Woman Hiking Alone

~by Sara Clifford

Rustling in the brush rousts me from sleep: Halting footsteps, getting closer.

I am miles from roads, 100+ feet from a trail, encircled by trees the color of my rainfly. It’s dark, predawn, and near freezing.

The steps get closer; I can feel them through my mat. I slow my breath, but don’t move.

Then, a sound I’ve heard up-close once before: the gasp-scream a deer makes when startled, right before she turns tail and bolts.

I settle back into the ground. I stay. For as long as I wish, I stay.

When I wake again, I stuff my stuff into sacks, pack away the tent, and rake up the ground where I laid. Breath clouding in the beam of my lamp, I shoulder the straps and walk on, several miles still in the dark, startling other deer in the distance still bedded down.

I am not a threat, but they’ve been conditioned differently. I look just like others with opposite intent; there’s really no way to know. For some of us, the safest thing to do is to stay hidden, stay silent, stay small.

Well, I’m not doing that anymore.

I went back to the woods five years ago when I felt I was losing myself. If you’ve ever held a very public-facing role in a very small place, you might know the feeling: eyes on you, tracking, waiting for you to stumble. I’d started second-guessing my instincts, though they’d rarely let me down. I’d stopped listening to my body, pushing through when I needed to rest, putting myself out there when I wanted to retreat.

I needed peace and a place to think.

First, I took my husband with me. We’d met this way, united in a shared love of wild things, before he had people in his ear constantly fencing him in and redirecting his time.

I took a boy or two in hopes of showing them all the things I see and love. They noticed, and then they talked. And they talked some more, and they clashed and swatted and argued, and after a while I couldn’t hear or see anything else but the wildness in them that, as their mother, I felt obligated to contain. Every now and then, a mom-friend or neighbor would call. We’d hike as a group, because, you know, safety in numbers. More often, though, I’d only take a dog—no communication expected except through the leash. But I didn’t like being tethered, either, tugged faster than I wanted or stopped while someone sniffed or marked their spot.

THE THINGS I CARRY

◊16-ounce water bottles, up to three on a day hike.◊ Power-up snacks: Cashews or granola bars.◊ Pepper spray, a gift from my husband. Never used it, but I have it.◊ Paper maps, even of the places I often go.◊ Kleenex. Doubles as TP.◊ Neck gaiter. Like a bandana, multiple uses.◊ GPS-enabled watch, another gift from my husband. Anyone I give permissions to can see where I am in real time.◊ Chapstick.◊ Car keys, clipped into my pack.◊ Headlamp, sometimes charged.◊ Small, waterproof first-aid kit, including gauze and matches.◊ Small knife, sheathed and visible.◊ Phone, except when I forget it. Even then, I am fine.

Finally, I’m OK with hiking alone.

“You might want to leave out the part ‘alone,’” my editor for this piece suggested. “There are weirdos out there.”

I know. I have been alerted to some as recently as this very trip—though to be (un)fair, any man can easily read that way in the woods. The first night, I came upon one in neon shorts with a crossbow; kept checking over my shoulder at where he was aiming. Later, within earshot of my campsite were two groups of men on a wild-andfree weekend. It frustrated me that my instinct was to duck and stay behind the tree line. But that way, I wasn’t as worried when the nighttime sounds signaled drinking. They didn’t know I was here, separated from any herd.

It helps me, in all moments of anxiety, to reach for facts. “Your risk of being a victim of violent crime is thousands of times lower in a national park than in the country as a whole” (Backpacker magazine, 2014). Eighty-two percent of sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows (FBI). Throughout my 20-year history in Brown County, only one person—yes, a woman hiking alone—has ever been attacked on a local trail (Brown County Democrat, 2011).

But I digress; feeding fear wasn’t my point. Statistically, I am safer here, sleeping in a nylon bubble by myself, than I would be walking around after dark in some civilized places. Historically, I’ve been much less safe among “friends.”

On the trail, I alone decide what my body does. It doesn’t have to cuddle or coddle or soothe or please anybody. I stop when I want. I go as far and as fast as I want. Any hurt I feel, I caused, and I am proud of it. It reminds me that I’m still alive, that I can make my own choices.

When I lose my wildness and all the courage that requires, I lose the real me.

If you see me out here alone, don’t assume I’m a target. I am not. I’m simply listening to myself, gathering strength for what’s to come.

Not hidden. Not silent. Not small. Just free, and determined to stay that way.