By what way; or an ode to the PUD

There is an expression in hiking, particularly on the East Coast, that describes the persistent, undulating ascent and descent of the trail. Seemingly without reason or concern for the hiker, the trail rises and falls, rising and falling without rest; uselessly. These useless ascents and descents, the “PUDs,” deprive the hiker of a moment of rest or the hope of enjoying a flat, open view. It creaks your knees, twists your ankles, and gets so inside your head that you begin to fight the mountains themselves on a spiritual level.

The path does all this in silence, without hearing your screams and curses. You don’t care about sore tendons or burning hamstrings. He couldn’t care less about your gasps and your sometimes not-so-silent curses at the weight of your backpack. The path remains silent, listening to you grunt, smelling your sweat; and through all your suffering, the path maintains the ambivalent silence that reinforces the hard truth that your goals are meaningless in the face of their eternity.

And it’s beautiful.

So why do it? Why venture out with your entire life on your back, with only one direction to walk, with limited contact with the rest of the world, for days on end?

Because the PUD is life.

As the road goes, so goes life. As life goes, so goes the road. The ups and downs, composed of drudgery, grades, slips, grumbles and doubts, are reflected in the days when we wake up knowing that work is calling, that bills must be paid, that obligations must be met. The downs, filled with momentary relief and false promises of peace of mind, are found in our daily lives as we move from moment to moment, ignoring what we know is coming.

When we finally finish our PUD portion of the day, arriving in town or camping for the day, we rest knowing that tomorrow will bring even more, and the trail still won’t care.

And there, in those moments of exhaustion, sweat and frustration after we’ve been force-fed our share of PUD, we find our lives. We don’t think about the ups and downs, the struggle and the passion. We think about the beautiful view that opened at the end of the climb, or about the cool water that awaits us in the river at the end of the descent.

We find life.

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