My husband and I took an amazing trip this summer. It had a bit of everything: history, food, wine, and nature. On one of our stops, we visited a national park to do some hiking. I had done some research on it, and chose a hike that looked beautiful and was long enough for us to feel we had spent time in nature, but not too long to interfere with our dinner plans. I have done many hikes in my life, some harder, some easier, some on the Appalachian Trail, and some on the southern Andes, in Argentina. This was not my first rodeo.
The morning of our hike we had a good breakfast, got some water and snacks, googled the trail head, and made our way there. It was summer, so I had a raincoat and some light layers, and a pair of Merrell hiking sandals. Not more than 10 minutes into our hike through a beautiful canyon we see two ladies approaching us. We asked them if the trail ahead looked good and before they answered, they looked at my shoes with that look that you give tourists in your hometown; you know the ones… map in hand, camera dangling, wide eyed, the”I have no idea of what I am doing here”, tourists. And then one of them said: “those shoes are not appropriate, you cannot hike this trail on those shoes”. She did not ask about my experience or how far we were planning on going, she just took one look at my shoes and made her judgement: I was not fit for nature that day.
I come from a place where hikers die every year because they have inappropriate equipment, a less than ideal mindset, or inadequate training, so I understand this idea of being unprepared, and the risks associated with it. But I had researched this hike, could the description be so misleading? We thanked the ladies and told them we would go as far as we could with what we had, we were not going to take unnecessary risks. They left us with a: “I really don’t think you should go any further with those shoes!”, as they continued their walk back.
We found at least two other groups that openly disapproved of my shoes, one of them as we were finishing the 6 hour hike. The place was so beautiful, and my shoes were fine. But as I walked in silence, with the sound of rushing water and songbirds filling my soul, memories of other moments when inappropriate “something” became a limitation to enjoying nature, started filling my mind.
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