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In 2016, when Clarissa and I joined my oldest friend Tim, his brother Bob, and another friend, Andrew, in Yosemite National Park, we made an attempt to summit Half-Dome. The hike, depending on where you start and the route you take, is generally between a 14- to 16-mile round-trip. Because we got a late start, we had to park a couple miles from the trailhead, and ended up clocking about a 20 mile day. Inclement weather at the top meant that we turned back just before we reached the cables, and began the trek back to our car, then campsite. It was a bit of a grueling day and we never made the summit.
In 2017, I joined Tim and another friend of his on a trek up Mount Whitney in what turned out to be a banner snow year. We were woefully unprepared for the several-feet deep snow in the challenging terrain, and after fighting an uphill battle, we had to call it and tuck in for the day at trail camp. As we backtracked, I slid into an unintentional glissade, and only through luck—as I was also woefully undertrained—was I able to self-arrest. We ended up sleeping three men to a two-man tent for a cold night at elevation. All of which was made somewhat unsettling because we had unknowingly hiked right into the middle of a search for a lost hiker.
In 2023 I actually summited a mountain. Sainte-Baume was a challenging trek in southern France that Clarissa and I completed while visiting the area. Although the area is beautiful, that particular day was cold, windy, rainy, and foggy—everything was hidden behind a thick wall of intimidating gray. We did successfully summit and returned back to our Bed and Breakfast. Cold and wet, but safe and sound. And quite happy, in fact.
Sometimes it’s fun when it’s not fun.
What do all of these trips have in common, besides the fact that they all involve trying to hike to a summit? At times, all of these treks were… unpleasant. There was pain, discomfort, anxiety, and plenty of risk. Honestly, they probably shouldn’t have been fun. And yet… I loved them. They were decidedly suffer-fests at times, but still they made me happy. Reflecting on that, I came to realize that sometimes it’s fun when it’s not fun.
Humans do some weird stuff that seems to defy logic. For example, we take peppers, a plant that evolved pain-inducing capsaicin as a defense mechanism to prevent getting eaten by herbivorous mammals from eating it, and we make jalapeño poppers. We enjoy a food that literally causes us pain and nobody thinks twice about it. That’s crazy.
There’s more than one kind of fun. Laying on the couch watching a movie, or enjoying a delicious beer are each examples of fun. But sometimes it’s fun to munch on a jalapeño popper or summit a mountain shrouded in fog and getting pelted with sleet.
Different kinds of fun
As it turns out, fun falls on a spectrum. You may have heard the term Type 2 fun, or Type 1 fun, but if you’re unfamiliar with the idea, here are the broad strokes.
Type 1 Fun is, well, fun. It’s the kind of thing that’s fun while you’re doing it, and it’s fun when you remember it… It’s probably what most people think about when they consider the meaning of the word “fun.”
But there’s another type of fun, Type 2 Fun, which isn’t always so enjoyable at first. It’s a slog up a mountain, a bike trip that has gone on too long, the last 4 miles of a marathon. It’s honestly a little miserable. But when it’s all said and done and you look back at it—it’s fun. I think there’s a little bit of magic available in this zone. First of all, if you can embrace a level of mindfulness, you’ll be aware that even though you may be miserable at the moment, that this is actually all good. You might be, like I was on Sainte-Baume, happy despite the miserable conditions.
The other magical thing about Type 2 Fun is that it’s a great place for growth to happen. Yes, things may suck in that moment, but if you stick with it, you come out the other side a little bit better, faster, stronger, smarter, or wiser than you started. You just have to remember that out is through.
There’s also Type 3 Fun, which is actually not fun at all. I mean that literally. Type 3 Fun is completely miserable in the moment, and it’s still miserable when you look back at it. You may learn something from the experience, even if that lesson is just to never repeat said experience. You’re not going to have any fond memories of Type 3, but you may have the occasional nightmare.
More Type 2 Fun
I’ve spent a lot of time in the Type 2 Fun zone. Carrying a heavy pack on a long trail? Type 2 Fun. Running a marathon, Spartan Race, or Toughest Mudder? Type 2 Fun. Pretty much any intense, challenging mountain hike? Type 2 Fun. My 65-mile trash-pick-up backpacking trip? Yep, you guessed it—Type 2 Fun.
And like I said, Type 2 Fun isn’t necessarily fun while you’re in the thick of it. That’s part of what makes it an adventure. But… sometimes it still kind of is. Sometimes, even while it feels miserable and nasty and part of you wishes you were anywhere else, you still love it in the moment. That’s how it was on Sainte-Baume. I wish I could explain it better, but it’s one of those things you have to experience to understand. So go slog a few miles in a pack, run a race, or get sleet whipped directly into your face. Sure, it will suck, but it’s also going to be fun.
As long as you make sure you’re safe enough to make it back again and avoid entering Type 3 Fun—which is no fun at all—you’ll be glad you bit off that little taste of misery.
Because sometimes it’s fun when it’s not fun.