When people first think about hiking, they usually picture the obvious physical dangers, like mud puddles up to your ankles, steep trails that make your legs scream, sharp cliff edges, or wild weather that seems to have a vendetta against you. So we get questions from new clients like: What if it’s muddy? Do people actually fall off things? Will I die on the hill before lunch? And that’s fair. But these are not the risks you need to be thinking about.
The part no-one warns you about is that hiking might give you clarity, new friendships, and feelings of having a more fulfilled life. Once that happens, your old life can start to feel a bit too small. You’ve officially entered the danger zone.
Hiking doesn’t wait for excuses
Modern life is noisy, I get it. There’s the inbox, the group chats, the never-ending to-do lists, the laundry pile silently judging you from the corner. On the trail, all of that disappears. It’s your chance to disconnect and not have a single thought about emails or the people you need to respond to or the responsibilities calling your name. Instead, all you have to focus on is your breath, your legs, and the path in front of you. If you’re worried about your mind wandering as much as your legs, you can share the experience with a bunch of people who start as strangers and end as “hiking buddies”, sharing conversations along the whole trail that keep you immersed in the experience.
Somewhere between the first hill and the second snack stop, your brain starts to quieten down and the constant mental commentary takes a back seat. This is when the uncomfortable (but very useful) questions sneak in. Is this the life I actually want? When did I stop doing things that truly fill my cup? Why am I so brave here, but not in the rest of my life?
It can be confronting, but it can also be clarifying. Either way, it’s absolutely one of the best reasons to keep going.
No one warns you about the friendships
There’s another risk that doesn’t get mentioned in the brochure: you may accidentally acquire friends. Don’t worry, it’s not the forced networking-event, small-talk kind of friends, it’s the “we just climbed a hill together and now we’ve seen each other’s real sweat face” kind of friends.
On our hikes, we see small moments of friendship that lead to bigger moments of connection. Maybe someone shares surprise chocolate at exactly the right moment, someone else falls on their butt and has a laugh, or the group takes a photo together and instantly starts planning their next adventure together. My personal favourite one to see is the quiet person in the first 2km becoming the most fun and chatting away by the last 2km.
There’s something about walking side by side that opens people up. Sharing effort and challenging moments are the fast track to creating real connection, much more than looking at each other over coffee or making small talk in the office kitchen. You come for the hike, but you leave with a tiny crew that now exists in your life.
Have you said the famous last words, “I can’t do that”?
Everyone has a personal narrative about who they are in relation to fitness and outdoorsy things. I’m not a hiker. I’m hopeless at hills. I’m always the slow one holding everyone back. We hear it at the start of so many walks from people of just about every fitness background. Then, a few hours later, we see the “slow one” at the top of the hill, the “unfit one” realising they’ve gone further than they thought possible, and the “not outdoorsy” one carefully navigating rocks like they’ve been doing it for years.
In these moments, those self-narratives start unwriting themselves. That old story saying, “I can’t do this,” starts sounding a bit off and is replaced by a new one, “Hang on… apparently I can.” That’s where the real danger lies. Because once your body proves your mind wrong on a hike, your mind starts asking what else you might be wrong about. That hard conversation doesn’t feel impossible anymore. The boundary you’ve avoided setting doesn’t feel outrageous. That crazy dream slowly becomes less and less crazy.
The hike might feel like physical training, but you take the mental learnings into life.
Change the view to change yourself
Being on the trail, away from the noise, gives you a powerful moment to see your life more clearly. The edits and filters are removed so you can begin to notice where you’re genuinely happy, where you’re just going through the motions, what you miss, what you want more of, and what you’ve been tolerating for far too long.
As truth often is, sometimes it can be beautiful, sometimes it can sting, and sometimes it can be a messy mix of both. But when you’re standing on a ridge with a beautiful view, breathing hard, and surrounded by people who’ve just done it alongside you? That truth lands differently. Instead of feeling like a criticism, it becomes an invitation for you to reconsider the things you never questioned.
The life you might start wanting
We should probably put this part in tiny fine print at the bottom of our website: hiking may cause you to want a different kind of life. After a hike, we’ve seen people book more weekends away and fewer weekends just catching up at the local cafe. They recommit to looking after their health because they discover what they’re capable of. They make decisions they’ve been sitting on for months or years.
What most people discover is that fun, challenge, and joy are not luxuries that we should only have in moderation. They’re things that fuel us physically and mentally, and need to be incorporated much more commonly into life than most of us are getting. The trail doesn’t magically fix everything (we wish), but it does give you a moment where everything is a little clearer. Being on the trail helps you remember what matters and what is possible, and your brain craves more of that exciting spark. It’s dangerous, but it’s also a gift.
Before you start, prepare yourself
In the spirit of honesty, here’s what you should be genuinely prepared for if you join one of our hikes. You might laugh more than you have all week, discover muscles you forgot existed, surprise yourself with what you can do, make friends you didn’t know you needed, go home with a story you’re proud to tell, and remember that your body is not just a vehicle for stress. It’s your chance to let your body move in the way it craves because it is built for movement and adventure.
Whatever you discover, just know that the signs of those physical risks will fade. The mud will wash off and those small moments of fear will fade into memory. However, the feelings of capability, connection, and clarity tend to hang around, allowing you to go back to adventure again and again.
If you’re feeling a bit stuck or know you just need to press pause, make sure you take time to come out on the trail with us. We handle the planning, safety, routes, food, and (most importantly) the encouragement up the hills. You just bring yourself and make sure you invite any of your doubts, nerves, and wobbly fitness. It might feel like signing up for a hike, but it will be the first step into a different kind of life that leaves you truly fulfilled.