Whenever Lia and I hike, trite, demeaning questions and/or unsolicited advice are part of the menu – most of them men-borne. “Why is it just you two? You should have had a guy accompany you.” “Are you sure you’re bringing her up the summit? It will be difficult. She won’t make it.”
There are many retorts, but none work. Not “It’s not Lia’s first time to hike”, “She’s stronger than me (fact)”, “I will carry her if needed”, or “We never climb without a guide”. Say any of those and they will just give you this dubious look as if saying, “You’re just bullshitting us.”
This is a child. Hiking with a child is a huge responsibility. There’s no place in the mountains for overly cocky people. Mountains will never be forgiving neither do they adjust to you – I’ve learned that by now. The operative phrase is calculated risk. If the risk is too high, we turn back – no if’s, no but’s.
In this era, there should be no need to explain this: Women are as capable as men. We are not a liability. Nobody should summarize a woman’s worth – nay, any person’s worth – based on gender, age, or size. We had children come out of our vaginas (or belly), for Christ’s sake. I don’t think anything could be harder than that.
So, instead of saying, “You will eat your words”, I thought I’d just make a one-minute video of Lia’s hikes since she was three (mini hikes/ short walks before that aren’t included), and save it in my phone, just in case. I hope that by the end of this video, I would have changed some people’s minds about Lia. As little as she is, she deserves some credit. I think everybody does.
