⛰️ 268 miles. 16 days. 4 summers. 1 lesson.
E78: Embrace the bog: a lesson from walking into mountains
This was the moment that I wanted most to give up 👇
With 263-and-a-half miles behind us, and only four-and-a-half remaining to reach Kirk Yetholm, the town on the Scotland-England border that marks the end of the 268-mile route called The Pennine Way, my soul wanted to stop.
The Pennine Way is bog, it's deserted moorland, it's gushing waterfalls, and it's birdsong that's so constant and enveloping that it's like the curlews and skylarks are journeying the same route with you too.
We were walking, as Nan Shepherd puts it, into mountains.
Most of us usually think about walking or hiking up mountains, up hills or up fells. Indeed, we come down them, too.
The peaks of The Pennine Way (the highest at Crossfell 893m / 2,930ft) aren't that high compared to the highest mountains in the world.
But what interested the Scottish author, who lived near the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland, was what walking into mountains might mean.
The idea comes up in her book "The Living Mountain" a memoir of a shepherd's experiences exploring the Cairngorms.
It's a call to wean ourselves off from summit fever - a hungry desire always to reach for the summit. Why scale the summit of Mount Everest (8,848m / 29,031 ft) when reaching basecamp (5,364m / 17,598ft) is possible?
Shepherd understands that the Cairngorms is not a set of peaks - not a site to be overcome and conquered, but a place to be explored and walked around.
"I go around it," she says, "like a dog in circles. I go up to see the mountain as I might to see a friend." – Anna ‘Nan’ Shepherd
When I'm hiking in the Lake District, I'm usually going straight up to a summit and back down again.
But when the summits are stretched across 268 miles, the undulating landscape resembles more of a canvas to be explored and walked around. It gifts those who set off in this way room to explore the contours and shapes along the way.
This idea of walking into mountains rather than up them sparked a carefree curiosity in me.
What would it be like to walk into The Pennine Way?
This week, after 268 miles and 16 days over four summers, I wanted to share the one lesson I learned from doing just that.
Embrace the bog
I was scanning the ground in front of me, playing hopscotch on the tufts of grass that I hoped wouldn't give way when my weight bore down on my foot.
Yet, 2 hours and 31 minutes into day 14, my right leg disappeared into an alien green soup.
No matter how much you hope your boots won't get sodden on the inside, it is inevitable that you'll hear that lightning reaction squelch as you recoil your foot from the boggy depths.
Once your boots are that soaked, playing hopscotch is pointless. It would be easy to bemoan my cold feet, my wet socks, the luminous green slime cloying on my boots.
Yet I couldn't help but laugh.
This is what walking into mountains is about:
Embracing the way time flows differently: slow and ponderous when it's raining, or your foot is in green slime; fast and freewheeling when the sun glints on the whispering, meandering streams nearby.
Embracing the conversations with my husband that don't quite hatch during busy periods in the week.
Embracing my persistence that would always emerge each time my foot squelched into a murky bog, or sideways rain sandpapered my face.
Embracing the tortoise-like progress over four summers when countless hares complete The Way in 16 days or fewer.
Embracing the isolation and desolation of the wilderness when you see no one for hundreds of thousands of footsteps.
Embracing falling flat on my backside onto a pond of cowpats just by Hadrian's Wall.
Embracing every boggy depth on the way to each summit.
Embracing the bog and exploring and walking into mountains, rather than conquering them, makes the journey feel a little bit more effortless.
👉 Over to you!
It's easy to succumb to summit fever, to reach the summit that everyone else seems to aspire to.
How can you embrace the bog at work or at home to experience the landscape that surrounds your summits?
ps If you’re an entrepreneur, a lawyer or another high-flying professional - who’s looking to connect with your optimal health and walk into work and life in a way that feels effortless, get in touch and let’s have a conversation.
That’s it for this week!
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To your health and success!
Eric
You continue to provide these beautifully fresh perspectives Eric. You've got me thinking about what "into the mountains" rather than ascending them might look like in my own life. Thank you.
It's cliche... But I'm slowly learning to appreciate the "bogs" of life. I've been through them enough times to realize there are lessons to be learned each time. Even if that lesson is to simply appreciate every time you don't have a soggy wet bog shoe.