Practicing Faith: Connecting On The Trail
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It was bright and cloudless, 9:00 AM and 24*F, when I parked at the Chamisa Trail trailhead on Hyde Park Road. We were in Santa Fe for the week while Cyndi attended a workshop, and I had planned a two-hour hike, my first long trail adventure in many months. I wanted to judge whether my new, five-moth-old, after-market knees were ready for our Iron Men Guadalupe Peak hike in two weeks.
As I gathered my gear and studied the map, I noticed there were two mostly parallel trails. A large sign read “Alternate Route More Difficult.” I decided the alternate route was the one for me; after all, this was intended to be a test.
While the regular trail followed the fall line across the face of the mountain, the Alternate Route climbed straight up the drainage, meaning there were several steep climbs. I was careful to keep from slipping and banging my new knees. The trail was still covered with snow from yesterday’s storm, but I was using trekking poles to keep me stable on the ice.
For the first thirty minutes my hands were uncomfortable cold, painfully cold, even with my gloves. Still, it was a beautiful morning and an incredible hike. After about 45 minutes I reached a trail junction where the Alternate Route joined the original Chamisa Trail, as well as the Saddleback Trail, which despite its name followed a ridge line.
I followed the Saddleback Trail to the southwest for another 15 minutes, sticking to my original plan which was to go out for an hour then return. I wanted to give my knees a good test, but I also wanted to be able to function the rest of the day. Two hours seemed realistic.
After I made my turnaround, on the way back toward the trailhead, I kept thinking about that sign and the Alternate Route up the mountain. How often do we willingly take the Alternate Route More Difficult in our everyday lives, not to make our journey harder but to make it significant? We’re not the sort of people who are satisfied with a simple easy hike through life but prefer to take on challenging projects day after day. The alternate route, the more difficult route, the meaningful route, calls out to us. Following our calling is never the easier trail.
I spent years watching my parents live lives that were fully engaged with other people, giving away their talents and energy, choosing the Alternate Route More Difficult. And now, following family tradition, I feel called to help people live deeper lives with God. Even as I long for a simpler life I know I’ll never be happy if I’m not engaged with the Alternate Route.
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During the Thanksgiving holidays of 2015 we saw the movie, A Walk in the Woods, based on Bill Bryson’s book of the same name, about two unfit aging non-hikers attempting the Appalachian Trail. During one scene when they were hiking at night through blowing snow, Cyndi leaned over and said, “You wish you were with them, don’t you?” She was joking, I think, but I realized, yes, I did wish I was with them ... not in the snow in the dark, but certainly with them on the big trail.
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It’s the backpacker’s dilemma. We pack our fears. Load too much heavy gear into our packs, just in case.
The more discomfort we’re afraid of, the more gear we pack, and the heavier our pack becomes. If we’re afraid of the dark mountain night, we pack extra flashlights and batteries. If we’re afraid of eating cold food, we pack extra fuel canisters. If we’re afraid of getting rained on, we pack an extra change of clothes. If we’re afraid of getting hungry, we pack extra food.
Unfortunately, a heavy pack is a danger of its own. It’s exhausting to carry and alters our behavior on the trail by slowing us down, hindering good decisions, and draining our energy.
The good news is, with more experience we can overcome many of our fears. I’ve learned how much food I’ll need on a three-day hike, so I don’t carry too much. I’ve learned how many meals to expect from a fuel canister, so I don’t weigh myself down with extras.
Other fears, we learn to live with. I can suffer through a day in wet clothes, so I’ll leave the extras behind. I can survive a night without a flashlight, so I’ll leave the extra one at home. I can tolerate heavy hiking boots in the evening around camp, so I won’t pack my cushy camp shoes.
It’s a learning process, this constant winnowing of fears and gear. It takes a lifetime to get our pack weight down.
When I first began backpacking, I was convinced I’d already packed as light as possible. Everything in my pack seemed necessary and useful. It took time on the trail to learn what I needed and what I didn’t need. It took miles on the trail to know the difference between what was important for civilized survival and what was merely compensating for fear.
One Sunday morning in our adult Bible study class we discussed a story found in Matthew 19 about Jesus and a rich young ruler. The story begins with the ruler asking a sincere and heartfelt question of Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The man wanted to do the right thing, and he asked the right person.
I picture the man holding his open checkbook and pen, the check already signed, ready to fill in the amount. He was willing to support Jesus’s ministry, or sponsor a wing on the children’s hospital, or give to the temple fund, or whatever Jesus asked.
However, after quizzing the man about his obedient lifestyle, Jesus surprised him with this request: “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor, then follow me.”
This was the last advice the man wanted to hear. It spoke to his deepest fears. How could he possibly give it all to the poor? Who would he be if he gave it all away? Who would listen to him if he weren’t rich? How could he do great and mighty acts for the kingdom if he himself was poor? Where would the weight and significance of his life come from?
Hearing Jesus’ expectations made the ruler sad. He had started the conversation with big hopes of doing something grand, but now, all he could do was walk away.
The young ruler’s backpack was full of fears: the fear that in the end he would be worse off than in the beginning; the fear he would lose more than he gained; the fear of financial insecurity; the fear of a life with no guarantees.
