Letter: Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

Yesterday, July 15, I hiked to Lake George and on up to Gobbler’s Knob in Mt. Rainier National Park, 12.5 miles round trip, with a full pack. It was a training hike given on July 22 I will be deep in the Olympics on what would have been our 52^nd Anniversary.

My wife is gone now, lost to cancer 16 months ago.

As I neared the top of Gobbler’s Knob, a female trail runner, maybe in her twenties, went by me already on her way back down. Of course, no pack. She was running. I leaned in against the bank to allow her to pass, the trail being narrow and steep, and the drop off significant.

“You’re fine!” she exclaimed and she was gone on down the switchback trail.

The trail description was right about what you see from the top: “Mt. Rainier is in your face.” And here, on this subalpine slope, Arnica Mollis grow, tiny yellow blossoms of the sunflower family, their happy yellow faces upturned to the yellow sun, the warmth and stillness of that setting undisturbed, the silence palpable, a sort of reverence for where you are instinctive.

After an hour’s lunch there, mesmerized by the scene, I descended to Lake George and spent another hour journaling, basking in the mountain breeze off the lake. Fifty-four years ago, when I was dating the gal who would be my wife, we sat together in this same spot, on this same shore, in the shadow of this same mountain.

Now, alone, I wrote about her. About how we had hiked that trail, as often as we could where the width of the trail allowed, hand-in-hand.

I closed my journal, reshouldered by pack, and headed on down the path.

As I neared the trailhead, there was a solo hiker just heading up. Given the tough climb I had experienced, I thought it rather late in the afternoon for her to be tackling the peak especially given what still lay ahead of me and over which she had just come: nearly four miles of road that had to be hiked just to get to where we were.

Finally, wearily, those four miles later, I removed my pack upon reaching my truck and sank beside it exhausted.

That’s when the solo hiker I had seen late in my journey also returned to her car parked right next to mine.

She had speed-walked all the way to the top and back down in just three hours, the same trail on which I had been for the last nine hours. Of course, again she had no pack, and was probably 50 years my junior.

And she had been in a hurry, while I had not.

There’s a time to go fast, challenge yourself, be all you can be.

Attack ferociously.

And there’s also a time to go slow, perhaps to more enjoy the journey, approach the mountain reverently.

Go gently.

Slow down life.

You move too fast.