Meet the World’s Worst Hiker

I want to love the wild. I really, really do.

Photo: Pablo Kaufmann

I’m hiking up the Pipiwai Trail near Hana, Maui when the open landscape of moss, ferns, and majestic banyan trees suddenly gives way to bamboo forest. Thousands of stalks, just inches from each other, reach 80 feet into the air, blocking the midday sun and all noise. That’s when my lizard brain jerks awake, wondering how we went from day to night in mere seconds.