East Sooke Park

When I go for a very long hike alone - like, 5 or 6 hours - a lovely sequence plays out in my brain. 

For the first half an hour, free of screens or music or human contact, thoughts pour into my brain. Inspiration swirls. I get a million ideas and almost turn around and go back home so I can write them all down. Eventually, they exhaust themselves. The good ideas rise to the top. I thumb them into my phone, usually on rapidly freezing fingers, not stopping as I stumble over rocks. 

After about two hours of walking I get into the “oh, I didn’t know I was angry about that” phase. This is where I find myself compulsively playing out arguments and retorting things I can’t say back to other people. I’m a top-tier conflict avoider, and sometimes I shut down conflict without even realizing I had a valid point. This phase of the hike is where my brain reminds me of loose ends I need to tie up. Of people I need to draw boundaries with. Of things I need to watch out for. It’s unpleasant, but I think it’s necessary. 

Then after that, in the four-hour range, I kind of go...blank. 

The conscious, verbal-train-of-thought memory just kind of shuts up. And silence descends. I hear my own footsteps. I listen to water and trees and wind. I get bored. It’s lovely. 

It’s not a flow state. It’s an empty attic. It’s a swept floor. It’s a toybox dumped out on the bed so now we can see what we’re dealing with. I’ve never had my best ideas on hikes, but I swear I’ve honed my conversational and negotiation skills, improved my fashion sense, streamlined my weeks, kept my house clean, and improved my diet after the ideas that emerge during hikes. And I’ve never, ever regretted going. Not even when I’m soaked and my hands are bone-white with Reynauds and I’m still an hour from my car. 

East Sooke Park: Aylard Farm, Interior Trail to Iron Mine Bay, then Coast Trail back to Aylard Farm. 

Distance: 19K

Time: 4.75 h at a brisk pace

Difficulty: moderate