My rookie era: In my 40s I attempted my first multi-day hike – and became a walking cliche | Walking
I was 43, unfit and burnt out at the end of 2025, when my phone pinged from an old friend: double quotation markI know this is unlikely but I’m thinking of doing this four-day hike and there are two places available. You stay in huts so there is less gear to carry. Would you like to come? Taking a long walk as a form of catharsis is a narrative trope – I know this having read The Salt Path, The Dictionary of Lost Words and You Are Here, books in which white women “find themselves” on long walks. I said yes and prepared to become a literal walking cliche. I’d never been on a multi-day hike. Adult rookies are charming when the stakes are low. Learning the piano at 50 is cute but nobody ever needed to be airlifted by helicopter out of a piano recital. Being a rookie hiker would require preparation if I was going to survive with my dignity intact. I didn’t know much about multi-day hiking except it required lightweight snacks. …
