HexaTrek Tales Part 2: The Allure of Rushing and Pas de Routine

Summer warmth had arrived, bringing a day perfect for banking kilometers on my hike across France. Instead, I was wandering through a small town, two hours from trail, looking for a mammoth. The proud street signs led me right to it — a replica of a skeleton discovered nearby in the late 60s. I looked at it for a couple minutes, ate lunch on a bench overlooking a construction site, then decided I’d catch a train anywhere I could swim. 

The replica wooly mammoth skeleton; worth the six-hour sidequest in and of itself.

This was, what I’ve started calling, an open day – a day on trail reserved for embracing side quests rather than mileage. The point wasn’t to see a mammoth. The point wasn’t even to explore the random town I’d picked out on the map. The point was to stop rushing.

I’ve realized that so often on trail, I’m trying to get somewhere or achieve something – I’m rushing.

Rushing to get to the top of a hill. Rushing to get to camp. Rushing to get to town. Rushing to finish a difficult section. Rushing, rushing, rushing. I’ve started asking why I’m rushing. Usually, an answer appears — ‘It’s nice to get to camp earlier’, ‘I want to avoid the rain’, ‘If I walk more today, I can walk less tomorrow’. Usually, that answer disintegrates when I examine it more closely. Does it really matter if I get to camp a couple hours later? If I get a bit wet during the day, or walk a bit more tomorrow? 

Over the past month of walking, I’ve thought about this pattern quite a bit. At a fundamental level, I think this allure of rushing is born of a bunch of things I’m attached to. I’m attached to getting to camp early and having time to relax, to being dry, to doing big days, and to the identity of being able to do those big days. I’m attached to the preferences I hold, the things that I do, and the routines I’ve fallen into.

I’m also attached to taking photos of cows – a good attachment, I think.

A few weeks ago, I found myself walking with a local day hiker named Henri for a couple hours. Henri was brimming with passion, stories, opinions, and wisdom. Gallivanting down the trail at 81-years-old, this was a man who was living, not just alive. When I asked him what the secret to life was, he responded, ‘Pas de routine’. No routine. He does what he wants, when he wants, and he embraces it. This was not a man attached to the familiar, or rushing from one moment to the next.

Since then, ‘Pas de routine’ has been on repeat in my head.

Of course, I believe that routine and attachment can be healthy and beneficial parts of life. But I’ve also come to believe that, if grasped too strongly, they can become dictators of happiness. I’ve been trying to loosen my grip on these things and incorporate Henri’s motto more into my days on the HexaTrek. I want to hold everything a bit more lightly – my actions, beliefs, thoughts, and goals. I want to see what else might land in my palm if there’s space.

This is not a place you want to rush through. 

What has this looked like on trail?

Well, I’ve stopped setting an alarm and there’s been very little consistency in when I leave camp, take breaks, and arrive at camp. Some days I start walking at 7AM, other days it’s 12PM. Some days I have lunch at 12PM, some days at 3:30PM. Some nights I arrive at camp at 6PM, others it’s been closer to midnight.

If I see a nice spot on trail, I might just take a three-hour break. If I see a viewpoint or landmark that’s a bit off trail, I (sometimes) work up the motivation to walk those extra kilometers. I’ve started experimenting more with my resupplies, packing out at least one new food each time. Unless storms are predicted, I’m now holding the weather forecast very lightly — often prioritizing the intuitions of strangers in the street over the app on my phone. When I notice a resistance to change something I do, I take it as a sign that it could be disrupted. Of course, I don’t always have the willpower, energy, or motivation to do the disrupting, but the intention is there. 

The results of this experiment?

They’ve been mixed. It’s felt very freeing to permit my mind to let go. Without a routine to follow or strong preferences to meet, I’ve felt less contained and weighed down. I’ve also had a bunch of random, cool experiences. I’ve sat for hours watching competitors finish a Spartan race (thoroughly entertaining), shared dinner with strangers at campgrounds, been shown around town by locals, visited caves, discovered new trail meals, swam at beaches and lakes, and couchsurfed. 

The more laissez-faire attitude has also prompted some challenging and less positive experiences. The lack of routine has meant my sleep has suffered. I’ve been dehydrated due to inadequate planning. I’ve eaten some meals that make me nauseous to think about, even now, due to my food experimentation. On several occasions, I’ve walked significantly further than intended because I was trying not to consider a campsite ahead of time (the most extreme case involved walking 42 kilometers when I thought I’d have a chill 15-kilometer day). 

The evening I realized I’d be walking 42 kilometers, rather than 15.

Overall, I don’t think loosening my grip on routine and my attachments has made my life easier or less stressful. If anything, it’s been the opposite. But, I would call the experiment a success. It can be hard to know whether the things we’re attached to are actually making us happy or just comfortable. It can also be hard to know if there’s something else that could make us happier, if only we stepped forward and tried it. Disrupting some of my patterns has given me a little insight into this. 

The answer, for me, is not to have no routine.

I’ve learnt that some of the routines and preferences I have really do make me happier. I like setting an alarm sometimes and walking early with the birds. I like knowing where the water sources are and avoiding dehydration (I mean, duh for this one). I like having enough time to eat dinner at night rather than walking continuously until midnight. I love my ritual of having tea in the morning. Maybe my motto isn’t Henri’s ‘Pas de routine’, but ‘Pourquoi la routine?’ — questioning why I have the routines I do and whether they’re actually adding to my life.

My morning tea and oats ritual truly does make me happy. 

I started out this little thought journey by considering the allure of rushing. I still feel that pull, but I think my awareness of it and resistance to it has grown. Even now, I can feel myself wanting to cram more content into this article about where I am on trail and what it’s been like — to rush the process of reflecting on and writing about those things. In the name of this experiment, I’ll resist that urge. 

It feels odd to publish a blog post that’s almost entirely devoid of hiking-specific content…on a hiking website.

I don’t think it should necessarily feel that way. The thoughts and reflections people have on a thru-hike can often be more important than the name of the park they’re walking through. Whether it’s interesting for anyone other than me to read, I have no idea. If you’ve gotten to this stage of the post, maybe it is. Or, maybe you just skimmed the words and couldn’t resist rushing to the end.