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• Hike: A long walk, especially in the countryside. Cambridge Dictionary
• Hike: To go on an extended walk for pleasure or exercise, especially in a natural setting.  American Heritage Dictionary
• Hike: To walk or march a great distance, especially through rural areas, for pleasure, exercise, military training, or the like.  Merriam Webster
• Walking,  Nature,  Mountains,  Exploration

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Hiking is a great gift

• In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.  John Muir
• An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. Henry David Thoreau
• Happy is the person who has acquired the love of walking for its own sake! J. Holland

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Hiking is great for the health

• A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. Paul Dudley White
• Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well- being and walk away from every illness.  I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.  Soren Kierkegaard
• I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. M. Trevelyan
• I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. Henry David Thoreau
• When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the shoe leather has passed into the fiber of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes… you have worn out.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Health

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Hiking is a great form of exercise …

• Hiking is the best workout! … You can hike for three hours and not even realize you’re working out. And, hiking alone lets me have some time to myself. Jamie Luner
• The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best. Thomas Jefferson
• Walking: the most ancient exercise and still the best modern exercise.  Carrie Latet
• Exercise

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… for both body and mind

• Walking exercises the whole person. It exercises the body– it gives the arms and legs a workout.  It stimulates the flow of blood; expands the lungs.  It is gentle and relaxing.  It exercises the mind– it shakes up the brain cells.  It fills them with oxygen;  drives out the cobwebs.  A famous scientist says he does his best thinking on the two miles of sidewalk between his home and office.  Walking exercises the emotions.  It gives you a chance to observe and enjoy the world.  Open your eyes to beauty.  See the homes, the trees, the gardens.  See the shining faces of little children.  Listen for the church chimes, singing birds and the laughter of happy people.  Wilferd A. Peterson
• The body,  The mind

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We walk too little in today’s modern world

• People say that losing weight is no walk in the park. When I hear that I think, yeah, that’s the problem.  Chris Adams
• The civilized man has built a coach but has lost the use of his feet. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average, the total walking of an American these days – that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls – adds up to 1.4 miles a week…That’s ridiculous. Bill Bryson

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Hiking is good for the soul

• Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. John Muir
• Hiking alone lets me have some time to myself. Jamie Luner
• I haven’t got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers.  If you walk hard enough, you probably don’t need any other god.  Bruce Chatwin
• If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish. Charles Dickens
• My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. Aldous Huxley
• Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity… John Muir
• Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. Anatole France
• You need special shoes for hiking – and a bit of a special soul as well. Emme Woodhull- Bäche
• Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility. Gary Snyder
• The soul

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Hiking creates inner calmness

• The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk. Jacqueline Schiff
• The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up. Robert Persin
• Calmness

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Hiking is the best way to experience nature

• Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings. John Muir
• Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. John Muir

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Hiking is the best way to get a deep feel for a place

• There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo.  Even a bicycle goes too fast.  Paul Scott Mowrer

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Hiking gives you perspective on life

• After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value. George Macauley Trevelyan
• How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyone knows they are.  How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute?  No, you cannot explain.  So you walk.
• Perspective

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Hiking is a great way to think clearly …

• Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. Henry David Thoreau
• Thoughts come clearly while one walks. Thomas Mann
• Although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. Albert Einstein
• Walking is also an ambulation of mind. Gretel Ehrlich
• The simple act of walking can be a tremendous boost to your focus, productivity, clarity of mind, not to mention your health and waistline. Leo Babauta
• I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs. Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake. Wallace Stevens
• It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something. Charles Dickens
• The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird. Jules Renard
• The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making.  Rebecca Solnit
• Thinking

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… to get creative ideas …

• All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. Friedrich Nietzsche
• If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. Raymond Inmon
• The most potent tool for contacting inner guidance and creativity is walking. Julia Cameron
• The legs are the wheels of creativity. Albert Einstein
• Creative thinking

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… and to solve problems

• Solvitur ambulando. It is all solved by walking. Latin Proverb
• To solve a problem, walk around. Gregory McNamee
• Walking is good for solving problems — it’s like the feet are little psychiatrists. Terri Guillemets
• Problem solving

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Hiking is a way to slow down your pace of life

• We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down. Robert Sweetgall
• When your schedule is out of hand, it’s a signal that it’s time to slow down and re- evaluate what’s important rather than power through everything on the list. When you’re feeling out of control, rather than roll up your sleeves and “get to it,” a better strategy is to relax, take a few deep breaths and go for a short walk. Richard Carlson
• Walking takes longer… than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus, it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. Edward Abbey
• Slow down,  Haste

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Hiking with others is a great opportunity for good conversation

• The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.  Mark Twain
• Making conversation

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Our bodies are made for hiking and walking

• Your body is built for walking. Gary Yanker
• There is this to be said for walking: It’s the one mode of human locomotion by which a man proceeds on his own two feet, upright, erect, as a man should be, not squatting on his rear haunches like a frog.  Edward Abbey
• Walking

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Go hiking in the mountains

• Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach. John Muir
• Each fresh peak ascended teaches something. Sir Martin Convay
• Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. Ed Viesturs
• Mountain hikes instilled in me a life-long urge to get to the top of any inviting summit or peak. Paul D. Boyer
• My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. Aldous Huxley
• Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was. Dag Hammarskjold
• There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest. Alex Lowe
• There may be more to learn from climbing the same mountain a hundred times than by climbing a hundred different mountains. Richard Nelson
• You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves. Lito Tejada- Flores
• Mountains

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Get off the beaten track

• Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. Frank Tyger
• Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The place where you lose the trail is not necessarily the place where it ends. Tom Brown, Jr.

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Bring only the essentials and hike light

• The old school of thought would have you believe that you’d be a fool to take on nature without arming yourself with every conceivable measure of safety and comfort under the sun. But that isn’t what being in nature is all about. Rather, it’s about feeling free, unbounded, shedding the distractions and barriers of our civilization—not bringing them with us. Ryel Kestenbaum

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Every good hike brings you eventually back home

• Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits. Cindy Ross
• The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key. That’s the best thing about a walking, the journey itself.  It doesn’t much matter whether you get where you’re going or not.  You’ll get there anyway.  Every good hike brings you eventually back home.  Right where you started. Edward Abbey
• Home

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Thoughts to keep you going when you’re getting tired

• He who limps is still walking. Stanislaw J. Lec
• If you pick ’em up, O Lord, I’ll put ’em down. “Prayer of the Tired Walker”

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Final thoughts on hiking

• A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods. Rachel Carson
• Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. Steven Wright
• I dream of hiking into my old age. Marlyn Doan
• I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain – and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. Robert Frost
• I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see. John Burroughs
• If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. Frank A. Clark
• Make your feet your friend. J.M. Barrie
• May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
• No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning. Cyril Connolly
• Not all that wander are lost. R. R. Tolkien
• Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. Theodore Roethk
• Take only pictures; leave only footprints.
• The best, the most exquisite automobile is a walking stick; and one of the finest things in life is going on a journey with it. Robert Coates

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• Hiking is just walking where it’s okay to pee. Demetri Martin
• It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. Robert W. Service
• Here’s an idea for weight conscious hikers: dehydrated water.
• Modern lament: I just want to be like all other ten-year olds:  play ball, go out on hikes, neck with girls, steal cars, slug cops.”   Robert Orben
• We can hike anytime; this is our chance to see cars driving. Homer Simpson

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