October 5, 2026
Four miles today, up through the trees to the summit and back. The trail was full of friendly faces. Couples, a few other women hiking alone, and a group of three older men who stopped to chat. Where was I from and was this my first time here. But I could see the real question coming before one of them asked it. Are you out here alone?
I told him yes. Rental car, four weeks, one down and three to go.
All three of them looked genuinely baffled and one replied, “Wow, that is incredibly courageous of you.”
He meant it kindly, and he’s not wrong. But the word stayed with me all the way down. Courage is for things that are dangerous, that are unsafe. And what I was doing was exactly what he was doing, walking up a mountain on a nice fall day to look at the view. But as a woman, simply existing is taking a risk.
If I were a man, I think he’d have said, “That’s amazing. Enjoy your trip.” And that would have been the whole conversation.
I don’t want to be brave for going on a walk. I just want to go on the walk. I don’t want to be considered a hero for simply leaving my house and living my life. Maybe that’s the quiet hope underneath all of this, that one day a woman alone on a mountain is just someone enjoying the view and not a calculation, a risk assessment, a question from strangers with the assumption that I’ve thought about what could happen to me. Because, of course, I have. I always do.
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