You Either Do Hard Things or You Slowly Stop Living
A winter snowshoe, two loyal dogs, and a reminder that comfort slowly shrinks a life
I found myself on my stomach clawing my way up a small but significant wall of ice, grabbing tree trunks to pull myself upward.
On March 6, 2026, about two hours into the climb up Mount Cardigan, this was not how I expected the snowshoe to be going.
Above me, the two dogs were waiting.
I thought it was too high for Rocket to make it, so I heaved her onto the snow-covered ledge. Groot scrambled up behind her. Then, while I was still trying to get my own ass up the ice, both of them jumped off the five-foot wall, scrambled right back up again, and stood there waiting for me.
The thought in my head was simple: this sucks, but I’m doing it anyway.
Earlier that morning, when the dogs and I pulled into the trailhead, the place felt like a ghost town. No cars. No footprints. Just snow and silence.
The snowshoe to High Cabin was only about 2.65 miles, but it came with 1,430 feet of elevation gain and 397 feet of loss. On paper, that doesn’t look like much. On the mountain, of course, it’s something else entirely.
Tim and Jon were snowshoeing up to High Cabin from the opposite direction and would be waiting for us.
The snow was deep enough that several trail signs were half-buried. In places, the trail was nothing more than a narrow trench punched through white. The woods had that muffled winter stillness where snow absorbs sound, and the whole world feels padded and distant.
Rocket and Groot were wearing their bright orange packs, the only real color in the landscape. It was just the three of us heading into a snowshoe that turned out to be far harder than I expected.
What should have taken far less time took nearly four hours.
And that matters.
Not because I need congratulations for hiking through deep snow after a hip replacement and a femur fracture.
But because it took me four hours to go 2.6 miles.
That is both a win and a loss.
Yes, we should recognize our wins. But if all we do is soothe ourselves with “look what you did,” we can lose sight of where we are trying to get to.
I am proud that I finished the ascent. I am also disappointed that it took what it took.
Both truths can exist at the same time, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain I hit the wall.
For me, this snowshoe was harder than the marathon I once ran. Anyone familiar with endurance sports knows about hitting the wall. But you don’t need to run a marathon to know that moment when something strips you down and asks whether you really want to keep going.
But unlike a race, there were no crowds cheering, no aid stations, and no other runners pushing through the same pain. There was no noise or momentum to carry you forward.
Instead, I was in thigh-deep snow on steep terrain, facing an icy section I had to crawl up. I was doing it with a replaced hip and a mostly healed femur fracture.
There was no one ahead of me and no one behind me.
Just me and two dogs.
In that silence, I ran into something deeper than fatigue.
For thirty-one years, I had Brian’s voice in my life. He didn’t create the tenacious part of me. I had already hiked the Appalachian Trail (and a lot more) before we met.
He didn’t invent my self-resolve. But his voice reinforced it. Between my own drive and his encouragement, the smaller voices that live in most people’s heads never really penetrated.
Now his voice is gone.
In the years since then, other voices have slowly crept in.
They weren’t malicious voices. Most of the people carrying them probably believed they were being cautious, practical, even wise. But they carried hesitation, doubt, and fear.
They are the kinds of voices that slowly build smaller lives and then call it caution. Lives where people stop pushing themselves, stop taking risks, and stop stepping into the places where effort and uncertainty live.
And by letting them into my head, I allowed them to attempt to stop me as well.
I see these voices everywhere. People derailed by obstacles. People stuck in transitions for years. People with time who spend it consuming instead of engaging with the world.
Months pass. Years pass. The box people live inside quietly gets smaller and smaller.
Most people avoid the wall. They avoid the edge where doubt and effort show up at the same time.
But that edge is where you meet yourself honestly.
That edge is where you discover whether the person you believe yourself to be is actually still there.
I saw, on that mountain, both the Scott I respect and the Scott I dislike.
The Scott I respect is the one who hiked the Appalachian Trail, the Long Trail, and the GR20, who engaged fully in a relationship for thirty-one years through easy and hard times, who runs an animal rescue, and who continues to do difficult things even when they’re inconvenient or uncomfortable.
The other Scott hesitates. Doubts. Considers giving in.
That other Scott is easily influenced by smaller voices.
This isn’t about becoming someone new.
I already became the person I respect.
The challenge now is protecting him, preserving him, and not allowing the proximity of timid thinking to fuel fear and hesitation and dilute that identity.
Near the end of the snowshoe, close to High Cabin, Tim came out and found me and walked the rest of the way in with me.
I was relieved.
Hearing another human voice helps. Even resilient people benefit from support.
But the real work had already happened.
The ice and snow, the doubt, and the wall — that part had been mine.
Throughout all of this, the dogs were not incidental. Their steady presence, their refusal to quit, and their simple expectation that we would keep moving forward were part of what got me through.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
That line from Ulysses captures the version of myself I refuse to lose.
The Appalachian Trail Scott exists. The GR20 Scott exists. The guy who drags himself up an icy rock face because turning around isn’t an option exists.
The danger isn’t failure.
The danger is letting that person disappear.
Because once that person disappears, getting them back is a far harder climb.
So the question isn’t whether the mountain was hard.
The real question is whether you’re still the kind of person who does hard things.
