Waypoint 07 Essay Weather · Overcast
Switchbacks
Why the way up from a low place zigzags — and why turning back on yourself still counts as climbing.
Mountain paths almost never go straight up. They zigzag — long diagonal legs across the slope, joined by tight hairpin turns. Walkers call them switchbacks. The reason is simple: a straight line up a steep hillside is too steep to walk. The switchback trades distance for gentleness. You walk three times as far, and you arrive.
There is one thing about switchbacks that nobody warns you about. At every turn, you end up facing the direction you came from.
The turn that feels like going backwards
If you’ve ever climbed out of a low stretch, you’ll know this feeling. You have a good week. Then something — a date, a smell, a bad night’s sleep — and you’re back in a feeling you were sure you’d left behind. Here again. It’s very easy to read that as failure, as sliding back to the bottom.
But look at the figure again. At every corner, the trail points back the way it came. And at every corner, it is higher than the last one. Facing the old direction isn’t the same as being at the old height. You’ve turned; you haven’t fallen.
Most recoveries I’ve heard described look like this. Not a ramp. A zigzag that keeps meeting the same views from a little further up.
Rules for switchbacks
Trail builders and mountain guides have a few rules about switchbacks. They translate surprisingly well.
Don’t cut the corners. On a real mountain, walkers who scramble straight up between the legs wear away the ground and start little landslides. Pushing straight up the fall line feels faster. It’s also how people slip. Taking the long way is not weakness; it’s technique.
Measure in height, not in direction. If you only ask which way am I facing?, you’ll feel lost half the time. Ask instead am I higher than I was a month ago? The answer is more often yes than it feels.
Rest at the turns. The hairpins are where the ground flattens for a moment. They’re natural places to stop, drink some water, and let your breathing settle before the next leg.
Look out, not just up. The corners are also where the view opens. You can see the ground you’ve crossed — usually more of it than you thought — and the valley floor, a little further below you than it used to be.
A last thing
On some mountains, a switchback path takes an hour to climb a slope you could take in at a single glance from below. It’s very long, and very patient, and it gets there. Your path back from the low ground is allowed to be long. Every leg of it counts, including the ones that look like they’re going the wrong way.