Most people have heard of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD–the depression that some 30 percent of people in the United States, mostly in the northern states, feel during the winter. Far fewer people experience reverse SAD, which causes insomnia and feelings of anxiety and depression during the summer. I’m one of that few. I love the short days, cool weather, rain, and general gloom of the Pacific Northwest fall and winter. The long sunny days of late spring and summer, however, fill me with restlessness, enervation, and anxiety. This year I decided to battle the summer demon by returning to an old passion: hiking.
It’s not as though I’d ever given up hiking. For some years, though, I’d done nothing more than occasional hikes in the 4- to 5-mile range. While on a road trip, I’d hike a trail or two in someplace new, but hikes in my home territory around Portland had become rare. This year, in late spring, I started hiking weekly with my partner or on my own, steadily pushing myself to add distance and elevation gain. I’ve revisited old favorite trails, including Eagle Creek in the Columbia Gorge and Ramona Falls in the Mt. Hood foothills, and I’ve explored new ones. I’ve tweaked my day-hiking kit with a better pack and a boot switch, and I’ve got list of hikes to do through fall and beyond.
Hiking–in deep forest, or along a river, or on a rocky trail above tree line on a peak, or atop a coastal cliff–has reminded me why I moved to this part of the country in the first place: to experience its glorious outdoor world. Getting out into that world and pushing myself to move through it has not only sanded down the roughest spikes of the summer demon, it has almost made me look forward to next summer.