On vacation last week, I was told to pack for a hike that was 7.4 miles (7 km) long round-trip with 2,200 feet (670 m) of elevation gain. It was going to take my husband and me about five hours total according to what he had read. I wasn’t supposed to look at the route because there was going to be a surprise at the summit of the hike.

This whole trip was an exercise in me going completely with the flow. I didn’t know where we were going because my husband planned the whole trip and wanted it to be a surprise where we were going. I’m good with that! I hate making decisions and plans, and he’s great at it. I had a great friend who was an experienced hiker and taught me a lot about being prepared for hikes1. I didn’t want to let him down by not being well-prepared.

The Prep

I made sure we wore layers and packed more food and fluids than we thought we’d need for that duration of a hike in case something happened to us. We had our batteries charged and backup batteries too. We downloaded maps and packed a first aid kit and rented bear spray. It was a relatively popular hike, so we weren’t likely to be alone at any point, but better safe than sorry.

Some of the people on Alltrails suggested hiking poles for this particular hike. Neither my husband nor I are regular hikers. We live in the flatlands and nearly every “trail” around here is just a sidewalk with some trees scattered near it. We’d never used hiking poles and didn’t really know what the point of them was. Based on the pictures, we thought the path was going to be steep but doable with just our own two legs and so we skipped the poles.

My husband got a pair of hiking shoes, but since I was already going to be bringing running shoes and the path seemed pretty smooth, it seemed like it would be fine to just use those for the hike.

The Hike

Everything started off really well. The elevation gain was a bit brutal for two people who didn’t have any semblance of mountains near them, but we knew that was going to be hard and we paced ourselves well.

After about 2.2 miles, we were going to turn off from the main trail we’d been on so far to make our way to the special destination. This is where things got hairy. There was a sign at the break that implored hikers to really determine if they were ready. It had images of boulder fields and warnings of injury and death. I don’t think anyone’s seen a sign like that and thought anything other than “oh yeah, this is probably a good thing to have here for other people who aren’t as fit and prepared as I am, but I’ll be fine.” That’s exactly what I thought, anyway.

The boulder fields really illustrated the benefit of the hiking poles. Without them, I was making my way up the steep rock fields like a child running quadruped-style up a staircase. I got some cuts on my hand from the rough stones and my arms and quickly grew sore from using them to propel myself upward. The grade was so sharp that my running shoes sometimes lost grip on the loose, dry dirt. My heavy pack containing my camera, two lenses, and all of the other things I needed for a hike did not help the grip situation on the way up or the way down. I ended up falling a couple of times on the way back down, and that was with my husband’s assistance. I just didn’t have the grip on the steep hills.

On the way down, my husband said that he was kind of glad that we didn’t realize what we had signed ourselves up for, because we probably wouldn’t have done it if we had. He was right.

Blissful Ignorance

I like knowing I’m prepared for what I’m up against. Since I didn’t know what we were doing, I wasn’t able to do that, but I was embracing the unknown and going with the flow this trip. I had faith in my general fitness and that we had prepared reasonably well for what we knew about the hike. I knew there was a risk that we would struggle more anticipated and we did.

I’m not going to lie: the hike was extremely hard. If I had known when we started how hard it was going to be with the equipment we had, I probably would have punted the hike until the next day so that we had time to get the right gear. But the next day was rainy and much colder, and we might have just decided not to do the hike at all. And I am glad we did it.

It wasn’t all for naught. We did learn some things from the hike. We should have gotten the poles, but since neither of us had ever used them before, we didn’t really know that they’d be useful. I definitely needed hiking shoes. There is a real difference between hiking shoes and running shoes, and when there’s loose, dry dirt, hiking shoes are a must. I think we’ll probably put hiking on the list of activities that should have some level of input and review from everyone involved in the future, even if there is a secret, cool thing at the top.

It was worth it, though. Delta Lake, a beautiful turquoise lake, lie at the top of the trail. We spent half an hour lying on top of a boulder by the lake basking in the perfectly warm sunlight and watching the chipmunks scrounge around for hikers’ fallen crumbs. It was an actual slice of heaven on earth.

Programming preview: Next Monday, I’m sending out a newsletter with my favorite features of iOS/iPadOS 18. I’ve been running the software all summer and like the big enhancements, I also have a few features that I enjoyed that flew under the radar and haven’t been mentioned in some of the reviews I’ve read. Stay tuned!