​​Chhh chhh. As I trudged forward on the light canyon sands, I stared at my feet, covered with the cheap $50 hiking boots quickly purchased from Zappos three years ago in Edinburgh. My toes were buried deep into the outworn soles, my knees almost buckling at every step into lower elevation. Both of my collar bones were scraped where my top backpacking straps had shaved the skin off, dried with red orange blood, the same hue as my 45 liter REI pack that felt ever so lighter with every step I took. Chhh chhh. The tiny rocks crunched under my boots. All of a sudden, my ears perked up like a dog as the faint sound of fresh running water ebbed into my drums. A waterfall. Before I knew it, adrenaline rushed into my veins and my legs escaped my body, my feet jumped forward and I was running. I looked down at my hiking boots as it pushed the earth soil to the side. Ch ch ch ch. My boots had hit emerald waters and I looked up. The face to the unheard song of Navajo Falls was singing just for me, its streams flowing light as a feather, the same weight as my backpack. My legs sprung forward.
 
My first backpacking trip was to Havasu Falls in March 2018. I had just ended a two year relationship a month prior, I had a strong dislike for my job and the company’s people, and my brain was still in denial about my father’s Stage 4 esophageal cancer, in which the news had broke in May 2017. I remember not crying. I remember crying harder for a mindless relationship for four months straight. I remember my father telling me to suck it up. I remember that was the worst, and the best, advice anyone has ever given me. Oh my father’s wise words.
 
That backpacking trip, as short as it was, led me to believe that hiking was one of those experiences in solitude that gave me a sense of clarity, even when I was dwelling on nothingness. I could choose to be alone, even if I was with a group of other hikers, reflect on my own thoughts. Or not.
 
I often catch myself moving forward, one step after the other, in fast motion, and before I can even squeeze a thought in, I’ve gone three miles. There would be so much clutter in my brain; it was like a game of pick-and-choose. And then I am on top of a mountain. I make it sound easy, but it is those strenuous, elevation-gaining, crazy treks I love that cause my brain to fire up. It is hard work that requires emotional and mental capacity to complete the journey, to continue to move forward. All the morals my father taught me in one activity. The view at the end is just the cherry, and the crunch of the earth under my shoes became my favorite sound.