A case for hiking near home

Hiking is one of my go-to ways to exercise and de-stress, but there’s nothing like traffic to instantly evaporate the happiness I feel on trail. For that reason, there are places and times of year I won’t hike anymore. Holiday weekends? Nope. Anything off Highway 2, ever? Forget it; the traffic jams heading west are the stuff of legend.

It’s not that I’m not hiking — I am. I’m just more likely to stay closer to home now. In the same amount of time it would take to get to a remote trail, I can hike farther and spend less time in the car. And I have extra time to spend in my community and neighborhood. My neighbor and I visit each other. I’m keeping a garden alive and taking classes I’ve always been interested in. I’m volunteering in town more. I have time after a hike to do more than drag my stuff inside and plop on the couch.

Walking around the city can offer beautiful juxtapositions of nature with human-built structures, like this cherry tree against a building on Seattle University’s campus. Photo by Anna Roth.

Plus, my trip to a remote trailhead may not contribute significantly to climate change (compared to various industries), but sitting in traffic watching heat waves against a backdrop of mountains without their snowy caps is demoralizing.

Of course, it's easy to default to hiking every weekend when a dramatic horizon is visible every time you step outside. But I’ve realized that just because the mountains are calling doesn’t mean you have to go all the way into them.

I think about it in terms of hiking pace. If I hike at 2 miles per hour, and spend 2 hours driving to a trail (or waiting in line to get into a national park), that’s 4 miles I could have hiked! Now double those hours to factor in the drive home, and a modest day hike that’s 2 hours away turns into an all-day affair, and the time spent in the car equals almost 8 miles of potential hiking.

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When I realized this, I began recalculating my outings. I developed a personal formula: A hike must be at least twice as long one-way, in miles, as the hours I spend driving to it.

With this formula, suddenly local trails I’d whizzed by on my way elsewhere became compelling. Just 40 minutes from my door, I can do well over 10 miles in a morning. I save money because I use less gas; the shorter time commitment means it’s easier to get friends to come along and I get home with enough time for other activities.
More often these days, I opt to simply not hike in favor of investing in where I live. Spending time in your neighborhood and your community makes the days you do get out on trail even sweeter. I had some of the best trips of my life this summer, partially because the high I felt after not being on trail every weekend was closer to what originally made me love hiking.

I recommend giving it a shot. Try staying closer to home one weekend a month (or, if that sounds out of the question, once a quarter). You can use WTA’s Trailblazer app to find parks near you. Use the time you save for an in-community activity with yourself, your family or friends. Get a coffee. Help a friend move. Read a book. Craft something. Just sit around. And then see how it feels the next time you venture farther out. I’d love to read about it in a trip report.