This summer my son an I were hiking a difficult trail (for us) to a mountain lake. After two hours of going uphill, we came to a meadow and there was a group of 7 or 8 very elderly women having a formal tea party while sitting in the meadow.

Later, I took a solo dayhike of 5 or 6 miles on a trail that had a whole bunch of switchbacks and was pretty steep. I was cooking lunch and two elderly women came meandering by while chit-chatting.

On another hike on what is said to be the steepest part of the Colorado Trail we ran across a group of elderly women chitchatting in a clearing. One of them was walking on her knees intently looking at the flowers.

On our last trip we climbed 3,596 up and only descended 34 feet in 5 1/2 miles to get to a mountain lake. The base of the trail was at 9,000 feet or so. In the early afternoon, here comes a group of elderly women in dresses talking away. By this time I wasn't surprised. They were doing the loop of 9 1/2 miles with one of the scariest trails in Colorado on it

Finally, I found an old man. I stopped at McDonald's for coffee and there was an old guy sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee. I thought he was homeless, so I bought a Sausage McMuffian for him and asked if I could join him for breakfast. He was walking to Virginia from Colorado to see his daughter. His pack was just a school bag. He said he just likes to walk. The wrinkles in his face showed he'd been doing it for years.

There seems to be a whole different plane of hiking and backpacking. One that comes after many years of doing it. It's no longer "backpacking." It's just life.