For majority of my life, I’ve always been told that I’m stubborn. It’s one of my most significant personality traits and likes to bleed into my “all or nothing” mentality. I’m not only stubborn with the people I surround myself, but internally I often find myself fighting with the little voice in my head every day. The voice that likes to tell me that if I don’t do everything I set out to do for the day, I shouldn’t do it at all.
Short term goals have always been good for me because they make me feel less stagnant in life. Shortly after I got to Maine, I made a list of goals to accomplish while I’m here. On this list I decided that I am going to hike all the 4,000 footers here in Maine. The 4,000 footers refer to all the highest peaks found here. I also decided that it would be a great idea to hike all 26 of the peaks in Acadia National Park, since it’s only an hour away from me.
Lately, I haven’t been in the best of moods and the list of goals just kept staring at me. This weekend I decided I would start working towards my goals so I could do something other than wallow in my apartment because I’m homesick. This is when my “all or nothing” mentality kicked in and I decided I should dive right in.
Therefore, this past Saturday I set out to hike all 4,000 feet of Mount Abraham, which was only supposed to be around 10 miles. I’ve done 10 miles a countless number of times so I thought everything would be fine…wrong. I pulled up to the parking lot only to realize that the bridge to access the trail is down. The GPS said it was about 2 miles to the trailhead, so I decide to park. I get all my gear on, and then Daisy and I are ready to hit the trail (hopes were very high at this time). I walk the 2 miles and finally began my hike. The first 3 miles were a breeze with little to no elevation. My feet felt good, I felt good, and I even took a little snack break to eat some wasabi soy sauce almonds (a superior hiking snack). Then the elevation began. The trail is no longer in front of me horizontally, but rather vertically. Then suddenly I’m on all fours climbing up a fucking mountain. Not only that, but after about a mile, I’m out of the tree line and officially getting beat down on by the sun. I keep going…I see peak after peak and all these false summits and I could have cried with every step I was taking, so much to the point that the last mile took me close to an hour. I climbed 4,000 feet within 2 miles and it was pure hell. I thought I was in better shape, but every breath felt like it could have been my last.
Anyways, I make it to the top and the view was stunning. Breathtaking honestly, but in that moment, I knew that I would never do this hike again…so I sat and enjoyed that view for as long as I could. Until I inevitably had to go back down. I thought it would be breeze, but I was humbled quickly by the numerous number of breaks I took. Every step felt like hell on earth, every inch of my foot was burning and all I could do was walk in hopes that I would see my car again. When I finally made it to my car, I was ecstatic…I changed out of my nasty clothes and into the biggest sweatshirt I own. I got my feet into my pink crocs and drove home as fast as I could.
On the next day after about 4 hour of sleep, I got up bright and early and headed to Acadia. I should preface this by saying that from the moment I stepped out of bed my feet hurt and my quads were throbbing, but you see my stubbornness got the best of me. I told myself that I would summit six peaks on Sunday, so I did. This 6-mile hike that turned into 7.5 was not only physically, but mentally draining. So much to the point that today is Thursday, 4 days since my last hike and my body still aches. The soreness has yet to leave, and one of my toes is definitely going to be purple for the next month. Oh, and for mentally…I am so checked out because all I can think about is when my body will feel any bit of relief.
On the bright side, I am happy I was able to cross two items off my goals list. This story may have sounded miserable, but once the soreness leaves, I will be right back at it. What can I say? I may hate the misery, but nothing beats the feeling of highlighting a goal off my list. That sense of accomplishment is a high I strive for. Next time I’ll be more cautious by balancing out the activities my body has to endure, and try my best to throw my “all or nothing” mentality out the window!
The view from the top of Mount Abraham- Elevation 4043′ . (it’s crazy that I was up so high I can see full shadows of the clouds) *chefs kiss*
Gilmore Peak – Elevation 1035′. I loved being able to see the coast from the top!
