Beyond Male Ego on the Colorado Trail

Darrow Kirkpatrick, author Two Sticks, One Pass: A Fear-Over-The-Trip to the Colorado Trail,

“Those who conquer others are strong; those who conquer themselves are strong.” —Lao-tzu

To achieve my childhood dream, I overcame crippling anxiety, chronic lower body injuries and the power of nature to hike the 500-mile Colorado Trail on crutches.

When writing my memoirs about my experiences, Two Sticks, One Pass: A Fear-Over-The-Trip to the Colorado Trailthe biggest obstacle was internal. At first I thought this book would be a simple travelogue. But then I realized that if I wanted to write something memorable, I had to attract my personal life. It meant printing my mistakes and fears.

I might be a seasoned outdoorsman, but I have quite a bit of cinc in my armor. It took me so hard in my life to create peace with them.

I have long been challenged to reconcile the tensions and adventurous goals of mental and physical vulnerability that seem to be part of my personality. I was a strong rock climber in my 20s and 30s. But what kind of mountain man has weak legs and panic attacks?

These questions seemed awful until you could see masculinity from another perspective. Yes, macho men or women show strength. However, the examination revealed that true strength is a much more subtle and supple quality than the ability to simply press the weight.

Acknowledge your emotions

Ironically, I was inspired to tackle panic and doubt for the rest of my life, while also expanding the steep rocky faces and high mountain peaks. My most extreme form of anxiety appears at home more in everyday life than in alpine areas.

Acknowledging that I was uncontrolled was the first step in identifying my true self and connecting with intuitions that could heal me. Contrary to the contemporary prejudices of some circles, honesty, integrity and transparency are manifestations of strength. And they are a kind of strength available to everyone in all bodies.

It turns out that when the physical discomfort of training builds physical strength, mental discomfort builds mental strength. Connecting with our internal states, emotions, and emotions makes it easier to see what is happening to us when the next stressor or crisis comes. But we have to be careful. Meditation practice is helpful, but that’s not the only way.

You are the first and sometimes only audience of your private story. However, their influence is rarely limited to you. When interacting with and communicating with others, it helps if you can relate to their emotions, and it comes from self-knowledge.

Knowing yourself whether relationships lead the nation, run a business, write a book, or knowing yourself is essential to connecting with others. To convey the essence of my hiking story, I had to navigate my feelings about the experience and capture those feelings on the page for my readers.

Dealing with fear

Fear is inevitable for most of us. But it’s not that to look at it negatively. The alpha male attitude views fear as an intruder, enemy, defeat or suppressed. And it is true that fear must be managed from time to time to avoid overwhelm.

But fear can also be seen as a peer, an advisor, or a voice of truth. My fear of rock climbing on the big walls dropped thousands of feet below my lower face, double checking my knot and dealing with critical gear with the utmost care. Fear is a safe way to go home at the end of an adventure.

But we can unconsciously strengthen ourselves, or add to our fear beyond all logic and reasons. Too much fear can be debilitating. How can I avoid that? Certain practices can help dissipate fearsome energy, such as aerobic exercise, meditation, yoga, and martial arts. When I get caught up in emotions and every direction looks like a scary trap, a simple mantra helps me: “What’s okay?”

In the long run, my experience is that fear can only be overcome by progressive exposure. You move forward with fear and at a pace that you can handle over and over again until it no longer becomes scary. Patience and accumulated experience ultimately allow you to move past the horrible paralysis.

Develop endurance

Perhaps raw strength helps in evolutionary mating contests, so society will increase upper body strength over durability. But we live in a different world.

Endurance is far more important than raw strength in dealing with everyday modern life. Few of us put heavy loads to make a living. Virtually all of us must deal with inadequate sleep, long working hours, and subtle weapons of attack aimed at our physical and emotional well-being.

Endurance means having enough power over a long period of time to achieve your goals. It’s about reliable strength and one-off power displays. It’s about dealing with the spectrum of unpleasant or suboptimal emotions and continuing your work and life anyway.

Durable buildings must bear. There are no shortcuts. Patience and mental endurance are essential to the process. We can exhaust our emotional patience to tolerate discomfort long before our bodies lose their ability. The essence of patience is content with the present moment rather than fixing something different.

Management of resources is permanently essential. Rather than throwing everything we have into a single push, endurance is to use what we need where we are. We may not be breaking records in a few days of races, measuring water, calories and sleep. But at any time in the life of a modern parent, spouse, or businessman, it can feel that way.

On the trail I learned to embrace a slow pace wholeheartedly. Hiking with crutches. Certainly, I was jealous when a strong hiker passed my speed a few times. But I have learned that spending speed for a consistent pace is my superpower. I hiked thousands of feet at altitude with very little rest and was able to maintain it all day long.

Beyond the ego

Managing my ego and developing more subtle ideas of “strength” was a major advantage of hiking on the Colorado Trail. This process led me to write adventure stories about a kind of success that broke the alpha male pattern before writing adventure stories.

Traditional measures of strength are valuable. Sometimes it takes pure strength to protect others and to stand up to the right. But true strength has more facets.

Traditional strength is insufficient to pass through Rocky Mountain or complete a great journey through modern life.

Touching emotions, establishing new relationships with fear, and developing endurance around brute strength are key elements of trekking.

*****

Darrow Kirkpatrick He is an early retired engineer with 50 years of hiking, cycling and technical rock climbing experiences. He climbed three major walls in Yosemite Valley, California, and founded the award-winning one. Can you retire now? Blog. Included in his personal finance book Retirement earlier and Can you retire now? In 2025 he published a memoir Two Sticks, One Pass: A Fear-Over-The-Trip to the Colorado Trail Six years of section hiking on crutches.