What happens when you let go of your plans and say, “here… you can keep the map.”
On Saturday a friend and I decided we needed to get out of the city, turn off our phones, and be one with nature.
We took a train north and arrived in the quaint town of Cold Spring around 11:30. I’d been hiking there a few times, so we walked to the trailhead and grabbed a map. I pointed out a part I’d never hiked, it was only 4.5 miles, and it wouldn’t be too strenuous so we could take it slow, determined not to rush the day.
We stopped for lunch about a half-mile up a mountain, talked about the differences of growing up in the middle class suburbs of America and growing up middle class in Brazil.
No work talk, no city talk, maybe a little talk about boys… but mostly just leaving all of those stresses behind. It was going to be a good day.
A couple of girls stopped us to ask if we’d been here before and if we knew how to get to the red trail. “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve been here a few times.” I pulled out my map and showed them where we were and how to get to their desired trail. “We’ve already decided where we’re headed, so here… you can keep the map.”
“Are you sure?!” One of the girls said.
“Yeah we’re going to take the white trail east to the blue, and head north. That trail will loop us back west and south to where we started. We know where we’re going, you can keep it.”
This is the part of the story where everyone I’ve told gives me the side eye. I can be a little overly confident at times, plus who the hell goes in to the mountains then gives away their map? You can see where this is headed.
It was 70 degrees and sunny, the trail was full of Manhattanites slowing down the pace of life and reminding their lungs what fresh air is like. On a clear day (such as this), you could make out the Manhattan skyline to the south.
Some of the views along the trail are breathtaking. Literally breathtaking for my friend who has been sick for, basically, the past two years. She’s overcome incredible health issues (cancer in remission kind of overcoming), some she continues to battle. We took it slow because on top of that, her allergies kicked in and asthma left her struggling to catch her breath.
But she is one of the most easy going people I know, and she is always up for an adventure.
So we hiked and climbed and sung our own praises about how we’d really chosen the best trail. What a great hike! So beautiful! Hiking this trail would be a great date idea. A guy would really see how bad ass we are!
(If you’re cute, single, and in to bad ass chicks who occasionally make stupid decisions, please keep reading).
Much of the trail was familiar and we reached a clearing that I recognized. The trail to the left was the one I’d taken before, so according to the map I gave away but had obviously memorized, we wanted to continue heading north. We followed the blue/white markers, weaving north and west. After a few steep climbs, it felt like we should be looping back west, but then again we were taking it at a leisurely pace.
My friend needed to catch her breath and after 30 minutes of descent on a rocky path, my knees were ready to give out. So we stopped, in the middle of a path, to rest. There were fewer and fewer people along our trail, but we hadn’t noticed until a cute guy stopped to ask if we were alright.
We’re ok, but thank you. Why is it so hard to find nice guys like that? Maybe we should ask if he can carry us the rest of the way.
We hiked on, but the joking became less and less, and the lamenting about our pain became more and more. But we’d been out for about 3 hours, so we figured we were close to the spot where the trail would take us west and south again. Grunt in pain. Make a joke. Laugh. Keep moving. Repeat.
We climbed a steeper rock ledge, traversed down, and continued to follow the markers until I noticed how low the sun had gotten. It was still west of us and we were still walking north. We must have missed something along the way, but neither of us could remember a turn off we should have taken. We finally reached a trail crossing… yellow markers. That definitely wasn’t right.
We turned our phones back on to check the GPS. We were WAY farther north than we had planned on the map that I gave away.
We were on the Breakneck Ridge Trail at the crossing to the Wilkinson Trail. According to my GPS, it was an hour and a half back to the trail head.
According to my research the next day, the Breakneck Ridge & Wilkinson Memorial Trail loop “is generally considered to be the most strenuous hike in the East Hudson Highlands. It involves steep climbs over rock ledges that can be very slippery when wet. You’ll need to use both your hands and your feet in many places along the way. Proper foot gear is essential for this hike.”
I’m assuming they’re not talking about year old Nike cross-trainers.
“you will want to take a rest from the strenuous climb and enjoy the panoramic views.”
“steep climbs”
“descends steeply”
“Only recommended for very experienced adventurers.”
No shit.
So we had a few options: We could freak out. We could call a park ranger to come guide us out. We could sit in the middle of the path and cry.
Or we could make some jokes and keep marching forward despite some pain and uncertainty.
My friend later said, “for the times I had air in my lungs and could laugh, I did laugh.”
When you have a plan and throw out your map, you start out confident; when the trail splits you have a decision to make. One path looks comfortably familiar, and another looks unfamiliar but all of the markers seem to point in the right direction. But the farther you go down the unfamiliar path, you realize you missed something and this isn’t the direction you’d mapped out.
What happens when you say, “here… you can keep the map.”
When you surrender your plans whether it be to a higher power, the divine, or just simply throw them out the window.
It’s going to be a rough path.
A steep path.
A strenuous path and you didn’t wear the right shoes.
A path that hurts your knees.
A path that exasperates you.
A path that sometimes leads you farther from the end goal.
A path that ____________. Fill in the blank, you see where I’m going with this.
And there are ALWAYS going to be things we wish we’d done differently.
I wish I’d brought sunscreen. I wish I’d worn hiking boots. I really wish I’d packed another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I wish I’d asked that cute guy for help.
But I don’t wish that I’d kept the map. We still used our resources (the sun, GPS, common sense) when we realized we needed a little guidance .
And I’m glad we didn’t spend so much time worrying about whether or not we were sticking to our plan. It took me on a more adventurous path. A path that made for a more exciting story. A path that made my friendship stronger. A path that forced me to humble myself. A path that left me in some pain for the next few days, but I eventually recovered, I’m enjoying looking through the pictures, recalling the funny things my friend said, and writing about it.
I am really hard on myself when I make decisions that seem to be the wrong ones, or lead me down a path that isn’t ideal… in life, and in this case, physically. I’m hard on myself about a lot of things.
I was fortunate to be with a friend who is easy going. She calmed my frustration, never once made me feel bad for giving away our map.
And she told me that she needed me strength and motivation to keep her moving forward.
As we continued the never ending descent we heard voices. Voices! Thank God, there were other idiots out here too. We reached the end of the trail at 7:52pm. I looked up train times for the Breakneck Ridge Station, still a mile north of us, and the last one for the day departed at 7:17pm. The walk back to our point of origin was 3.5 miles, along a winding two-lane highway.
Finally the voices became bodies, bodies with proper hiking boots and backpacks (the legit kind of backpacks that look like they come equipped with a swiss army knife, dried food packets, flares, and other survival gear).
We stopped them to ask if they knew of any way faster than limping on sore feet, back to Cold Spring.
They offered us a ride and we enthusiastically said (mom stop reading here please) yes!
We hitch-hiked back to the Cold Spring. Grabbed dinner. Caught a train. And arrived back in Manhattan shortly after midnight.
All total, we hiked just under 10 miles. And according to my fitness tracker, did the equivalent of 242 flights of stairs.
Sometimes it’s good to throw away the map and accept the unknown and adventure before you. But if you ever venture up to the Hudson Highlands, there’s a box at each trail head, grab a damn map. And if you decide to give it away, make sure you’re wearing hiking boots, pack an extra sandwich, and bring someone who makes you laugh along the way.
