We all have our ways of walking, slow, fast, tripping over branches, bounding over rocks.
We wander in discovery to reach the next hilltop, to view a new perspective.
We are explorers seeking understandings.
Occasionally, the glit of light on a golden feathery curl of grass engages us in a reverie.
A moment seems so perfect that the universe still and we find balance.
Then there is the walk to seek a gold.
We are walking to the top of the hill to where the trail ends, then back.
This is a feeling of accomplishment.
We have done something.
In un tiempo los abuelos y abuelas hablaban de las huellas, porque las tenemos y en donde
te van a llevar.
Sometime the best walk is the walk we take every day, the walk to school, to a job.
To the trails down the street, we walk the same path in the summer, fall, and winter.
Then the spring comes and the flowers are blooming down the street.
We see the passage of season and we are connected to the world around us.
Walking is about flow passage.
Some would say goals is not important, but the path itself is a reason and how we go.
So walk with a skip to your step.
Your ancestors walked this way and that is why you are here right now.
I walk to connect all the parts of myself, my mind, my body, my soul, and then the earth,
you know, while moving, walking, and being outside, especially in nature and the wilderness,
just helps me feel that rhythm that goes along with the very first rhythm, our heartbeat.
I feel like kids need to be outside, their energy is so big.
It feels like a pinball machine sometimes, having their energy inside the house.
We do live in town, so I love hiking with them.
I have ever since they were babies, I carried them and hiked.
That was sort of how I got back out into moving after I had babies and just letting them feel
connected with the earth in that way.
We go when we spend time outside and we explore in bugs and dirt, but when you are away from
your house or a house and you are just in the woods without toys, without screens, yeah,
it is a different experience and I want them to have that.
I mean, they hold the value in their hearts of being connected to the earth, but actually
going on the trails allows them the space to just, to only do that, to just be themselves,
be in their bodies, be moving, and be connecting with all different parts of wilderness.
I mean, it is like a playground out here.
I was about 310 pounds, a heavy equipment operator at the mine, and I was, I had an
episode at work where I had to go get checked out because I got really lightheaded and it
turned out that I was, my blood pressure was just through the roof and I was pre-diabetic
and so that was a huge wake-up call and it was time to get serious.
My brother had been bugging me for years to get on a bike and I finally did, I went to
the bike shop and they hooked me up and they treated us great and just started a little
bit every day.
You know, it started, I could barely ride from the bike shop to my house about a mile and
a half and then it grew to be a mile and three quarters and then it was a little bit more
and a little bit more and four years later, go just about as far as I want, slowly, but
I get there.
I like to ride because it helps me, it helps me live.
I was fat and sick, I was over 300 pounds, I know I still got a ways to go, but now I
started riding bikes because I'm healthier now, I'm not on blood pressure medicine, I'm
not taking insulin, I'm not taking anything, just getting exercised and eating better has
made a tremendous difference.
We used to ride everywhere, it was BMX bikes, we would ride everywhere, all over town, all
day long, you know, and it was just, it was the greatest thing ever, I don't know why
we ever stopped, we all grew up and we should never do that.
Yeah, that's what we did, we lived on bikes.
We played baseball, we played soccer, we rode bikes, we didn't have Nintendo, we didn't
have PlayStation, we didn't have any of that garbage, all we had was our bikes and our
imagination.
And you know, our parents did a great job raising us, they raised us the right way, you know,
we ate good food, we got plenty of exercise, you just take that for granted, you think
you'll always be that person and then the next thing you know, you're in the hospital
with high blood pressure because you let yourself go.
I was born here in Grant County, I was a third generation native.
I walk trails because I enjoy the peace and quiet, it gives me time to think, helps me
recap my day on what I've done and what I'm going to do and gives me a very good time
to spend with my family.
The feelings I get walking on these trails, going up hills and rocks and listening to
the birds and the wind and trying to understand nature itself.
The feeling I get is freedom, peace and tranquility.
Cuando ando en las huellas pienso de la aire mirando el sol, los animales que andan, las
pierdas que caen y pensando de las familias, de las familias que tienes.
En todos los tiempos cuando estamos juntos, bien orgulos con los otros.
I remember walking this trail up on Tadpole Ridge, the incline, every hour you'd walk over
a thousand feet.
I had my son, he was a very young man of an age of 10, 11 years old.
