Hiking With Anxiety – What Happens When Panic Hits on the Trail?

The risks and dangers of nature aren’t the only things we have to consider when heading outdoors. Sometimes, it’s our own inner world that poses the greatest threat to our ability to take another step on the trail, as Explorer AJ learnt the hard way.

An Inner Avalanche

It’s been a parched winter with barely any rain or snow, and above 2,000m, the air starts stinging with dry cold. Each inhale is uncomfortably arid and it’s a slight pain in my throat that, without warning, flips a switch in my brain. All at once, I’m hyper-alert to every sensation in my body.

On the trail

I try turning it into a mindfulness exercise but my tricks don’t work this time. As I walk on, my hand keeps reaching up to touch my throat. I begin swallowing in a very deliberate way, looking for reassurance that it isn’t closing up.

I suck in air through my mouth, paying close attention to my lungs and giving excruciating attention to any tiny discomfort that might hint at abnormality. I’m torturously aware that every step I take upward is a step further away from help and a hospital.

The track bends and I’m watching the winter sun pour itself into the imposing beauty of the Kangra Valley in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

The Kangra Valley

It’s stunning and I’m unable to go any further on account of the fact that my anxious ticks, like rolling snowballs, are gaining in size and speed to become an unstoppable avalanche descending upon my nervous system.

Here we go. I’ve got to say though, as far as location goes, you really can’t beat Himalayan foothills as the backdrop of a panic attack. Of course, my internal experience prevents me from finding any joy in the landscape around me now; behind the immediate hills are the first glimpses of the Dhauladhar Range snowline, with its 4000m plus peaks shimmering while I hyperventilate pathetically in its awesome presence.

Feeling Helpless

As I try my best to calm myself, it strikes me that I absolutely cannot be unique in my experience as a hiker who experiences panic attacks. There’s more of us I’m sure, for whom anxiety – much like the weather at altitude – can be the unpredictable variable you risk to immerse yourself in landscapes that take your breath away.

The difficult thing for me to adjust to now though is that I wasn’t always like this. I could tick off a packing list, throw in an emergency meal and an extra pair of thermals, and feel confident I was prepared for pretty much anything.

Then somewhere around living alone during Melbourne’s prolonged lockdowns, I became susceptible to panic.

I work in mental health, where anxiety is as common as a cold, but the reality is that while I can understand everything happening to me neuroanatomically, and while I can employ all the same strategies I practice with clients, nothing stops me from just having to go through the waves of suffocation and ride that mental rollercoaster that makes a racket louder than an old ride at Luna Park.

What happened to me?

Right now, the contrast between my inner state and the outer landscape is almost comical. I hear the whistle of a Himalayan magpie through one ear while tinnitus throbs in time to my racing heartbeat in the other. Two eagles spiral gracefully on a thermal updraft while my thoughts spiral into catastrophizing.

The constantly honking vehicles in nearby Dharamshala have been replaced by my own sputtering chorus of, ‘I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay’. Any pause in this mantra renders the silence of the valley menacing.

An imposing climb

Continuing onward seems impossible and shame rises noxious inside me. How have I become this paralysed woman afraid of everything and nothing? Where did my boldness go, my ability to take risks, and trust in my own capacities? I reach for the hand of a past self that was more self-assured and find only cold air.

Anxiety hates and fears what it cannot predict and plan for. But the truth of life is that change and uncertainty sit around every turn in the trail. The Himalayas get taller, warmer, and drier each year, and I’ve gotten more careful as the world has changed so much, so fast in the last four years, into something scarier, more unpredictable, and more brutal.

It seems the more I love my family, my friends, and my life, the more I worry and fret and plan to the nth degree. I catch myself looking enviously after Himachali kids who scamper down steep mountainsides with carefree abandon while I calculate each foot placement so as to safeguard my joints.

Stubborn Love

In recent years it seems my ability to tolerate both real and perceived danger has dramatically decreased as anxiety has made a home in my body. I don’t know if this will be an enduring feature of my existence or one that’ll pass (oh please let it pass) but, as I cower to my aggressively fearful mind on that beautiful trail, I notice something else, something small, slowly start to rouse.

I begin tapping into the stubborn love I’ve felt for the Himalayas since I first set eyes and feet on them at age 20. I feel it wanting to fight back the fear. At the end of this trail is a sky panorama of peaks I really, really want to see. And the only thing impeding my ability to do so is my inability to put one foot in front of the other.

Peaks shrouded in cloud

So I shift my panicked mutterings from the unconvincing, ‘I’m okay’ to ‘I am safe’. It’s a subtle shift that allows in a bit of grounding logic, because I can name a few ways in which I am, indeed, safe. I list them: my phone has reception, I’ve seen other people on the trail and, most importantly, this is not a new feeling – I know that it too will change and pass, because it has done so before.

These deliberate thoughts accompanied by both palms pressed firm over the centre of my chest take the shift further. I’m able to coax my mind back to the present by noticing each lurch my heart makes into my palm – it feels scary at first, like a heart attack.

But I try to remember that my little heart has got a pretty impressive track record of reoxygenating my blood and pumping it to my muscles, fortifying them to reach altitudes over 5000m throughout my life. Today’s summit by contrast is the relatively low hill station of Triund sitting at just 2875m, and with the luxurious promise of a guy selling chai and steaming bowls of Maggi noodles at the top.

Descending

I think I’m over the crest of the wave and, as my heart rate slows, I notice a few things that are augmenting the sensations of anxiety. My sunnies are creating a dark tunnel-like effect on my surroundings so I take them off.

Immediately, the Himalayan sun floods my retinas and it’s glorious. I notice too that in adhering to the oppressive hikers maxim ‘Be Bold, Start Cold’, I’ve forsaken my own body’s preference to run kind of warm.

So I put on my windbreaker and feel a comforting hearth come to life under the extra layer.

Finally, I realise that while I’m not ready to stop my self-soothing mutterings just yet, I am ready to replace them with something else.

So I put on my headphones and play Taylor Swift, giver of permission to move through the feels by just feeling them, especially when sticky emotions like embarrassment and shame threaten to keep you glued to a pointless, self-defeating thought cycle. As I mouth the unguarded lyrics, self-compassion rises to the surface and I cry. It’s a relief.

The light at the end of the hike

The Aftermath

As hikers, we can get caught up conflating the love of personal accomplishment with a love for the landscapes we pass through.

We want to get somewhere, say we made it, and when our bodies don’t work the way our minds order them to, it can threaten to shake the foundations of the identities we’ve built – as sturdy outdoorsy folk capable of handling whatever we encounter.

There’s nothing like anxiety to shake up that identity. And then, when you see how fragile the view of yourself is, how dependent on egoic accomplishment to sustain itself, you’ve got to look for something more robust to keep you going.

It’s that love that helps me relate compassionately toward my anxiety, without letting it stop me. In this way, anxiety has become something of a walking buddy of mine these days, even if not my favourite one. And after this particular occasion on the trail, I’m even willing to concede that in the aftermath of a panic attack, something beautiful can happen.

Proud of myself for finishing

In my exhausted state, all sense of mastery over elements was gone. There was no endpoint to strive for or summit to conquer because every step felt like a little victory. A humbled and grateful presence took over and it was a true joy to walk this way. After all, whether you experience anxiety or not, any sense of mastery over the elements is a facade.

Just a few years ago, this land was rocked by a colossal earthquake and it experiences fatal landslides every monsoon. Anxiety is an annoyingly truthful reminder that anything can happen any time. And to explore our earth humbly in this knowledge is to be devastatingly human, moving with the utmost respect, awe, and humility through its powerful landscapes.

Feature image thanks to @majellb