Middle aged man on a hike

Middle Aged Man On A Hike

 

It all started on a trip to Westport, Co Mayo in Ireland in 2017. Having never climbed much higher than my staircase at home I blurted out the question to my wife, "Would you prefer to climb Croagh Patrick or Cycle the Greenway along the Wild Atlantic Way?"....Ermm "Whatever" was the reply " she was obviously oblivious to what either a Greenway was or what a Croagh Patrick was. That's it then its decided "Croagh Patrick it is" It must have came as a bit of shock to her that we were going to climb a mountain. But that's where it all began, a climb and view that made my decision to never let this be the last time I viewed the World from such an amazing vantage point and a decision to enjoy the World around me while I'm lucky enough to be here. I'm not embarrassed to say that no more. 

Unfortunately life sometime dictates to us what we have to prioritize and for me providing for a family was that priority, however I never once lost the memory and the feeling I got from seeing that view from the top of Croagh Patrick and I always vowed to myself that I would enjoy that feeling again. Thankfully a couple of years on my life, balancing between work and play has evened out and now I now have more chances to keep that promise to myself and have managed to build up a collection of hiking and camping equipment to aid as my kids keep telling me, my "mid life crisis".

Kinder Scout in The Peak District

Now I'm not going to sit here and claim that climbing and walking in the great outdoors is the answer to all our problems, but for me I've found that it has became an outlet to de-stress, a place to push my life reset button and get some well needed fresh air and exercise into the bargain. For to many of us middle aged folk the spare time that we spent in our lives 30-40 years ago that was happily spent outside, has if not been lost altogether have certainly been cut down and diluted and replaced with modern day less passive types of activities. Yes I am trying to sell the whole get out and do some walking thing but something that makes whole thing more appealing to me is the fact that at certain times you can get out into the countryside and not see a soul, in fact I'm never truly happy until I can hear nothing. So in a nutshell, get out and do some walking but not to much because you'll piss me off while I'm doing mine.

Taking in the views on Kinder Scout


O.K so there are thousands of experts on various social media sites and various message boards all offering great advise on a number of subjects with regards to hiking, trekking and climbing, there are hundreds of YouTube videos explaining how to do this and how to do that (most of which I might add, is extremely helpful) but what will make my future blogs slightly different is that they will not be coming from an expert, yes you read that correct NOT from an expert, its coming from a novice that is still learning and obviously making mistakes and passing on that lack of expertise.

So where do I go from here? How do I start Hiking?? What do I need to know??? What equipment do I need???? So many questions going through my head on what is basically something I do every day, I mean jeez its only putting one foot front of another even if I am doing it thousands of times more than I usually do, and going slightly higher than I usually do, and going through much more mud and crap than I usually do...What could possibly go wrong? Hopefully with the blogs I plan to write you'll get an idea of what goes right and what goes wrong. With still many plans and countless places to visit an honest assessment of my experiences while Hiking and camping etc is guaranteed

 

Middle aged man on a hike

signing out...for now