Outdoors/Adventure

Hiking through the hesitation to the top of Lazy Mountain

When it comes to difficult outdoor pursuits, I am queen of leniency.

If I’m in pain? I don’t push through. When I am no longer enjoying myself? As long as I have an escape option, I use it. I’ve stopped hiking short of my goal, quit running partway through a route, and bagged on mountain or fat bike objectives simply because I was no longer having fun.

Yes, I can and do endure discomfort. But the point of being outside for me is not to muscle through a sufferfest, it’s to enhance myself and my life. If I feel like I’m past the point of “enhancement” in my efforts, and instead into a red zone of “Why do I do this to myself?” I quit. Simple as that.

This is why my decision this past Sunday to keep going felt significant.

Lazy Mountain looms over my backyard in Palmer. Actually — that’s not exactly true. Pioneer Peak looms over my backyard proper. Lazy Mountain is to the north, more visible from my front yard. What mostly dominates the skyline, though, is the Matanuska Peak complex. Lazy Mountain, unfortunately, is but a low-lying blip on that jagged profile.

From the ground, it looks like a big nothing. This was very disappointing to my sister when she visited from out of town. She told me she wanted to hike a “mountain-y” mountain, which turned out to mean a mountain that has a real prominent point at the tippity-top. Lazy Mountain certainly has that, and it’s a grueling effort by any standard to get to the top. But, viewed from below and especially compared to Matanuska Peak which practically pierces the sky?

Yea, it’s unimpressive. After our epic day hike, Emily looked back from where we came from and said: “That’s Lazy?! That’s what we just did?!” Then she pointed at Matanuska Peak and said, “Next time, I want to do THAT.”

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At 3,720 feet tall, the Lazy Mountain trailhead is located about 1,000 feet up which offers a nice head start. Not that nice, though — the classic Lazy Mountain Trail heads “nearly straight up the mountain,” as the red-font sign at the start warns hikers. At two miles and change to the top, hikers gain about 3,000 feet in elevation.

It’s how one earns what locals call “Lazy Legs,” which is shorthand for not being able to walk without soreness for weeks after the season’s first hike.

My husband pitched hiking Lazy to me this past weekend. I’ve been a bit of a stress case, with a major road trip coming up to pick up a mobile art studio trailer that’s been in the works for years and the near-overwhelming logistics that come with that kind of endeavor.

I thought a hike would provide a good refocus. I said yes.

Here’s the thing: I remember Lazy Mountain from the last time I did it last year. And this year, it got steeper and longer. I have proof — it took me 30 more minutes to hike to the top than it did that time I practically trotted up it — people actually do that, my husband is one of them — on July 4, 2021.

By the time we’d reached the first picnic table, often an objective for a day or evening hike in and of itself, I was feeling pretty uninspired. I wasn’t exhausted or tapped, per se. I just felt fatigued of feeling fatigued, a notable lack of interest in summiting, and a pronounced anxiety about all the things that needed my attention back at home.

And yes, I was a little frustrated that the hike wasn’t easier. I suddenly remembered that I spent most of this winter running or skiing flat surfaces, whereas the summer before I had a weird burst of trail running that culminated in the Equinox Marathon. No wonder the slope was steeper than I remembered!

As we took a water and granola bar break at the picnic table, I asked my husband if he’d be OK turning around. He shrugged and said, either way. That left the decision to me.

I sat there and pondered the incredible view and daylight, feeling pretty confident that I’d opt to hike back down. I tried that on and it fit. After all, I’m totally comfortable bagging a hike or objective early, in the spirit of being outdoors for enjoyment and growth.

It was that latter part that nagged at me a little bit. I wasn’t as decisive as I normally am — I sat there turning over the choice, letting my mind wander back over to the option where we kept on hiking.

I realized, with an intense two weeks just ahead of me and all of the major decision points and elements that are both within and — many — out of my control, this hike was something I could complete. It would be good for me to reorient my mind and body to finish what I’d set out to do, even if and when it was difficult, so that I could have this grounding and point of reference for the weeks to come.

It helped that it was floodlight-level sunny; the kind of sunny overhead sun that leaves no whisper of a cloud in the sky and saturates everything it touches with warmth, even when the air temperature is cool.

I decided to keep on going, with an adjusted, slower and more methodical pace, and a focus on thinking about how the weeks to come would also happen step by deliberate step. I could and would do it.

The second half of the hike was a lot easier than the first. The top was, as I’d left it, a mountain-y mountain and filled me with a view on life and my position in it that I felt proud of. There is a reason to fulfill some outdoor objectives after all.

Alli Harvey

Alli Harvey lives in Palmer and plays in Southcentral Alaska.

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