The impatient hiker

After years of moving in different directions, a close friend of thirty-five years and I reconnected. Eager to catch up properly, we planned an eight-mile hike along Skyline Boulevard, high up on Highway 35 in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s a spectacular stretch of trail carved directly through giant redwoods, where the hills are steep, the dense forest is deeply meditative, and the canopy keeps everything cool and shadowed no matter how bright the sun is outside.

On the morning of the trek, my friend called to ask if his business school classmate, Nick, could tag along. I was happy to have him. It was a chance to reconnect with my old friend, make a new one, and potentially find a regular hiking partner for future weekend escapes. We met at a central spot, my friend hopped into my passenger seat, and Nick followed us in his car toward the trailhead.

As we neared the destination, the parking lot eluded me. My cell signal flickered and died, a common casualty of the dense tree cover. We pulled over onto the shoulder to huddle, and Nick whipped out his phone. Fortuitously, he had a bar of service, maps loaded, and discovered we were literally a hundred feet from the entrance. Crisis averted. We parked, laced up our boots, and walked toward the trail. The drive had taken an hour each way, but with eight miles of therapeutic forest bathing ahead of us, it felt entirely worth it.

The three of us started down the trail, falling into an easy rhythm. At first, my friend and I were doing most of the talking, catching up on years of missed history. Nick listened, but as the trail began to climb, his engagement seemed to drift.

Barely ten minutes into the hike, Nick suddenly pressed forward, urging us to pick up the pace so we could finish the entire loop as quickly as possible.

My friend and I exchanged a look. We hadn't come out here to set a personal record; we had explicitly planned a leisurely, restorative pace. By now, Nick’s tone had shifted from enthusiastic to distinctly abrasive. We gently told him that we were looking for a non-stressful, calming hike to clear our heads and catch up.

What happened next was entirely bizarre. Without another word, Nick executed a sharp U-turn, announced he was leaving, and marched back toward the cars.

We stood there stunned, watching his back disappear into the redwoods. It felt utterly irrational. He had just endured a two-hour round-trip drive to hike for less than six hundred seconds, completely bypassing the peaceful, therapeutic air of the forest.

We knew better than to chase him or try to argue him down. Instead, we shook off the bizarre encounter, turned back to the trail, and enjoyed the rest of our quiet, redwood-canopied afternoon, burning more than enough calories to justify a fantastic lunch afterward.