The Best Failed Hike

Having crossed the wide section of trail, Mama Bear can be seen in the middle part of the photo as she and her cubs meandered away.

In my little bubble of a world, Sundays are often deemed “Gracie’s Day.” The notion of “Gracie’s Day,” is meant to remind me of who and what is most important to me and Gracie, my blue heeler dog, is at the top of the list. It’s a day for both of us to be off-leash and a bit more free-range.

As a writer who juggles multiple jobs and deadlines, it’s easy to get lost in the words. I love what I do and it rarely feels like work. By reserving Sundays to step away from the laptop, switching my phone on only to take photos, it is not only fun for Gracie and me to play but it also gives my brain and mind an opportunity to reset.

On most days, after feeding Gracie and Banjo, and filling bird feeders and bird baths, I start my morning with a workout. I have a room dedicated to all-things-exercise and lately I’ve also been on my bikes a lot: road bike (pavement) and a mountain bike (everything else).

For whatever reason though, I don’t always notice when my tank is running low. And this past Sunday, after a few weeks of cycling and biking on top of the other things, my body was feeling the fatique. That, however, doesn’t mean I was hearing it.

We live at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the state’s highest peak, which means before the snow falls, Gracie’s Day is often spent in the high mountains.

We set off early that morning, my backpack filled with water and food for us both. Gracie was wearing her red halter which, for her, is a signal that we’re going on an adventure, that this is special, and to stay close to me. She is a cattle dog and seems to equate the halter with working and discovery.

Soon after leaving the trailhead, I noticed my legs felt heavy. As we made our way up the mountain, the sun was playing hide-and-seek between the leaves of the trees and I would repeatedly remove my sunglasses and put them back on as we went from sun to shade and back again. I couldn’t get comfortable. The morning temperature was cool, yet in what seemed like no time, I was drenched in sweat.

I’ve noted that when Gracie and I hike, our pace is much quicker than when we hike with friends. Not that we’re racing but the two of us tend to keep moving and I presumed that perhaps the pace was quicker than it needed to be. After passing a couple who had stopped for a breather we never saw another human – we had the wilderness to ourselves. We saw deer and grouse, we walked past cattle (it’s a New Mexico thing), and squirrels and chipmunks.

Our pace was quick but not rushed yet I was struggling. I felt unsteady crossing a creek. I’ll often talk to Gracie as we hike. Sometimes I play word games – talking out loud, repeating silly phrases, memory games, etc. But on that particular day, I didn’t have the extra energy to talk. We were stealthy, hiking through the abundant beauty in silence.

As we reached the tree line and rounded a turn, I realized that today was not going to be the day we summitted the Top of the World trail that gifts hikers with a 360-degree view of Northern New Mexico from nearly 12,500 feet. I wasn’t feeling strong.

A quirk about my body-mind relationship is when I’m tired or stressed, my appetite takes a leave of absence. So when my body most needs sustenance, I don’t feel hungry. We had just hiked aroundabout 2,000 feet in 90 minutes and while I had tried to drink water, I struggled to consume it and I knew why. I was near “bonk” territory.

“Bonk.” Every cyclist knows what that is. We may be enjoying a bike ride but we’ve failed to put enough fuel in the tank and everything stops. I once bonked so badly that a kind stranger driving by stopped, picked me up, and drove me back to my car. No cyclist enjoys bonking but it happens.

I made the decision to stop below the summit and refuel. We stopped at a beautiful ridgeline and I could see down into the valley and into the neighboring community of Red River. I poured Gracie some water and gave her some salmon treats. They are freeze-dried nuggets of yum but have a strong smell. I zipped the remaining treats in a double baggie and placed them back in my backpack.

Then it was my turn. I forced myself to eat the entire sandwich I had prepared. Although it tasted great, I didn’t enjoy it. I drank more water to send the message to my body, “We’re not bonking today.”

And then I did something that I’d never done on a solo hike. Stopping for lunch is one thing. Taking in the scenery, snapping photos – we all do that. I’ll often lie back and chat with my friends when we stop for lunch on hikes but never as a solo. But on that day, as my body began to shiver from being cold at high altitude wearing sweat-soaked clothing, I put on my fleece jacket and immediately felt its cozy warmth. I zipped all the food baggies back into the backpack, and leaned back on the hillside, using my pack as a pillow.

“We’re gonna do some ‘westin’,” I said to Gracie, saying the word “west” rather than “rest” because that’s the weird kind of dog mom I am. She understood and didn’t question it. Dogs inherently love “westin.” The day was lovely. Not a cloud in the cerulean-colored sky. I watched as birds flew low and close to us. I closed my eyes and listened to their wings flutter. I listened to the wind. I wrote a silly poem in my head about the flavors of wind with sprinkles of sound on top.

As I lay there, I thought about why my body was rebelling. I thought of the workouts and bike rides and reasoned that I hadn’t consumed enough carbs the day before. I loved listening to the wind and felt its direction as it moved across me.

Lying there, I felt like I had failed us on our Gracie’s Day hike. I’d never not summitted a mountain I had set out to climb. She was full of energy and would have happily continued, but I didn’t have the legs. We were together though and that was most important. My thoughts began to settle, the only sounds were the wind and bird’s wings.

And then it happened. Gracie, whose job is to listen to me and do what I say so I can trust her in any situation, so we can have fun adventures, started to growl.

I know my dog well. She will bark at humans who show up unexpectedly at our home. She will bark at something that startles her like a door slamming shut due to the breeze coming in from the open window. She’ll bark at the propane truck (but wag her tail at the driver). Growls, however, are reserved for perceived danger. She will growl at coyotes. She will growl at bobcats. And on that day, as I lay “westin” high on an isolated ridgeline, I learned that Gracie growls at bears.

