Re-hiked an old trail I did 10 years ago and the views hit different now

Came back to the Blue Ridge segment I used to crush in college, but this time I was 40 with a bad knee and a toddler's snack bag strapped to my pack. The overlook was still the same, but I realized I spent the whole trip noticing how the trail had eroded and how quiet it was on a Tuesday. Anyone else find old routes feel totally different once your body and mindset have changed?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara_moore737d ago

Disagree completely. You say the trail "hit different" but honestly it sounds like you just got old and boring. The trail didn't change, you did. That Tuesday quiet you mention? That's a good thing. Means you had the place to yourself. Instead of enjoying it you turned it into some sad reflection on aging. And complaining about erosion on a mountain trail is like complaining the ocean has waves. Trails erode. That's nature. Your bad knee and snack bag don't make the hike deeper, they just make you slower. Maybe the views hit the same and you just forgot how to see them without all that extra baggage.

nathang677d ago

It's funny, I see this same thing play out everywhere, not just on trails. People get so defensive when someone notices a change in something they love, like it's a personal attack on them. You get the same vibe in local music scenes or even just watching a neighborhood develop, someone says "man, that old diner isn't what it used to be" and someone else jumps in to say it's actually better and you're just a downer. We've all got this thing where we can't just let people have their own experience, we have to tell them they're wrong for feeling it. Maybe the real change is that we expect everything, including ourselves, to stay exactly the same forever, and that's just not how it works.