Ever go “fiking” with your significant other? Or maybe you went “fiing” or “folfing,” even. If you haven’t already figured it out, it’s what I like to call fighting while hiking, or biking or skiing or — you get the point. What is it about the fresh air and physical activity that makes for a good old-fashioned argument?
The Aspen Skiing Co. suggests why you should take lessons from them. I think it’s something like, “we’ve saved more relationships by doing the instructing.” I get it. When learning a new sport, sometimes the last person you want to take instruction from is someone with whom you share a sizable amount of time, and/or a bed.
That idea can hold true for both instruction and plain old athletic activity. There you are, on a perfectly nice hike with the one you love, and suddenly a fight breaks out. It’s like the huffing and puffing creates the perfect space to air it all out.
I remember hiking one of my first 14ers with my boyfriend. We decided to bag two peaks in one day for good measure. I felt weepy and frustrated about 100 feet from the top of the first peak. I even felt a little resentful as he cheered me from the top with a piece of fried chicken in his hand. He insisted the second peak was “just over there,” and since we’d only been together a couple of months, I acquiesced.
Whoa, mama, did I ever run through the range of emotions. The peak that was “just over there” was another 2,000 feet of elevation loss and consequent gain, and five more hours full of lost trail, boulder fields and donning every layer I had with me, since we endured snow as well. I remember cursing him for adding the second peak to our journey.
“Why are we doing this?”
Oh come on. That’s a perfectly normal question to ask your sweetie seven hours into a 13-hour adventure. We reached the summit of the second 14er at 3 p.m.
Maybe it’s because while we’re challenging ourselves physically, we feel the need to challenge ourselves mentally by discussing why one of us goes faster than the other, or why this particular trail was chosen.
The problem is that men are interacting with women in a potentially competitive arena. No one is looking to “win,” per se, but I know that I tend to be a step behind my boyfriend, if for no other reason than leg length, and that whole super athlete thing.
My friend Ashley shared a story with me about a near death “fafting” experience with her husband. There they were at the first wave of five, and she got dumped out of the boat. She swam in the river for a time, but made it safely to shore only to see her husband having a good laugh at her ill fate. I can only imagine how things would’ve turned out had they been “fayaking.” They spent the rest of the trip at odds, fafting instead of rafting.
I’ve hiked a 14er with other women before and not had a problem. Women say things like, “Good job,” “Almost there,” and “Do you need to take a rest?” Men are different. They like to make good time and take short breaks. Peeing while standing up helps their cause.
It’s much easier to find a reason to argue if you hike with your significant other. I know I’ve been on more than one hike with a boyfriend where a new direction is chosen and the trail becomes optional. Meaning, “Let’s go bushwhack up that hill and blaze our own trail.” That sounds romantic in theory. I’ll bushwhack with the best of them, but I also like to wear skirts and don’t need to shred my legs up entirely.
“Hey, let’s go this way,” I can remember my ex-boyfriend suggesting. Instead of staying on Summer Road on Ajax he wanted to view the sunset from a random group of rocks roughly 700 feet above us. I had my first climbing lesson that day, and cried because I was scared I might fall to my death. I did manage to kick loose a rock which hit my then boyfriend squarely between the eyes. Karma? I got to go “fiking” and “flimbing” that day.
Although it may seem strange that a fight could break out amid such natural beauty, it happens to the best of us. By the end of the double 14er trip with my boyfriend, we were both relieved. The fact that we saw a herd of mountain goats made up for any arguing we did. The views from two different peaks took precedence, and the fight on the way up seemed to dissipate, for the most part.
Maybe “fiking” could be considered the new healthy way to argue. Hey, at least you’re getting outside. Chances are, by the time you reach your destination or downhill slope, everything will be resolved, or at least forgotten.