I sat up on my elbows like my hair was on fire. The growl may as well be a flash flood siren. Gracie had moved to my side, her back against me as she sat facing something that she could see or sense that I could not. She was protecting me.

I knew to be quiet. In our language, growls are serious warning signs. I turned to face what Gracie was facing and there they were. Less than 25 yards away, lumbering peacefully along, eating berries, was the biggest black bear I had ever seen with her two large cubs.

They were stunningly beautiful. Gracie began to growl again and I immediately whispered, “No, Gracie. Quiet.” She understood. I didn’t dare sit all the way up, we were so close that they would have heard me. Having been lying down (on a hike!) I was aware of the wind direction. “We’re downwind,” I thought, “they aren’t picking up our scent.” Because I had used my backpack as a pillow, I had zipped our food and Gracie’s smelly salmon treats in our double bag.

My dog was on high alert yet she was listening for my commands and as I continued to whisper, “Quiet,” she didn’t move. We were so close we could hear the bears breathing, which made me wonder if they snored because they are LOUD breathers. The cubs were like Velcro attached to their mama. She would take two steps and they would do the same. With legs thick as tree trunks she was snorting and rooting around like a pig. A very large one.

Lumbering, peaceful, the three bears were doing what they were intended to do and we sat motionless watching them. It would have been impossible to unzip my backpack, retrieve my phone, and take a photo without them hearing us. I remained on my elbows – like those National Geographic photographers except I didn’t have the cool camera with the long lens.

Something though, felt familiar - almost normal. I grew up camping in bear country in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Smoky Mountains back east. I’ve experienced encounters in the wild before. I once spent a night camping on Kodiak Island in Alaska with the sole purpose of seeing large Kodiak grizzly bears. I’m respectful of them but I’m not afraid.

We watched them for a full five minutes (since I was on my elbows I could easily see my watch). They didn’t come any closer to us but were in no hurry to move on. “Quiet,” I would whisper every minute or so to Gracie as it began to occur to me that this was not a failed hike at all. This was a gift from the Universe. We had a front row seat to three of Nature’s wildest (and potentially dangerous) animals. Gracie sat as still and quiet as a rock.

Mama Bear started to move across the wide expanse of trail away from us and her two cubs followed her. As they walked away from us, I quietly unzipped my pack in slow motion as I watched them. I wanted to try and snap a photo but I didn’t want to take my eyes off of what we were seeing.

I grabbed the phone which was switched on having just taken a photo of Gracie less than 10 minutes before. By the time I captured a photo, the three bears were nearly out of sight. I took a couple of photos, still on my elbows. In the photo, Mama Bear looks like nothing more than a large rock. That’s not the point anyway. I didn’t need proof. Gracie and I know what we saw and experienced together.

They slowly meandered out of sight and we could hear them as they trampled through the shrubs. I sat up and Gracie looked at me, placing her paw on my leg. “Good girl!” I said, still quietly but louder than a whisper.

Within a minute I was on my feet, backpack in place and we began our descent. The adrenaline coursing through my veins after seeing those amazing beings so close was like its own fuel stop. I was in no danger of bonking. It was Gracie’s Day and my little blue dog had protected me while listening to every word I whispered to her.

I felt a range of emotions as we headed down the trail - as if I could hear the Universe saying to me, “You may have judged yourself for feeling as though you were failing on your hike, but this is what slowing down will give you.”

Gracie and I giggled and laughed. She zoomed and stood on her hind legs pawing at me as if to say, “Did you see? We did it! We saw them! We stayed safe!”

“Good girl, Gracie!” I repeated. “Bonne fille!” I said to her in French. And she knew. It was Gracie’s Day. She had done her job and she knew it.

I reflected as we continued down the mountain. At one point tears welled in my eyes, as I let the gratitude for what we had just experienced overflow. I had never laid down like that before on a solo hike nor had I ever been so mindful as to pack our food and treat bags away in the double bags. Had I been sitting up the bears would have seen me and avoided us. Had the wind been moving in the opposite direction they would have picked up our scents. Had I been with any other dog I’ve ever met, they would have barked or startled the bears which could have put us in real danger. But none of that happened. The Universe had her own message for us that day.

As we made our way closer to civilization, we passed a few hikers heading up the mountain. Gracie continued to lead us down, frequently stopping to look at me and smile – her little white teeth sparkling in the sunshine. We had shared something special. She had protected me and done her job.

When we reached the parking lot of the Taos Ski Valley, my blood sugar level once again dropped. My next goal was to find a Mexican Coke, most every cyclist’s antidote to bonking. My body was communicating to my brain it needed sugar and I knew I would be fine. More “westin” was on the horizon.

It turns out what I had thought was a failed hike wasn’t even close. When I allowed myself to slow down and let the silence be the loudest thing around us, the gift of Gracie’s Day could be fully unwrapped. I just needed three bears to remind me.

~ ~ ~

We live in a culture that often equates stopping or pausing with failure.

Have you ever mistaken stopping for failure? Have you experienced an unexpected “reward” for stopping or slowing down despite thinking you should keep going?

If you’d like to know more about Gracie and her best friend Max, I’ve written a book with six true stories of their adventures, The Blue Dog and the White Horse: The Best of Friends, published by Brandylane Publishers, Inc. It’s available wherever you buy books, and shop owners can order it if they don’t have it in stock.

This isn’t the first time Gracie has found herself close to a potentially dangerous wild animal. The first time, Max taught her what to do. I think Max would have been pleased to see how well Gracie remembered what he taught her.

Gracie at home “westin” on the sofa after our experience with the three bears.