The man wanted to follow Jesus, but his backpack of fears was too heavy for the trail Jesus called him to hike.
When fear drives our behavior, we are not trusting God for our well-being. We must open our backpacks to God and release our grip on our own perfect gear for our own perfect hike.
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On our first hike up Guadalupe Peak, the highest elevation point in Texas, October 2003, it was Cyndi and me. We were at the top enjoying lunch, looking through the logbook conveniently provided by the National Park Service, reading comments from other proud hikers, when I asked Cyndi what she would write. Her eyes twinkled and she quoted Sam Gamgee: “I wonder what sort of story we’ve stumbled into?” We had no idea we’d still be hiking this mountain seventeen years later. It turned out to be a big story after all.
Since our first hike with Cyndi I’ve summited the Peak more than twenty times, yet the hike remains as hard as ever. It never gets easier. I keep asking myself the same question: Why am I still doing this?
Climbing to the top of a mountain is a satisfying experience. There is a definite goal to achieve, and the goal is easy to evaluate. You know for certain when you’re at the top. But hiking to the top of this mountain is not easy. The first hour is hot and steep and hard, a series of rocky switchbacks that gain elevation step after step. It is enough to send most casual hikers back down to their car. All you can do is put your head down and keep moving. There is no quick way to the top, no shortcuts, no secret passageways for people who buy the expensive tickets. You can’t conquer the Peak by reading or studying or going to workshops; you have to hike with your own two feet, and it is hard work.
I enjoy taking groups up Guadalupe Peak; it’s a metaphor for how we achieve the most valuable things in life. The trail is hard and long with no shortcuts or quick fixes. Kathleen Norris described my own thoughts in her book, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, “Enlightenment can’t be found in a weekend workshop. There is not such a thing as becoming an instantly spiritualized person.” She continued, “Americans seek the quick fix for spiritual as well as physical growth. The fact that conversion is a lifelong process is the last thing we want to hear.”
I’m also attracted to the Guadalupe Mountains because of the view. It’s spectacular - breathtaking in its raw unconcern for the hiker. As you stand at the summit and gaze across the Chihuahuan Desert for a hundred miles, there is nothing visible friendly to man, nothing that cares whether humans cross. The desert is complete, self-contained, and stingy, offering no comforts to sooth a human being. Oddly enough, the indifference speaks to my heart. From Barbara Kingsolver: “Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.” (Small Wonder) I need to be regularly reminded I’m not the center of life, and this desert convinces me better than anything else.
Hiking these mountains reminds us we can push through almost anything hard, difficult, or painful if we have a compelling reason to not give up. During the last 25% of the hike when we’re all exhausted, our feet are sore, we’re dehydrated and long out of water, and we can see the parking lot way down there but there is no short cut back to the bus and there is no faster way down the mountain. Even then we keep moving.
Later, once we are all off the mountain, settled into our seats for the long drive back to Midland, the bus buzzing with stories, injuries, photos, and hearts joining together. That part of the trip is one of my favorite moments of the day. Sharing our stories makes us brothers.
I often say, “without a scar we don’t have a story.” It’s in the disasters, the injuries, the surviving, when our character is revealed, and a simple set of facts morphs from timeline to story.
Since that October day with Cyndi in 2003, the trail up Guadalupe Peak has become one of my most important paths. From it I’ve learned God speaks to me most often when I’m moving and when I’m vulnerable. Dirt trails have become a big part of my spiritual journey and being on top of mountains helps keep my eyes open to the larger, wider, wilder world.
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Early Monday morning, Labor Day, Cyndi, Clark, and I left Williams Lake (11,040’) and hiked down to my pickup at the trailhead, put on clean dry clothes, and made the five hundred mile drive home, through Taos, Santa Fe, Roswell, Plains, Seminole, and Midland.
We’d spent the previous two nights at Williams Lake, and it rained all night the second night. It was cold, but never got down to freezing. I was proud of Cyndi – I know she was uncomfortably cold the entire time the whole trip. From parking lot to parking lot. For the rest of us the climb up to Wheeler Peak at altitude was the hardest part of the trip. For Cyndi that was the easy part … the cold was hardest on her.
At 13,161 feet above sea level, Wheeler Peak is the highest mountain in New Mexico. Located in the Sangre De Cristo range at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, inviting all to enjoy its majesty.
This was our first ascent of Wheeler Peak, and it was grand. The trail from Williams Lake to the summit is about five miles round-trip and is ranked as a steep and difficult class 2 trail, with the final mile-and-a-half a series of switchbacks crisscrossing a rocky scree slope. The rocks never felt dangerous, even if the trail was often uncomfortable and slippery. It was well-maintained and not as dicey as I expected after reading online trail accounts.
We spent about thirty minutes at the summit: taking photos, eating lunch, signing the logbook, and laughing at the college guys who lost the trail and were forced to scramble straight up the scree slope.
We started down at the sound of approaching thunder, moving slowly at first. Descending is technically more difficult than ascending. During the climb up, your foot is planted before your body weight is shifted. The opposite is true on descent, and it’s less stable. Descent is basically a controlled fall, which is why most mountaineering accidents happen during the descent. It pays to be careful.
