When hiking trails along steep terrain, one thing is certain: staircases and switchbacks. Over the course of my life, and especially this semester, I have experienced this fate countless times. There is no feeling quite like thinking you’re finally at a point where the hike eases up, just to round the corner and see another switchback waiting to be scaled. Examples of this from the area around Highlands include Yellow Mountain and Albert Mountain.
To begin with Yellow Mountain: As I hoisted a poorly-fit backpacking pack on, I was ready for anything that came at me. Hip soreness. Shoulders rubbed raw from the straps. A fear of an infamous hornet’s nest described many times on AllTrails. The hottest day of the month. Nothing could bring me down. Although relatively short, the hike up to the fire tower atop Yellow Mountain proved to be incredibly tiring, but there were special moments along the way that almost could’ve given me the motivation to happily ascend the switchbacks. Coyotes, a deer, grouse, a newt, and a newfound admiration of trees made the hike go by smoothly. That was until the end. For the entire last mile, whoever designed the trail was wicked enough to end the trek with switchbacks. But not just any switchbacks. Rocky outcrop switchbacks. The view up top was stunning, but oh did we have to work for it.
Now to Albert Mountain: After about 14 miles of mostly uphill climbing (the first two of which were more nasty switchbacks), unexpected lightning and rain, and nausea that lasted hours (thank you, high dose iron supplements), surely it couldn’t get worse. Oh did it. Shortly after passing a car that could’ve helped us reach salvation sooner, the stairs started. Only a couple dozen or so, no big deal (it was). More walking. We (Me and Anna) were told (by Ken) that the last half mile of the hike would be the most difficult, and this warning truly came to haunt us at mile 15.5. One half mile to go. We had conquered so much, fought down so much of my lunch, and sported so many new blisters that no half mile could hold us back. Quickly we realized that our quads had tapped out during the previous set of stairs. It is truly a humbling experience setting a goal of walking 100 steps to make it to a smooth 25 before needing to break. The white blazes of the Appalachian Trail were our beacons of hope, soon becoming small goals that me and Anna would set out to reach before stopping to rest again. My dearest thank you to whoever put them within 30 feet of each other in that section.
All that’s to say, staircases and switchbacks CAN have their virtue on rare occasions. This semester, I had the privilege of being on a research project that allowed me to travel across North Carolina (and a bit of Tennessee) as my fieldwork component. Off-trail hiking was how we spent the majority of our time (besides the ritual Ingles sub shop stops), so we were completely removed from any anthropogenic engineering. On a quest to locate acoustic bat monitors with nothing but a coordinate on a map, as human nature dictates, we took the shortest path to get there. Although it was technically the fastest, trying to hike down steep inclines with no sight of the ground was certainly not optimal. Soaking wet feet, sore tailbones, and a tremendous amount of cuts are just some of the trials that we faced without the assistance of staircases and switchbacks, and you know what? I missed them in those moments. Deep in uncharted (relatively) territory, under the oppression of rain and brisk winds, I had come to love what I had once loathed.
Since it’s my last year in college, this semester has been a time of reflection on the last five years of my life (shoutout to all of the super seniors reading this). I would compare my time trudging through the semesters as a series of staircases and switchbacks. As I worked my way through my major(s), it felt like an endless staircase, taking one prerequisite to meet the next like a never ending trail of white blazes, and I believed that I would never see the day where my Tar Heel Tracker wasn’t full of red unfinished requirements. Now that I am done with that part of my college career, I can enjoy the view from the top and take classes that I genuinely enjoy.
On switchbacks, sheesh did 7 semesters (7 ½) feel like I would keep turning the corner every May or December and face down another exam period. Slow and steady are switchbacks and the semester system, yet diabolical in their design to hide the pain of a long journey behind an inviting, seemingly negligible incline. Could I have handled more than 18 credit hours in a semester? Certainly not. But would it have been nice to claw my way through fewer than 7 weeks of staying at Davis library until they kicked me out each night? Absolutely.
Although this expedition has been difficult, there are an infinite amount of friends, family, opportunities, and experiences that I have gained from walking these staircases and switchbacks that some call life. Without the perseverance needed to summit the challenges that I have faced during the time of my life, I don’t know the other person that I would be today. This semester, I have spent countless hours around Highlands hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and fishing (and then losing them in the river), and these are memories that I look forward to inserting into any conversation that I can moving forward. I am thankful to all of the staircases and switchbacks that I have walked upon in the last 4 months, because at the end of all of them was a great story to tell.
-HS
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