To the Hiker Carrying Two Backpacks
I noticed you on the first day of the Inca Trail.
Machu Picchu was still a distant promise, and I was already bartering with my lungs. The altitude had found me, as it always does, with the precision of someone who knows your weaknesses by name.
My asthma—mostly manageable at sea level —had turned every breath into a conscious effort from the moment I landed in Cusco, Peru. My inhales came in shallow sips, while each exhale was a reminder: You are not built for this. I was pulling air like I owed it money, and the interest was steep.
My pack dragged at my shoulders, and my legs unconvincingly negotiated with gravity. I tried to distract myself by counting steps or naming clouds, but my mind kept looping back to the effort of simply being here. It was all I could do not to fold in on myself, to keep placing one foot in front of the other, as if the motion alone might summon oxygen.
But there you were, steady and deliberate, moving as if gravity had made a private agreement to go easy on you. The thin air that left me gasping seemed to have no effect on you at all.
And you weren't carrying just one backpack. You had two.
At first, I thought it was some kind of flex. Who hauls two packs through the Andes while I'm here rationing breaths? My mind spun stories. Maybe you were training for a desert ultra-marathon or some other punishing pursuit. Or maybe you were just that guy, the one who makes effort look effortless, moving with an ease that feels like an affront to the rest of us—the ones laboring under the weight of our ambitions and underdeveloped cardiovascular systems.
The path changed constantly—one moment winding through cloud forest where orchids hung like fragile ornaments, the next dragging us up ancient stone steps that felt designed by someone with a personal grudge against knees. Eventually most of the trekking group was panting alongside me, each step no longer automatic but something we had to choose. One young doctor from England was forced to pause on the side of the trail to retch into a bush; altitude hadn’t spared him either.
The porters were the exception. They moved like whispers through the landscape, their feet barely brushing the ground, their rhythm tuned to the mountains in a way that made the rest of us look like clumsy visitors. Their loads were impossibly massive, yet balanced with a grace that defied logic—gas tanks, cooking supplies, entire camps folded into tight, unyielding bundles of canvas and nylon. These weights should have bent their bodies, slowed their pace. And yet they moved with quiet defiance, as if gravity had agreed to go easy on them, too.
Through it all, you carried two packs.
“But with the air thinning and the landscape demanding more than I had to give, it was easier to imagine you as a villain than to sit with my own struggle. ”
Every time I caught sight of you, something unkind stirred in me. It felt performative somehow—the way you carried both packs without complaint, as if suffering were something you welcomed, something you invited along just to keep things interesting. I found myself assigning you a whole identity: The overachiever, always taking on more, never flinching. The smug volunteer. The person whose competence makes everyone else’s effort look sloppy by comparison.
I wasn’t proud of my thoughts. They were the kind that fester quietly—mean, miniature things that say if you're suffering, then everyone else should be, too. That kind of bitterness is all too easy, slipping in unnoticed and turning admiration into irritation. But with the air thinning and the landscape demanding more than I had to give, it was easier to imagine you as a villain than to sit with my own struggle.
I hadn’t come here just for the view.
Machu Picchu had lived in my imagination for years, half-legend, half-longing—a place I used to speak of with reverence, as if it might disappear if I said its name too loudly. I wanted to walk into it the long way, to trace the spine of the Inca empire one stone at a time, to see the grandeur as part of the full, weathered story. It was also my honeymoon. My partner and I wanted to step into this dream and claim it as part of our shared beginning. We chose this destination not for resort pools or rose petals, but for the quiet intention of it—for the belief that if we started here, among ancient terraces and carefully placed stone, we might build something equally lasting.
You and I didn’t speak until the second day, after Dead Woman’s Pass had wrung me out. That climb was a cruel kind of negotiation; the promise of relief at the top giving way to yet another ridge beyond it. By the time I stumbled over the highest point, I couldn’t summon triumph. I barely registered the view. My body was too focused on the ache in my legs, the dull throb behind my temples. Later, when the heat softened and the porters set out platters of popcorn for an afternoon snack, I was slouched on a rock, cradling a cup of tea. The smell of toasted kernels mingled with damp soil and something green. You sat across from me, your two backpacks resting beside you like quiet sentries.
I don’t even remember what started the conversation. Maybe something about the punishing sun, or the absurdity of stone steps that seemed to multiply when you weren’t looking. But eventually, I had to ask: Why two backpacks?
I expected a story about endurance or something practical. Maybe you were carrying gear for someone in your group who had fallen behind. But what you said left me floored.
You told me you were supposed to be here with your fiancée. This trek was meant to be your honeymoon. But she was gone. A car accident, days before the wedding. Now you carried her pack, too—her things, her memory, her weight—so she could still make the journey.
Grief changes the air around it. It thickens it, slows it down, as if the atmosphere itself is holding its breath. Your words settled between us with the quiet permanence of something that had already fused with your bones. Not far from us, my partner’s pack sat beside mine, warm from the day’s walk, our beginning still unfolding. I looked at your second backpack then and saw it for what it was: not just extra weight, but the embodiment of something much heavier. Memory, carried not out of obligation, but love.
We never exchanged names. Just two strangers sharing tea and silence, watching the Andes cradle the afternoon light. But I remember how you stood when it was time to go, lifting both packs without hesitation—not as a burden, but as a continuation. Acceptance rather than struggle. I watched you walk away, the weight of two lives balanced across your back, and I wondered how anyone could carry that for so long.
“How often do we misjudge the burdens others bear? How often do we let our own stories blind us to what’s real?”
I once read about a man at a silent retreat. After someone stole his toast on the first day, he spent the next nine days simmering with quiet rage. He built an entire narrative around the thief—the smug ingrate who had wronged him!—only to find out that it had been a simple mistake. Just like that, days of anger and resentment collapsed into nothing. The man had been carrying the weight of a story that was never true.
It’s so easy to turn our projections into facts, to hold imagined grievances, to confuse silence for distance. I had done the same with you, turning your stride into an affront, your second pack into a choice. But what you carried had nothing to do with proving strength. It was love. Remembrance. Honor. Things I hadn’t even considered. How often do we misjudge the burdens others bear? How often do we let our own stories blind us to what’s real?
That night, when the sun slipped behind the mountains and painted the sky in streaks of indigo and fire, I watched the wind ripple through the ichu grass. The air shifted, cooler now, brushing the grass in long strokes, and I wondered if you felt it, too—the quiet acknowledgment offered by the mountains. They don’t promise ease. They just let you move across them, however broken, however slow.
I think about you often. Sometimes, when I’m walking and the wind shifts just so, I’m back there on the Inca Trail. I remember the hush of the mountains at dawn, the mist curling through the valleys, the orchids standing witness to our journey, their petals trembling but never falling. I remember the porters who made the impossible look ordinary. And I think of you, walking with a weight that had nothing to do with muscle.
I wonder if you ever found a place to set that second backpack down.
About the Author
Maggie Downs is a freelance writer focused on meaningful travel, outdoor adventure, and wellness. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Travel + Leisure, Afar, and McSweeney's, among others. She is the author of the memoir Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother's) Lifetime, (Counterpoint Press), excerpts of which have been anthologized in Best Women’s Travel Writing and Lonely Planet’s True Stories From the World’s Best Writers. She is also the author of 50 Things to Do Before You're Five, a guide to gentle family adventures.
She currently resides in the California desert with her family, including a dog named Popcorn and a cat, Coleslaw.
Read Maggie’s “Behind the Essay” interview in our newsletter, and her “Witching Hour” essay here.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
Header photo by Jose Casal.
