A Hike Called “Crouching Lion” Triggered Irreplaceable Thoughts of Death

I was convinced I was falling off the cliff

I started thinking about death the moment I took my first step past a busy Oahu highway.

The cars swooped past me as I was trying to calculate my crossing of the street.

When I reached the trailhead, a wall of rocks was going upward. As violently as I tried to see where the rocks ended, I couldn’t.

I started the hike, and one step at a time, I made progress to the top.

Branches were hanging off rocks everywhere. I grappled onto these to pull my body up. Ropes had also been placed tightly on trees from previous hikers.

After climbing only a few steps, I was out of breath. I could hear my wife swooshing a thousand steps ahead of me.

I look to my left, there’s a cliff.

Intrusive thought: if a wind comes, it’ll likely thrust my body off this cliff. I’ll tumble down the mountain until my then-dead body lands in the ocean. When I land in the ocean, the sharks and other starving marine life will finish me off.

I heard my wife calling my name.

I kept heading up, taking precautionary steps. With only an inch of space in between every step, I was sure to survive.

I shifted my focus to the airy smell of the morning trees. The trade winds brought scents from miles away. The wetness of the morning dew also gently kneaded my nose.

I stepped on a small rock without a ledge and I stumbled. My foot slid down past my body, but I threw my arms up and caught onto a sturdy tree branch.

Intrusive thought: that could’ve been the end of me.

“Are you okay?” I heard my wife at a distance.

I gave her a thumbs-up and frantically searched for the ground to regain my balance.

Once I stood up, I glanced upwards to see how much progress I’d made, but I couldn’t see the summit from where I was. I looked down to determine how long it would take for me to abandon the hike, but I was unable to see the trailhead.

So I turned back toward the mountain and continued climbing.

I could now see that my wife was waiting for me, so I increased my pace to reach her.

Gravel, rocks, dirt, mud, sliding rocks, edgy cliffs.

Intrusive thought: trip, fall, death.

Gravel, rocks, dirt, mud, step, step, step.

Over and over again, I kept coming back to my every step. My mind was brutally wrestling with the imagining of my demise versus the reality of how much control I had over my body to stay safe.

As I approached my wife, I finally saw a stream of light veering through the trees. With not much left to the summit, I sped up and gave the last few steps my all.

Intrusive thought: it would suck if I died this close to the top.

As I was approaching the top, a man in his mid-30s ran past me. His sweat brushed on me and when he got to my wife, he looked around and proceeded to keep climbing to higher areas of the mountain.

I pulled my body up and stepped onto the viewpoint. I turned to my wife and I could feel her entrapment with the beauty around us. After a few minutes of trying to catch my breath, I gazed at what she saw:

There were mountain ranges sculpted with decadent curves. They were green, but the kind of green that turns your vision that hue once you shift your gaze off them. The sky was so vast you could see every small change in the clouds. The air at that altitude filled my lungs with peace. The ocean was calm, which was rare because the previous days had shown us that the Pacific Ocean was as wild as they get.

There was a cross on the ground with a name on it. It didn’t feed my fear, but I did take a moment to acknowledge the life that was lost here.

After spending approximately 30 minutes looking out, we began our descent.

The way down was harder physically than the way up. I sat the entire way down. My hands were getting cuts and bumps from the rocky ground and my back was in so much agony.

We encountered a couple asking how much longer before they made it to the top. We were encouraging and told them to keep going because they were almost there.

Another couple, an elderly couple, briskly making their way up looked at me and with a smile, told me, “You conquered the lion.” I smiled back and with a thumb up I said “Yeah.” We wished each other well and kept going.

Our pace sped up when we finally saw the streets from which we entered. When we finally exited the hike and were on flat ground, relief set in. I completed the hike against my body and mind trying to convince me otherwise. I rushed to the car and when I sat, a gentler thought set in:

Death is inevitable. There’s logical fear and illogical fear. Learn to discern between the two. Life is precious and living it in comfort zones only robs you of life itself.

Gina Lily is a writer and Behavior Analyst. She’s a quirky Floridian with a drive toward conversations that sit below the surface. She’s married and has two dogs, a feisty chihuahua, and a barking dachshund. She loves photography, technology, literature, travel, and discoveries on what it means to be human.

She’s on Instagram: gina_lily & and you can subscribe to receive more of her publications.