As a solo female backpacker and hiker I definitely get a lot of quizzical looks on the trail, and a lot of questions off the trail. To be brutally honest, I know going it alone (male or female) isn't the brightest or safest thing to do, but it's really hard to find people who are into this sort of thing, with the same schedule as mine.
Many of my friends cannot fathom why I would want to spend so much of my free time in the wilderness, sometimes with a pack that weighs almost half of what I do strapped to my back, no showers, and among wild animals. Sometimes I'm not sure of an exact reason myself, either. All I can say is that I absolutely LOVE it. I can't get enough. There are some obvious reasons...the views, the Quiet that one can never fully experience in a city. But there is so much more to why it's awesome, why it's worth the suffering it takes to climb a mountain...but it's so hard to put into words.
Then I saw this quote:
"When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm is all about" - Haruki Murakami
Even though there is a much broader meaning to this, the first thing that came to mind for me was hiking, climbing, and backpacking when I read this. Because it hurts, it is downright painful sometimes, and scary too. I just climbed and rappelled down waterfalls that people die on every year. Why risk it? ...Because you don't ever come off a mountain the same person you started as. You leave a part of you there, the weakest part. You come out stronger, more appreciative, and changed.
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