Young Lungs
After trekking about eight miles 2,000 feet uphill to the canyon rim, my lungs sure didn’t feel young. But that’s where I met her and her husband, in their early 60s maybe, having a lunch of almonds and melon where the Lathrop Trail drops into vertical switchback madness for a several hundred feet in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park.
I never caught their names, but they changed the way I viewed age and ability out there in the sagebrush desolation.
They spoke cheerily and told me how they planned to go into the canyon, but upon seeing how steep it was, they opted for lunch instead. So they sat and watched me climb.
“We knew it had to be someone with young lungs,” they said to me. I chuckled humbly, and smiled, mostly because I was too winded to speak. I secretly lamented the dead weight of my tent in my pack when I didn’t even use it. Don’t I ever learn?
I turned down their offer of almonds, and revealed that I had tunnel vision for a big soggy hamburger with extra moo.
I continued on my way, relieved that the path back to my car was more or less flat along the canyon rim. I eventually caught up to another group of middle-aged hikers, who moved aside to let me pass by.
One woman quipped — seemingly to vindicate their slower relative speed — that the young guy was moving faster. “But hey, at least we’re doing it,” she said quickly.
And she’s right. I’m in my mid-20s and I can hike faster and carry more weight. I can dance up trails they view as insurmountable (like the Lathrop Trail, for instance), and I don’t need ibuprofen at the end of the day.
Not yet.
But when I’m 50, will I still pull myself out onto these punishing trails, trudging exhaustingly under a glaring sun, all for a few minutes at the edge of a blazing red abyss? I hope so.
It never occurred to me before; I envy their longevity, even as they envy my lung-gevity. Who cares if they couldn’t punish themselves on a descent into the canyon? Looking down at a canyon from the rim is much more interesting than looking up from the bottom.
And besides, that group of middle-aged hikers I passed mentioned that they were down at the bottom yesterday, just like I was. Only they were cruising around in four-wheelers, enjoying the scenery with a good bit of wind in their hair while I tramped for miles in three inches of sand.
Who needs young lungs when you’re young at heart?
I am easily contacted by e-mail. My address is 2001 Ford Focus, USA.