My Hiking Origin Story, Part 4: The First Hike!
Quick recap: First there was a memorable camping trip that showed me the solace of nature, and its healing power. Then, a startling wake-up call that convinced me to escape my sedentary tech-obsessed bubble and find a trail. THIS trail! Welcome to a recap about my first ever hike. Here are links to the previous parts of this story if you need them:
Jason Evangelho
Jason Evangelho
Jason Evangelho
The Goldstrike Canyon trailhead is located about 5 miles outside of Boulder City, Nevada, along Highway 93 as you’re heading toward Hoover Dam. I knew from studying the trail notes in my newly acquired guidebook that it would involve ropes and downclimbs over slippery boulders, but I squelched the anxiety and trudged forward.
The hike begins unremarkably; a gradual descent that meanders underneath a towering bridge holding up Highway 93. Once the bridge is out of sight, you’re suddenly surrounded by canyon walls that are hundreds of feet high. Centuries of persistent, punishing winds and water have turned these rock walls into works of art, gradually eroding caves and punching pockmarks into them in the most unusual places.
It’s breathtaking, but not necessarily due to its visual splendor. No, it’s the sheer force of nature, having its way with objects that seem permanent and indestructible. A slow but steady marathon of change and fluidity.
There’s the occasional dull roar of the highway, but eventually it fades into nothingness. It gets so impossibly quiet you can hear a lizard scramble across the rocks.
About 1.5 miles in, I finally heard voices. Female, upbeat. I caught up to them as they were carefully scrambling down a series of large boulders that represented my first real challenge. Not just concern over my knee giving out, but also a mental challenge. Did I have the confidence and perseverance after previously giving up not even 2 miles from my backyard?
This is trivial to most people. Hell, it was laughably easy in hindsight, but don’t underestimate what years of self-doubt and pain can do to your psyche. Those years of believing I had a handicap made this an inexplicably insurmountable obstacle in my mind.
One of the women was struggling with the descent, visibly fearful and unsure what to do with her feet and hands. She mirrored my own anxiety. Her friends instructed her, coaxed her down, supportive and helpful.
When her feet once again met the gravel trail, she smiled and looked up at me, warning that the rock was slippery in a certain spot. “Turn your body this way, ok put your right foot there, grab this handhold here, use the rope for stability” she instructed, paying her newly acquired knowledge forward.
Like I said, it was far easier than I expected. But this was my first hike, and I was still being irrational and fearful. Scared that my knee would give out, or worse — scared I’d embarrass myself!
Two miles further down, streams of warm liquid began to materialize in the sand. I followed the water as it spilled into a hot spring obscured by a massive boulder, which eclipsed the size of the last one that had left me almost paralyzed with fear. I descended this one less timidly but still cautiously, half climbing and half sliding, nervous and anxious but driven forward by what nature had in store for me.
As I landed, an older man waved cheerfully at me from inside a hot spring that looked about 4 feet deep. Out of breath, we engaged in small talk as I stripped down to my underwear and slid in, using the hot spring’s mossy rock wall like a slide.
As I was soaking in this 102-degree hot spring in the middle of the desert, I met his brother Gavin. Gavin lived in Las Vegas and “drove paddleboats in circles” at The Venetian. This poor man dealt with tourists daily. Like me, he loathed CES (but for vastly different reasons.) Unlike me, his adventuring once took him to nearby Arizona Hot Springs, where he stumbled upon “two naked folk singers” practicing for their next gig. He couldn’t remember the duo’s name, but he did remember their remark about the acoustics being perfect.
He was loaded with colorful stories like this, and I happily listened for the better part of two hours. I felt like Fred Savage’s character in “The Princess Bride” hearing that wondrous, exciting, unbelievable tale for the first time. I was captivated by everything around me. Every molecule. Every scent, sound, and sensation.
As my skin shriveled and Gavin continued verbally cataloging his various outdoor adventures, we were joined by a couple college kids hiking back up from the Colorado River. They slipped into the water and quietly enjoyed his stories. Eventually we all introduced ourselves and gave abbreviated outlines of our personalities, jobs, and hobbies.
No one wanted to be the first to get out and leave.
So, this first hike, which began with hesitation and fear, culminated in an overweight tech journalist, a couple of older hippies, and a group of college kids all sitting in a hot spring, sharing stories and being uncommonly friendly to each other.
Is this how the world worked before technology consumed us and we started having relationships with things instead of people? Is this what it felt like to not have an hourly schedule, to not care about notifications, to not be rushed, to not be concerned with appearances and posturing? To know that — at least inside this desert canyon — everyone is helpful, hopeful, and happy?
Time melted away so quickly that I never made it down to the Colorado River. But next time, I would! In fact, it was challenging enough to drag myself out of that glorious hot spring.
These are photos from my second hike at Goldstrike Canyon.
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