple extra days to check out Arches N.P. It was all uphill from there (except the relationship with the girlfriend ).

 

[hermit]

My brother Joe took me for my real first hike in 1964 when I was 9. We climbed Wittenberg from Moon Haw rd,a 2700 ' vertical and a mountain over 3700'..I still hike just about every weekend in between biking.

 

[Mike P.]

great topic, hard answer

A few factors, indirectly, both of my parents & some time alone during a divorce.

Growing up as a family we took occasional trips to the local nature center.

Hunted for several years, followed Dad from 9 - 13 & then got my own gun. What began as I've got a gun & were walking" became more of "lets go out walking, grab a gun" in my mid-20's.

Mom went on to lead some AMC hikes in the AMC chapter. While thinking about my life during the divorce from my 1st wife, I decided I really hadn't been anywhere. (Cape Cod Summers, Boston, a couple of spots in VT, a honeymoon in Nova Scotia was the highlight, farthest South was DC, West was Pittsburgh)

During that time, actually just prior to the divorce, Mom needed a sweep for a hike she was leading on a hike where I had been & had fished so I volunteered, I thought it would be a good time to tell here, things were falling apart. That didn't happen but it was worthwhile.

So I needed to travel, but why?

So I needed a goal, people had done State Capitals & ballparks.

Thought a few maybe had done high points, so I started with those. Started local (glad I wasn't a CA kid, Whitney first would have been suicide) After two or three meet a girll, (now my wife) & all of a sudden driving to IL or IA lost it's allure so I focused closer to home, peakbagging.

Now the kids & scouts have be focused more on local CT trails, places I drove past on my way to NH or NY.

That was borderline TMI....

(Still need to get out west but IL, MI & TX have replaced Pittsburgh & I've been to Europe, still more to see, more to hike)

 

[MichaelJ]

And so it came to pass, in the long ago, in the before-time, one summer in college I went up and stayed at the Tufts Mountain Club Loj in Woodstock with friends. The next day, somewhat, uh, dehydrated, I struggled (literally) up Welch-Dickey. It was beautiful, but given my physical state at the time I wasn't interested in ever repeating it.

Eight years later I worked with two avid hikers, one of whose husband was an AMC trip leader. I heard many stories, and was intrigued by their photos and the concepts of hiking & backpacking. I was looking for an opportunity to give it a try when a friend planned a getaway to New Hampshire. One of the things we did was ride up the Cannon Tram and walk down. We came down the Hi-Cannon Trail and walked the bike path back to the car (the Pemi Trail was under water). We also drove up the Mt Washington auto road. I decided I was going to look for hiking opportunities.

That winter I started a new job and one of my coworkers was interested in hiking together. Come spring we did a few hikes and I was thoroughly hooked. I booked myself some solo weekends at Lonesome and Carter and tagged my first 4000-footers (long before I ever started counting them). That winter we again went up to Lonesome, which was not open at the time. I was on rental snowshoes. I couldn't stop smiling for the entire walk through the upper portion of woods, where it was lightly snowing. We sat on a bunkhouse porch and had hot chocolate from a thermos while watching the flakes come down. When I got home, I returned the rentals to REI and bought my own pair of snowshoes on the spot.

After that I hiked and hiked and hiked, sometimes with people, often solo, filling my time, finding my own mountain spirituality, occasionally losing weight … as my best friend once said, I "went on walkabout." I got hooked on the lists, finished the ones I was interested in, and now enjoy just exploring the mountains.

And so it goes, although I also learned to downhill ski and that's taken over my winters.

 

[Mac]

My father used to talk about the Chic Chocs, Whites (& Tuckerman Ravine). We also once hiked to the top of Mansfield (Vermont). I started hiking in earnest in 2001, when I took my then 9 yr old son on a two night, 3 day MW hike (Hermit Lake, then Lakes). I've been hooked ever since.

 

[Little Rickie]

... So your parents were telling you: ''Get out !!!!!!!!!!!'' everyday.

I wonder why?

 

[Neil]

A more serious answer:

I was a self-starter although as a family we went car camping once or twice and had a cottage. At age 18 with zip experience I headed out with my friend on a train for a 50 mile whack in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. We learned how to use a map and compass while on the job - so to speak, followed game trails, heard wolves howl and walked along a 500 yard ancient beaver dam that had good sized trees growing out of it. I loved every minute of it except for when we thought we were lost for a couple of hours.

Can't believe my parents let me go but maybe they secretly hoped I would never come back.

 

[DougPaul]

I've been hiking and flat-water canoeing all my life. My parents were dayhikers and we vacationed on Lake George (edge of the ADKs) or by taking trips out West to national parks. As a grad student, I started overnight hiking and joined the outing club which lead to harder-core stuff (winter, rock climbing, ice climbing, XC skiing, white water, etc). And I added Tele skiing ~10 years ago.

These days, I mostly just hike (winter and summer) and ski (XC and Tele). And post on some hiking BBS whose name escapes me...

Doug

 

[Elizabeth]

My mom grew up hiking and doing other outdoor activities, which she introduced to my dad when they got married in 1951. I started "hiking" as a baby on my dad's back, graduated to toddling part way and riding on my dad's shoulders the rest of the way, until I got too big and had to manage the whole trail on my own two feet. There are days when I still wish I could hold onto someone's ears and get a lift.

