Bonus

The view is the thing you earned. Definitely take it in.

I see switchbacks as engineered trails these days. By that, I mean it is even more challenging to hike where there isn’t a lot of interest in hiking and there aren’t many curated trails. When I see switchbacks now, I understand someone more knowledgeable than me has put in some serious effort to help guide me along on a more reasonable grade than just bushwhackin straight up the hill. On my bike, switchbacks can be a godsend.

Panel 2 misses one of the attractive points of hiking for me: a healthier sense of perspective. When you can experience the vastness of wilderness and realize your relatively microscopic relationship to such an overwhelming scale, you can begin to realize your little rat-race anxieties down below are something you can shed entirely.