THE WEEKLY 239: THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS LUCK

Luck is such an interesting concept. While there will always be an element of chance, the idea of good or bad luck is essentially a false idea. We simply attribute good or bad luck to people and/or situations based on the outcome. However, as a bystander to a certain situation we never take in all of the factors involved that created the probability of something occurring. Of course, freakish things happen but no matter how low the probability it doesn’t mean it is good luck if it plays out.

I see this concept a lot in my life when it comes to the weather, conditions or photography outcomes. So often I will hear that I got lucky or we were so fortunate with the weather. The reality is that often I have been on the same hime multiple times, often in the rain or bad weather and have returned in good weather. I also try and specify certain days of the week for different hikes or locations to give myself the best chance of being in the right spot at the right time. None of this outside commentary impacts me or my life but it’s an interesting falsehood that I likely share about others or other situations. This idea of luck rather than delving into the actual background of the people involved to see how they created the best possible chance for their outcome to occur.

Why am I going on so much about luck? Well, a couple of months ago my friend João took me on an epic hike. One that I knew had amazing views. However, it was a brutal storm and we did almost the entire route in heavy rain, slipped a lot in the mud, and were freezing. A fun day but not so picturesque. I didn’t even take my camera out of the bag and instead just took a few photos to save the memory on my phone. Below you can see the difference between my first visit to my second visit in the same spot.

I knew I wanted to go back and do that hike in sunny weather. It’s right next to the coast and you have this amazing blue water next to the green forest on the cliffs. It’s an epic scene and I wanted to do it justice. The problem is that this hike is on a strange part of the island that is known to be constantly in clouds. Every now and again you will have a couple of beautiful sunny days but it’s hard to come across.

I kept an eye on the weather, checking it daily for this location. Whenever we had a free day to go for a hike I would check the weather and see if it fit for this hike but almost always there were clouds forecast and sometimes rain. I persisted on the idea and decided that I would wait for the perfect day. Finally, the weather seemed good and we were all ready to go the next morning. When we woke up it was cloudy. How was our ‘luck’?

We waited an hour or so and it seemed to be clearing so we thought we would go for it and trust the forecast. When we arrived the skies were clearing and there were low clouds but not enough to ruin our day. We were finally on. Two months of analyzing the weather, changing plans, endless discussions and debates about the weather had made this hike somewhat of an untouchable.

The hike turned out great and even with the good weather we got stuck in the clouds for a third of the hike but we saw enough to enjoy the views, take some nice photos and get a great perspective of this region. As soon as I post a video I’m sure someone will comment about how lucky we were with the weather. Little do they know.

So, long story about luck and weather aside, these are my favorite photos from the hike, a link to the blog post and the vlog I made during the hike. Hope you enjoy!

Want to read the full blog post about the this hike? You can click here: ESPIGÃO AMARELO: EPIC COASTAL HIKE