The benefits of hiking are fuel for your body, your senses, and your mind. It is not just a form of exercise or a moment to commune with nature. It offers those traits also but a whole lot more.
It’s a moment to appreciate, not what humanity created, but what nature laid out for you. Not things that were constructed on a deadline but the ever-changing beauty that took millions of years to form and is still transforming.
Hiking can be about social feeding where conversations among friends and family can be heard without the “noise” of life. Not the clicking of a keyboard or the tapping on a phone in a virtual world. It is where your voice is only accompanied by the song of a bird or the rushing water of a stream. It’s togetherness.
And it is sometimes about soul searching, a look inward without “life” hitting you from all angles. Where clarity and self-understanding can be realized. Where decisions and non-decisions can be weighed upon through the filtered sunlight of an evergreen canopy.
Most of the hiking trails are manmade and if not manmade, maintained for hiker safety. From the volunteers who clear down trees across paths to those who have built bridges to cross. Without them, a lot of nature’s beauty would go unseen.
For instance, the Geierlay suspension bridge in western Germany. The bridge is a part of the miles of hiking trails around both the Moselle river and the Rhine. The bridge opened in 2015 and spans almost a quarter of a mile (360 meters), and hangs about 330 feet above the ground.
The bridge itself is a beauty and requires a bit of courage to cross for those with an aversion to heights. It is said that a small percentage of the people who visit the bridge actually cross it.
Put this on my “to visit” list and if you have crossed or visited the Geierlay bridge, please tell me your experience.
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