Exploring the American Wilderness and Other Adventures

Waikiki Springs, Mead, Washington

Being a person can be so challenging. Add in chronic illness, and some days feel impossible. Those days when every movement is felt in your pained joints and strains your breathing, sense of control, and body awareness. As I write this, I want to say that those days are the days I need to be outside the most. That’s probably true—most of the time. I’m still learning where that line is – when I ought to be in the forest and hurting and when I ought to be home and hurting. Today seemed like a day for the latter, but I knew I had an hour’s drive to the trailhead, and if I could make that drive, I could make the hike. 

I met TrailKat again today. She’s been a positive force for me through my cancer “journey.” I love walking with her because she accepts me as I am, in whatever way I am in the moment. I’m naturally quiet anyways, and she lets me be even quieter on days when I’m not doing such a great job at being a person. She is hilarious, always has incredible stories to tell about her adventures, and is the most beautiful cheerleader of those she loves. 

Today, we hiked through Waikiki Springs Nature Preserve in Mead, Washington. Waikiki is a new area for outdoors people and is undergoing continual trail builds. The trailhead requires the Washington State Discover Pass, is in a residential area, and has space for only a handful of cars. If you must use street parking, pay attention to the no parking signs because there are many. 

The land used to be the Waikiki Dairy, and there is still plenty of evidence of the structures that used to be there. The Spokane Aquifer runs through the land and the adjacent Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife property, creating several springs and creeks and an incredible ecosystem for fish, birds, and other wildlife to thrive. 

The trails are snow packed today since Inland Northwest Land Conservancy (INLC) had just led an extensive tour yesterday. We wore YakTrax and Kahtoolas, which were sufficient. The cold weather kept us moving, and we followed the border trails, giving us 4 miles and only a 500’ elevation gain. The trails are well-defined and well-marked. This is my third time visiting. Every time I go, there are new trails, and I think it’s becoming an essential urban hiking area for local adventure-seekers. 

This was a day I needed to be outside. I am happy I was there. I am happy I was there with TrailKat. She is simply sunshine in a skin suit, which is the best. Sometimes when the symptoms are high and the weather is unkind, it is easy to hide. But, from what am I hiding? Cancer is still with me. I cannot hide from that. And I have never had a negative relationship with the weather, so that shouldn’t ever be an influence. But it is. Everything that touches me does so in a more profound way than it did before. Even the air. It is easy to hide. It’s easy to remember how everything used to be so effortless, and it’s easy to think about how very few people know what I am experiencing. Sometimes it’s easy to hear the messages validating rest and reward for existing. It is easy to fall into “resting” and not using my body until resting becomes triggering, a word I do not use frequently. Resting triggers these new feelings of weakness, sorrow, denial, sadness, of anger. And around and around I go.

I still don’t know where the line is – that line between moving my body and using it to find joy or staying home and resting…and still trying to find joy. Today was for a simple trail, for some TrailKat tales, and then rest and reward. Maybe I’m closer to balance than I think.