 

[Brambor]

hard to pinpoint

It is hard to pinpoint but I know I started in 1st grade and went to a few outings.

Then around 2nd grade I have a memory on going on an overnight winter hike with high school aged friends and I remember distinctly being rope pulled the last 100 feet to the summit through knee deep snow. Then I remember faintly sleeping on the attic floor of a small cabin.

I started going on solo overnights when I reached 5th grade but by that time I was already hooked.

(it sure helps to have parents who trusted to let me go while at the same time were somewhat ambivalent about my well being.)

 

[erugs]

I grew up in a small patch of woodlands on a hill just outside of Boston (Malden). Family vacations were to Twin Mountain and Bethlehem. A family friend introduced us to hiking. He was a "Tin Cup Appi" - is anyone here familiar with that term? (Not sure about the spelling on Appi, but it was what AMC members who carried tin cups to drink water straight from the source called themselves.)

Thanks mom and dad for showing me a lifetime of wonder.

 

[brianW]

Always was outside as a kid, we did a few family hikes when i was a kid. Remember when I first did Monadnock i wanted to be the one that carried the rope. just shy of 4 i didn't realize one wasn't required.

When I was 10 the Boy Scout troop did a trip/hike of Washington. This troop was very active and really got me into the "outdoors" let it be hiking, canoe trips or x/c skiing.

 

[Ed'n Lauky]

When I was 13 a church youth worker invited me along with some friends to go back packing in the Catskills. He did that a couple of years in a row and that was all I needed to get me going. I never looked back.

Back in the mid '90s I was sitting on a peak high in the Alps looking out at the glaciers and snow covered peaks and got to thinking about those first days. I said to myself I've got to thank that guy for giving me all this.

Sometime later I somehow managed to find his address and wrote him. He thanked me for thinking of him.

 

[timmus]

My parents. Not very original, eh ?

Very young, my father was teaching me all kind of things...


-Don't fight the bugs, stay calm and don't scratch yourself if get bite.

-Don't bring a water bottle, just drink each time you cross a brook.

-Be quiet, and maybe we'll see wildlife.

-Always search for landmarks.

-You gotta wear jeans, it's the best clothing for walking in the woods.

And the one I remember the best :

-Keep a good distance between yourself and the person ahead, if not you might get WHACKED !

 

[PA Ridgerunner]

-Be quiet, and maybe we'll see wildlife.

-Always search for landmarks.

-Keep a good distance between yourself and the person ahead, if not you might get WHACKED !

Words to live by!! A wise man, your father.

 

[StaceyM]

When I was 13 a church youth worker invited me along with some friends to go back packing in the Catskills. He did that a couple of years in a row and that was all I needed to get me going. I never looked back.

Back in the mid '90s I was sitting on a peak high in the Alps looking out at the glaciers and snow covered peaks and got to thinking about those first days. I said to myself I've got to thank that guy for giving me all this.

Sometime later I somehow managed to find his address and wrote him. He thanked me for thinking of him.

Sometimes it's good to look back. Thanking people for teaching us something can sometimes be as rewarding as the initial lesson

 

[eddie]

My dad - he took me and my brothers and sister up Mt. Adams in the Adirondacks in the late 1960's. We went up into the firetower and met the fire tower warden who gave us a visual tour of the high peaks. I can still vividly remember that day and the view of the active iron mine in Tahawus. Then some hiking in Boy Scouts and I was totally hooked. This is a great addiction to have.

 

[JohnL]

I grew up in rural northeastern PA. My town had 500 people in it. PA route 220 ran through my town and a lot of trucks used that route. Every day a lot of them would roar past the house. My mother was a worrywart so she never let me have a bicycle. Thought one of those trucks would flatten her little boy out on that road. The town’s industries were a sawmill and two bars. My grandfather ran another sawmill out in the woods until a load of logs somehow came loose from a truck and landed on him. My other grandfather ran a small dairy farm. I’d go out to their houses and disappear out into the pastures and cornfields and the woods. Those magical woods where you could play and hide and create make believe worlds out of nothing. I loved the silence out in the woods because you could hear so many things. From Kindergarten to 6th grade I walked a half mile to a 2 room brick red schoolhouse. I walked everywhere. In back of our yard were woods, an orchard, a cornfield, more woods and then the crick (creek for you city folk). That was where we learned to swim. We were crick and pond people, not pool people. The only pool in town belonged to my piano teacher. It was a great place to swim on those rare occasions because she had three fine daughters but that’s another story for another time. On the other side of the crick were more woods with deer and bear and rattlesnakes. The copperheads were a couple hillsides further up the way. We’d walk around the little town until we got bored, then we’d walk a mile down the railroad tracks to another swimming hole, we’d walk three miles to another school that had a better basketball court and after playing ball for a couple hours we’d walk back, we’d walk around the orchard pilfering apples, and we’d walk through the cornfield playing hide and seek ‘til we discovered that we were each a quarter mile apart. We were walkin’ fools. Then I joined the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts so we could camp out in the woods. To earn one of the merit badges we had to do a 5 mile hike. A hike! It brought exotic images to my head of adventurous expeditions with lines of people and backpacks and campfires and the chance of a wild animal encounter. When we finally went out for my first 'hike', I learned that it wasn’t so exotic after all. It was just like walking and I said “Heck, this ain’t nothin’ special. I been doin’ this all along.” So, that’s how I got started hiking.

JohnL