Welcome to our curated collection of quotes about hiking. We hope you enjoy pondering and sharing them. Happy trails to you!
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Nature is one of the most underutilized treasures in life. It has the power to unburden hearts and reconnect to that inner place of peace.
The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.
You lift your head, you’re on your way, but really just to be walking, to be out of doors. That’s it, that’s all, and you’re there. Outdoors is our element: the exact sensation of living there.
I found that starting to hike was like pulling off a plaster: better to do it quickly and not hang about.
You long to go ito nature because nature doesn't care about you. To be clear, it's not that nature sees you, accepts you for who you are, and loves you anyway: nature just doesn't give a shit about you.
If you would experience a landscape, you must go alone into it and sit down somewhere quietly and wait for it to come in its own good time to you.
And by experiencing prairie---over the four seasons, and at various times of day, in all weathers---you develop a heightened sense of awe and wonder that will spill over into every other area of your life.
The long distance hiker, a breed set apart,
From the likes of the usual pack.
He’ll shoulder his gear, be hittin’ the trail;
Long gone, long ‘fore he’ll be back.
Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Longer Version:
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.
I represent what is left of a vanishing race, and that is the pedestrian. That I am still able to be here, I owe to a keen eye and a nimble pair of legs. But I know they'll get me someday.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.
You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Hiking is something that I really, really like to do. It's distracting, you're in nature, and you get a nice workout that way. I would tell everyone to hike as much as they can - you just feel so much better when you get outdoors. I'm also into yoga.
We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home, in towns and cities.
If everyone in the world took care of each other the way folks do out on the trail, and if everyone approached each day with as much hope and optimism as hikers do, the world would be a better place.
Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.
Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits.
We move through this world on paths laid down long before we are born.
If you face the rest of your life with the spirit you show on the trail, it will have no choice but to yield the same kind of memories and dreams.
There really is no correct way to hike the trail, and anyone who insists that there is ought not to worry so much about other people's experiences. Hikers need to hike the trail that's right for them.
I walked slowly to enjoy this freedom, and when I came out of the mountains, I saw the sky over the prairie, and I thought that if heaven was real, I hoped it was a place I never had to go, for this earth was greater than any paradise.
The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key.
Longer Version:
The longest journey begins with a single step, not with the turn of an ignition key. That’s the best thing about walking, the journey itself. It doesn’t much matter whether you get where you’re going or not. You’ll get there anyway. Every good hike brings you eventually back home. Right where you started.
Walks. The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.
Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.
Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.
I wear Blundstones for hiking. They're like a work boot with a bit of grip, so you can wear them all day. They're quite groovy.
I slow down when hiking. The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm.
In general, when you travel, you get into a different reality and are able to more accurately reflect on your ordinary life. Hiking does that for me.
Hiking is the best workout! You can hike for three hours and not even realize you're working out. And, hiking alone lets me have some time to myself.
The place where you lose the trail is not necessarily the place where it ends.
After all this time questioning whether I could trust myself, my instinct had proven right -- I'd found a path in pathless woods.
Hiking is not escapism; it's realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong.
Details of the many walks I made along the crest have blurred, now, into a pleasing tapestry of grass and space and sunlight.
Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.
Trails are like that: you're floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and flute boys, then suddenly you're struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak…just like life.
Who has not felt the urge to throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence?
Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.
Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can't fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.
My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
