I miss hiking without purpose. It used to be I enjoyed the freedom of the hills without thought to purpose. I would hike with intent, but with no special place to go or destination in mind. The whole point was to hike, no reason or justification; walking through the affordance of it all was purpose enough.

Sometimes purposeless intention is still adequate to my needs, but other times I need my intention fueled by specific destination or other rationale. For example, during spring I got into the habit of hiking to ski. This intent is incredibly seductive, and drives me to all manner of effort.

When my intention is to ski, I carry heavy gear, struggling up mountains that would challenge my lazy ass were I carrying nothing more than a water bottle. Instead I wear heavy and stiff ski boots that make walking a chore even on the flats. I sweat and toil to a place where skiable snow is below me, and suddenly my load is lighter and my feet have wings. Well, that is perhaps, uh…hyperbole.

Other times, my purpose is to actually climb a mountain and reach a summit. A summit is an admirable goal, motivation that serves some folks as the be-all and end-all of hiking. Climbing with the ostensible purpose of reaching a summit, though, leaves little room for spontaneity and equivocation. Either you make it to the top or you don’t.

Fear of failure to summit a mountain can lead to dangerous situations and even faulty judgment. Sometimes I am so driven to make it to the top, I neglect to notice that maybe the weather threatens, for example, or I’ve over-estimated my own capabilities. Summits are a great purpose and goal, but perhaps over-rated.

More often than not, I am easily satisfied with a high ridge or other innocuous destination high above the trees where the world opens beneath me. Once having reached a ridge, I can catch my breath and enjoy an often gentle walk. I usually avoid knife-edged and exposed ridges that require sustained physical concentration and threat of a gravity accelerated fall. But a ridge top or col can often serve as destination enough if I am hiking with a purpose.

I frequently declare as my purpose the discovery and acquisition of shiny rocks. This intent has driven my mountaineering for many years. I am so bitten with the rockhound bug that I almost always carry a heavy rock hammer, a couple of sample bags and perhaps a hand lens. Few situations are more frustrating to me than hiking way the hell-and-gone up to a mineral locale, only to have no means of beating the rocks into revealing their secret stash. So I carry the rock hammer.

Although my hammer lies secreted in my pack, I often hike with more benign and less interactive intent. Flower watching is passive entertainment provided by the powers that be, and requires no action from me other than walking through them with my eyes open. In flower mode, I may collect a few images with my camera, but otherwise I am a simple observer checking out the wonders of the mountain world. This purpose is a peaceful one and highly rewarding.

So it was that I realized I hadn’t yet hiked this summer with the simple intention of looking at the flowers. After all, I told myself, our home is the Wildflower Capital of Colorado, no simple or idle claim. People travel from all over just to witness the yearly display; it seemed the least I could do was lace up my waffle stompers and tromp around looking at flowers.

I figured the best, easiest to reach flower display would be along the trail to West Maroon Pass, and I was right. So were dozens of other folks who like me, were walking the trail to see the flowers. None of us was disappointed.

At first it seemed I’d procrastinated too long and missed the peak flowers. Indeed, many species had succumbed either to mid-summer aridity or late summer freeze. Many plants in the lower valley had already gone over: lousewart was history, for example, and kings crown was over it. Still, columbines, paintbrush and yellow daisies (I have no idea which ones) bloomed with vigor and defiance.

Counter-intuitively, the higher into the basin I hiked the more species of flowers I found in bloom. I figured flowers would have frozen up high, but apparently they bloomed late and hadn’t yet finished their business. I wondered if the flowers hadn’t bloomed too late for bugs, the pollinators that facilitate their reproduction. There were no bugs; maybe wind does the trick.

I could tell that I’d missed peak bloom only by a few days, but sub-alpine and alpine meadows literally flowed with flowers. A few days later and I’d have missed the whole shebang. Next time, though, my purpose will be to look for shiny rocks. Rocks go nowhere fast and look pretty much the same as they did a few million years ago. Purpose, but no hurry.