We made it back to camp as the sky opened with rain and hail; we all got free afternoon naps in our tents while waiting out the storm. Later, after the rain stopped and we cooked our dinner, we talked about a term I read in Scott Jurek’s book, North. The idea of elective suffering, that we put ourselves though hard activities simply because we want to. We’re lucky to live lives that allow this, with enough discretionary time and money. So why choose to use our freedom to hike and tent-camp in the cold and wet? I don’t know, except to say there is value in elective suffering. There is the joy of success, a sense of accomplishment, and camaraderie of shared experience.
But beyond that, there is added value in going beyond the casual effort. It amplifies the focus and risk and spiritual connection.
Backpacking connects me to God. Even more than hiking. I love the day hikes we do, but they connect me with people, especially other men. Backpacking is different because there is more risk involved, more uncertainty, more opportunities for things to go wrong, more ways to be miserable for a day or two. And that risk, along with the isolation of the outback, opens me up to God, focuses me in some way, quiets my mental chatter,
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One Saturday I was blessed to join my friend David hiking in McKittrick Canyon. The canyon trail is famous for two things: (1) it’s the only easy hike in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and (2) it’s surprisingly, brilliantly colorful in early November.
In general, nature couldn’t care less if we enjoy the view and it makes minimal effort to carve an easy path for us. But McKittrick Canyon is an exception, a gift from God.
The hike is about seven miles round trip and is easy enough for young families. There were plenty of youngsters on the trail, and a few hikers older than either David or me, if you can believe that.
This was meant to be a larger hiking group. I had twenty on my list last Monday, for a sixteen-passenger church bus. But what I knew would happen happened, family life took its toll, and one by one people dropped off the list, all with good reasons – weddings to attend, soccer games rescheduled, illness, tickets to a (losing) college football game. My list had deteriorated down to two hikers by Friday, including me.
Life is all about choices, and we’re continually choosing between good options. As adults, and as parents, we must consider the whole family when choosing how to spend our Saturdays, so I wasn’t disappointed that people chose to do something else. But I had a choice to make, too. Should we go with only two people, or cancel the trip? The canyon is 3-1/2 hours’ drive from Midland, a 7-hour roundtrip, and we all have plenty to do on a Saturday.
However, I didn’t want to cancel. I’d already bailed on one hike two months earlier for the same reason and I didn’t want to do it again. I also knew David had been planning for this for a long time. Besides being a great friend and fellow Bible teacher, David is in long recovery from a near-fatal heart attack. Back in the old days, before his attack, David joined us on much more difficult hikes to the summit of Guadalupe Peak. I wanted to be part of his return to the trails.
The best time for hiking McKittrick Canyon is the last week of October and first week of November, when the changing leaves offer the most vivid and striking colors. In the middle of the arid desert mountains, the canyon surprises hikers with oak trees, ash trees, and big tooth maples. It’s a pretty place to be any time of the year, but in the fall when the leaves change colors, it’s stunning. The bright yellow and dark maroon leaves stand out against the gray-brown landscape, and it’s beautiful.
At one of the water crossings we waited in line for the one set of steppingstones. A hiker was struggling to hold her balance as she tiptoed across the rocks, swaying from side-to-side like a beginning tightrope walker. Fortunately, she made it without falling. She didn’t get wet. The curious thing was she had a trekking pole in her hand which she held aloft for balance. If she had planted the pole on the bottom of the stream with each step, used it as it was designed, her journey would have been much quicker, safer, and less frightening. I considered hollering to her about using her pole, but no one wants unsolicited advice while working their way across a stream.
I wondered how many of us struggle through life trying not to lose our balance and topple into the water, when we’re holding in our hands the exact equipment we need to make the trip stable and safe.
The same situation appears in the movie, A Walk in the Woods, when the two senior-in-age-but-not-in-experience hikers, Bryson and Katz try to cross a wild river. They both end up losing their balance and falling into the water, backpacks and all. Every time I see that scene it’s all I can do to keep from yelling at the screen (Cyndi would say I occasionally do yell), “Use the trekking poles you have strapped to your backpacks, you fools! Why carry them all along the Appalachian Trail if you don’t use them when crossing a river?” The two hikers could have stayed dry had they used the tools they were carrying.
We’ve been given everything we need to navigate the rocky streams of life. The Bible says, in 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
God doesn’t promise we won’t slip into the water, or slide off one of the rocks, or sneeze as we are stretching for a long step to the bank and lose our balance, but he promises us everything we need to live a godly life. It’s up to us to use what he’s given, live out his calling, rely on his mercy and grace, believe his promises, and stop leaving them in our backpacks for another day.
One Saturday I enjoyed two of God’s greatest gifts, both of which I need for a godly life. One was time on the trail surrounded by wild beauty, and the other was extended time with my friend David. I tell Cyndi often, “Too many men go through life without one single quality friend, and I have dozens … more than my share.” The hike in McKittrick Canyon was fun, but more than that, it was an honor to share the trail with one of my guys.
“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
