Published — 8/10/26
The sun is rising behind you, matching your pace as you march up the mountain. The heat quickens your pace. The walk is long and there isn’t much shade.
That morning, your husband asked you why you decided to hike on the spur of the moment today. You didn’t have the heart to tell him you just wanted to be out of the house.
You think of your home office. The work you should be doing. The emails you need to send. You think about quitting your job. In your head, you draft your 2-week notice for the hundredth time that week.
A bird is flying overhead and it makes you look up. Nothing but a few sparse clouds. You try to will them to pass in front of the sun, but they lazily drift by.
It’s been nearly 5 years since your mom got sick. You still remember the day she called with the news. It changed a lot for you. The trips to the hospitals. Staying up all night with worry stomach aches. It was almost unbearable.
You swore when it was all over that you’d make big changes. You’d learn an instrument, hike the PCT, travel across Europe, drink ayahuasca with a South American shaman. But then she went into remission and things just remained the same.
“At least we moved to the mountains,” you think as the UVs begin to poke at your skin.
“Aging happens so much faster in the mountains,” your Mom told you when you moved here. “A few months up there is like a year by the sea.”
“I’ll wear sunscreen, Mom,” you told her, “and a hat.”
“You have such a pretty face, I don’t want you to ruin it.”
You pass an old cattle gate that’s half knocked and timeworn. “You and me both, sister,” you joke to the fence.
The burn in your legs mellows as the trail begins to flatten out. You enter an oak grove, the shade a small refuge in the heat. You’re closer to the mountain now and can finally see the trail that will take you to the peak.
You hum to yourself, the crunch of your boots creating a rhythm that you soon become lost in. The next few hours you climb. You pass a horse and its rider. She stops so you can pet her and feed her a peppermint. Her name is Dakota.
You pass a runner and a mountain biker zips by. But other than that, you’re alone. The houses in the valley below look like a diorama.
You know your husband is in one of those houses down there, only a few miles, but feeling so far away. The argument you got in last week seems as tiny as the houses do. You wonder why you made such a big deal about it. Why not just let it go?
You kick a rock down the hill and watch it tumble before heading on.
For the next few hours you climb. The trail zigs and zags. It’s hard to follow. You lose it and scramble through a hundred feet of brush before finding it again. The sun is out in full force now and your sweat is washing off the sunscreen you put on hours ago.
“Not long to the top now,” you tell yourself.
You make your way the last half mile and emerge into a mountaintop meadow covered in wildflowers. It seems in every one a bee is buzzing the nectar. You sit, drinking in the view. From here, even the sun feels good.
You sit amongst the bees for a time and feeling refreshed, begin your descent.
You descend into the valley like a bird, not passing a soul, not a human, or a horse, or a squirrel, or even a skink. It seems all the intelligent creatures are hiding from the sun bearing down.
You make good time and are not far from home now. You look to your left and see a meadow, the grass gold-tipped in the sunshine. You decide to walk through the meadow on your way home.
You see something in the grass. A lump. A mound. It hits you like lightning. It’s the carcass of a cow elk. When you see it, you almost don’t believe your eyes. But there it is. The hind legs bent, the little bit of fur left still blowing in the air.
You want to avoid it, to walk around. You feel as if the spirit of the elk may haunt the meadow like a barrow-wight. But almost in a trance you walk by, like you were honoring a fallen friend.
You get home shortly after and see your husband.
“Hey honey, how was the hike?”
“It was good, but it’s better to be home.”