woman hiking alone
~ by Sara Clifford
Sara Clifford solo backpacking in Deam Wilderness, Monroe County, Ind., October 2024.
Rustling in the brush rousts me from sleep: Halting footsteps, getting closer.
I am miles from roads, 100 + feet from a trail, encircled by trees the color of my rainfly. It’ s dark, predawn, and near freezing.
The steps get closer; I can feel them through my mat. I slow my breath, but don’ t move.
Then, a sound I’ ve heard up-close once before: the gasp-scream a deer makes when startled, right before she turns tail and bolts.
I settle back into the ground. I stay. For as long as I wish, I stay.
When I wake again, I stuff my stuff into sacks, pack away the tent, and rake up the ground where I laid. Breath clouding in the beam of my lamp, I shoulder the straps and walk on, several miles still in the dark, startling other deer in the distance still bedded down. I am not a threat, but they’ ve been conditioned differently. I look just like others with opposite intent; there’ s really no way to know. For some of us, the safest thing to do is to stay hidden, stay silent, stay small. Well, I’ m not doing that anymore. I went back to the woods five years ago when I felt I was losing myself. If you’ ve ever held a very public-facing role in a very small place, you might know the feeling: eyes on you, tracking, waiting for you to stumble. I’ d started second-guessing my instincts, though they’ d rarely let me down. I’ d stopped listening to my body, pushing through when I needed to rest, putting myself out there when I wanted to retreat.
26 Our Brown County • March / April 2025