How Hiking Changed My Life: Diary of a Girl Who Hates Dirt

Metamorphosis of a City Girl

Let’s get it straight — anyone who know’s me will be glad to tell you I don’t like getting dirty. And it’s true for most of my adult life, the ‘great outdoors’ wasn’t my idea of a good time. Bugs, heat, extended physical exertion…gross.

In 2017, I was up to my highest body weight, 225 pounds. At 5’5, the weight was killing my back and making me miserable every time I went shopping, both from walking and the frustration of finding clothes I liked.

The abbreviated version of my weight-loss journey is that I changed up my diet, started consistently drinking water and doing cardio workouts several days a week. Also above all, I made sure I was stretching day and night.

A few months in, I could walk around the mall for an hour without needing to sit down. I started to enjoy being active and noticed how intentional physical activity elevated my mental state.

About a year later, I met a guy and suddenly had an accountability partner as he had a regular gym routine. The following spring, we set out one weekend on a spontaneous day trip to Medicine Park before wandering over to what is now one of my favorite hiking spots — the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.

Geared in only sneakers, a crop top, my trusty leggings, and a pleather backpack, we ventured into The Parallel Forest located on the edge of the refuge on Meers Road (115). Although it’s rumored to be haunted and we did see traces of satanic graffiti, the forest is beautiful and definitely worth a visit.

Venture past the red cedar tree line and you’ll find a plethora of soothing streams, cooling canopies and wonderful wildflowers. It’s the perfect kind of place to recenter and ground yourself. You can read my blog on The Parallel Forest here.

The experience was wonderful. We hoped rocks in a stream and picked wildflowers for a bouquet I dried and still have. All through the drive home and really the rest of the summer, we talked about going back, but opted for days by the pool and nights on the patio.

Hiking is Just Walking…Right?

Fast-forward again to spring 2020. Like everyone else, we had been going stir-crazy with quarantine and pretty bummed since our gyms were closed. We started taking regular walks in our neighborhood each day to get some activity, but we both needed and wanted more. We couldn’t see our friends and family and we really couldn’t go anywhere…could we?

One Saturday when we’d had enough, we loaded up the truck and ventured out to the Great Salt Plains. It was a fun trip that I highly recommend, and while that wasn’t a hiking adventure, it did spur the next trip to Natural Falls State Park in Colcord, Oklahoma two weeks later.

You can read all about our visit here, but the ‘need to know’ is that Natural Falls is incredible. After the short loop around the park, we both looked down on the falls in awe for a while and agreed this feeling was amazing and we needed more.

The week after, we made our way back to the Wichita Mountains – this time with the purpose to hike Buffalo Trail with the goal of cutting across to Kite Trail and getting a peek at 40-Foot Hole. I don’t know what we were thinking other than, ‘Hiking is just walking, right?’ We made it less than half-way before turning back, BUT for the record we still saw tons of gorgeous scenery. 

That trip taught us A LOT of lessons, including that we were NEWBIES and unprepared. My feet were bleeding and I twisted my ankle, we were dehydrated and hangry, we did half our hike back in the dark…basically all the mistakes a beginner can make. But still, we wanted more AND we had to reach our goal of getting to 40-Foot Hole.

The following weeks included lots of resting, researching about hiking as a sport, the equipment we needed to do it right and hours shopping online for our essentials.

We wouldn’t actually make it to 40-Foot Hole until several trips later, in part due to the extended distance caused by COVID trail closures. Since then, we’ve hiked to almost all of the most beautiful waterfalls in Oklahoma, including Turner Falls in Davis and Little Niagara in Sulfur. We also experienced a couple of incredible falls in Colorado.

How Hiking Changed My Life

Hiking changed my life by centering, grounding and strengthening me. When you go on a hike, you give yourself a goal, and the only obstacle is your body. For me, as long as I take care of my body along the way, everything typically goes smoothly and I reward myself with the beautiful destination that I get to both enjoy and photograph (one of my other passions).

It’s honestly worth the sore muscles, few bruises and occasional snake or tarantula encounter to spend a few hours adventuring to one of nature’s secret flex stations.

But most importantly, one of the biggest ways hiking changed my life is in my personal life. I started hiking with my partner at the time and found it be an amazing relationship builder. We would rely on each other for our different skills, to carry various supplies, and to support each other during the journey.

One day I hope to hike Havasu Falls, and if I’m lucky even hike Machu Picchu. I also started bringing friends along, although they too are learning that hiking isn’t exactly like walking.