Embracing The Pain: You Got Yourself Out Here, Now Get Yourself Back to the Trailhead

Rebecca Sperry

Owl’s Head is one of my favorite hikes in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I know that most would strongly disagree with me when I say this is a really beautiful hike, but what it lacks in views, and ease of accessibility, it makes up for in memories for me. In 2017, I hiked this peak for the very first time and I was intimidated beyond belief. Owl’s Head sits (roughly) eight miles one way into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. The trail is mainly flat, follows old railroad tracks from the days when this area was logged heavily, and has no views. Then, to actually reach the summit, you hike up a one mile herd path that gains 1,300’ in .6 miles to the ridge followed by .4 miles to the entirely wooded summit. In other words, you exert a lot of effort for no real views (with the exception of the views from the slide on the herd path). So why would anyone hike this peak seven times in the last six years?

In 2017, Owl’s Head changed my perspective on hiking. I had been working on hiking the 48 4000’ers of New Hampshire, and finally decided to bite the bullet and tackle this beast. I nervously pulled into the trailhead. It was cold, I was fully bundled up in my winter jacket, and I was far from the only person on the trail. The first three miles myself and a handful of other hikers powered forward, trekking poles clicking off of the old railroad ties that line sections of Lincoln Woods Trail, before reaching the sign marking the Pemigewasset Wilderness. I thought to myself, this is it, I’m entering the middle of nowhere now, and climbed up onto another series of old railroad tracks. 

While I power-walked four more miles towards the base of the herd path my mind raced and I fought back anxiety. But as I reached the final section of trail before the herd path, which is marked by two small cairns, the fear began to dissolve. I won’t say that I wasn’t nervous, or that I felt perfectly content and at peace all day, but there were moments where that fear would disappear and be replaced by a deep sense of calm. This is my home, I thought. It might be viewless, muddy, and monotonous, but it brought me to a place within myself where I took a hard turn in my journey away from the relentless fear and anxiety of hiking solo. I summited that peak, with a small number of other people, and made my way back out of the woods a different person than I was when I went in. From that day on, I loved Owl’s Head and returned to the summit five more times trying to recapture the feelings I felt on that first hike in the fall of 2017.

I hike because I want to feel something that I haven’t been able to reproduce in any other activity or life experience besides hiking. From 2015 until today (September, 2022) I have been infatuated with hiking. But there have been lots of times when I hated hiking and my last venture to the summit of my beloved peak was one of those times. 

I pulled into the parking lot knowing that I was in for a long day; a twenty mile or more long day. The weather was cooperating, I was rested, and I had no real excuses to not do this hike, but I didn’t feel like doing it. I didn’t feel like committing to a nine and a half hour day where I would be walking for almost all of it. But the miles won’t hike themselves, and I am working on hiking all of the 1,400+ miles in the 30th edition of the White Mountain guidebook in fourteen months, so whether I felt like it or not, I was hiking today.

The more I hike, the more that I have these kinds of days and have learned how to power through them. I tell myself that I have to do a certain amount of miles before I’m allowed to turn around and cancel the hike, and by the time I reach that mile marker I am happy I kept going. This was not going to be one of those days. Three miles into the day I hit the wilderness boundary without giving myself the option to turn around. Eight miles into the day I reached the herd path and began the climb to the summit of Owl’s Head, and knew that I was committed to the day even though I was in pain and really didn’t feel like climbing to the top of the mountain. The mountains don’t care if you are in pain and don’t feel like climbing them. They don’t care about you at all, they just are and it’s up to us to bend to their wills. So I bent to the will of the mountain, hit the summit, made my way back down, and instead of taking a left leading back to the trailhead, I took a right and continued deeper into the wilderness. 

The conditions of the footpath deteriorated significantly as I made my way deeper into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. This is the third time that I’ve done this loop and I knew what I was in for, but for some reason the trail seemed more difficult this time. After reaching Thirteen Falls (a semi-popular spot to camp) I took a right and started the long walk back to my car. Miles and miles of old railroad tracks later, I exited the wilderness back onto Lincoln Woods Trail. Three more miles to my car and the ball of my foot was killing me. But I only had one option, the same option we all have once we set foot onto a trail, to keep going and finish the hike.

Sitting down right there in the middle of the trail wouldn’t get me back to my car faster. I could stop and rest for a few minutes, but I knew once I started walking again my foot would hurt just as bad as it did. I certainly wasn’t going to call search and rescue to come help me; they would assess the situation and have me walk out (because I absolutely could walk, it just hurt a lot). Being in pain sucks. Being wet, tired, sore, hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable, and bored, sucks too. But what I’ve come to learn from hiking is that the vast majority of the time, the only thing that we need to do is just keep going. So I kept going and guess what, I will remember this hike a lot more than I would’ve had it been perfect, happy, and fun. I’ll remember it as another time that I persevered despite the pain. I’ll remember it the next time I don’t want to keep going, and remind myself that there were times in the past when I thought I couldn’t keep walking, and did.