I thought he wasn't going to be able to make these trails, they were rugged, they were
rough, we were getting scratched, we were a little scared because it was so thick.
We did about five miles on these trails.
By the time ending of these trails, I couldn't wait to get back to my vehicle and sit down.
That had to be one of the roughest trails I've ever walked.
While my 11 year old son was out doing cartwheels and running circles around me, yo me acuerdo
en un tiempo, mi abuelos hablaban de las huellas y estas huellas me decían por qué la usamos
y en dónde vas en estas huellas.
I would like to say I'm a little bit old fashioned, I like being outside, I really don't enjoy
being in front of that television or computer and I'm trying to instill my daughter, I'm
11 years old to spend more time outside walking these trails.
We are so fortunate that we have all these trails here in Grant County, the Gila Wilderness.
I have lived off the grid for about 16 years and our entertainment was not watching television
but creating trails and walking trails and just seeking the wildlife.
Being close to nature, it grounds you and it brings you back home.
I just absolutely love being out on the trails.
Out on the trails you never know what you're going to come and see, you're going to see
a hawk or you'll see deer or you'll see javelina, it's just beautiful.
If there's anything that's going on in life, it clears my head out, really clears it out
and it allows me to just get focused on what's important.
Both sides of my family have diabetes, in fact my poor grandfather, my mom's father, they
took both his legs and then on my dad's side, my grandmother and my dad has diabetes as
well.
I don't want to follow that family history.
I want to break it and our diet's really important, so it's being healthy, so it's exercise.
Going to the gym's okay, I love to be out here.
You'll see every time you come out on one of the trails you're going to see something
new and it's nice because like out here on the dragonfly, the petroglyphs, it makes you
think, geez, who made those pictures?
Also coming out here and experiencing all that, you get to maybe experience some of
what they felt.
I have diabetes on both sides of my family and I don't want it to get that far, so I
want to stay healthy.
I like coming out and being on the trails because it grounds me and it brings me close
to just mother nature and that serenity and the peace that you feel is just nothing equals
it.
The healthy body is going to feed a healthy mind and allow you to probably even better
that aspect of your life because you just receive so much more than you give.
Quality of life is huge.
It's so much to look at, it's just so beautiful out here, so much nature and I like running
on the hills here.
This trail is definitely my favorite because there's so much ups and downs, all the different
scenes from the little river to the hills, it's a really fun trail, I really like it.
And the way the wind sounds, it's really nice.
Different animals, cute little creatures.
One, two, three, run to live, gonganas.
In part, I came to Silver City because this is a magical place.
It's a place of wonder whether it's from looking up at the night sky or hiking our many trails.
I walk to get outside and be in nature and into the solitude of nature.
I hike for the exercise and I walk to think.
Hiking is more than just the physical exercise, it's also about the smells and what you see
along the trail and as a kid growing up without television, it stimulated the imagination.
When one hikes a trail, there's different textures.
If it's here in the Gila, you get the steepness of the mountains and the pounding of one's
heart and those all contribute to the textures of the ground underneath your feet.
Trails have emotions and trails have a life unto themselves.
They have different feelings, whether you're crossing a river or whether you're crossing
a rock pile, a trail has a sense of adventure, it's leading you somewhere.
Trails are magical places because they take you on a journey.
Most people look at a trail and they look at a beginning and an end, but it's actually
the journey in between the two points.
Whenever I have a challenging question or a challenging issue, whether it's at the university
or in my daily life, when I hike, it provides me that opportunity to think and go through
that particular issue and oftentimes by the time I'm done with that journey, I've also
resolved that problem.
Some people are destination hikers and they have to get from point A to B. Other people,
if it takes them the same amount of time as one might hike for eight hours, they only
get maybe a mile because in the meantime, they're looking at the flowers, taking pictures
of the vistas, smelling a pine tree, checking out a crevasse.
So trails do different things to different people.
For me, they're a mixture of both.
One time I was hiking out in the Grand Canyon, it was a 10-day trek and I remember the first
three days I'm looking at my watch, thinking what I have to do back home or what bills to
pay.
By the end of the third day, the watch was no longer of importance.
The bills no longer mattered and whatever trials and tribulations I had back at work
or school evaporated and for the next seven days, it was blissful.
Thank you.
you
