Writing Prompt | Hiking | Photography

Finding Joy in Hiking

November Writing Prompt

As someone with a bias to movement, I hunger to be out and about, putting one foot in front of the other as I wander around known and unknown destinations.

Though I very much enjoy my urban explorations, nothing brings me as much joy as escaping in nature, for a short or a long hike.

For years, when I lived in Colorado and Virginia, going hiking or rock climbing on weekends wasn’t even something I intentionally planned.

It was just what my friends and I did.

Then I moved back to spending more time in my native Bulgaria in 2020 and venturing into the mountains became a challenge, mostly because I own no vehicle.

My parents live in the countryside, so I certainly find my nature fix each week I visit, but with Bulgaria boasting quite a few mountain ranges, I knew I had to make way for more hiking back in my life.

This is how a couple of weeks ago I found myself working remotely from Smolyan, a town in the Rhodope Mountains, with easy access to plenty of trails — many accessible directly from the town.

Researching my options, I came across information about the Kaleto Fortress, close to the village of Koshnitsa, and the trail that takes you through a cave to the top of a limestone peak on which the fortress stood.

Intrigued, I decided to make this my first hiking destination on the trip.

Short in distance, the trail challenged me with its steep incline and the multiple high steps I had to take. A pleasant surprise, then, were all the lovely wooden bench setups along the way.

That’s some luxury rest area for a hike in the mountains! I couldn’t help but sit for a few minutes on each of the benches I enountered. Fall colors and the light drizzle provided just the right ambiance.

Not far up from the setup in the image above, I reached the cave. Referred to as a passage cave, it served as a tunnel that led inside the fortress.

At the mouth of the cave, benches on the right and left sides offer more opportunities for rest and more importantly, for nice views of the area. The photo above is my view from one of those benches.

The photo below shows my view into the cave once I passed through on my way to the fortress. You can see the two bench setups at the bottom.

The back of the cave leads into the inside of the fortress, and from there, wooden steps take you to the top. It’s my favorite aspect of hiking, though I certainly don’t need it to enjoy a hike in the woods.

But if it is an option, I absolutely treasure the joyous anticipation of hiking up the last few feet to behold a breathtaking landscape.

Connected to the south end of the wall, a watchtower — with a bench — presents another opportunity for rest and a chance to take in the beauty of the Rhodope mountains. I didn’t hesitate to climb up the narrow stairwell, sit down on the bench, and enjoy a chocolate treat and an apple.

On a rainy day during the work week in late October, no other person was around and I had the overlook to myself. If the wind hadn’t picked up, I may just have stayed there for hours, reading my book, looking up every so often to take in the view.

Down from the watchtower, I followed a path along the fortress’s remaining walls with the north wall being the best preserved, measuring 44.5m (~145ft), as I learned from the informative posters on site.

After exploring the area around the fortress, I went back through the cave and another watch tower to then focus on simply moving among the trees in all their fall glory.

My legs were tired, but it’s the good kind of tired — the tired that reminds me I moved my body today. I chose to escape in nature for a couple of hours of huffing and puffing, of slipping on a carpet of wet fall leaves, of moving up and down forest hills. I was a body in motion and I loved it.