By Christy Brock Miele 

Summer is all about getting outside and enjoying nature.  I love to hike, especially in beautiful places and of course, I love yoga.  While in the past I've kept these two endeavors separate, I am now a convert of my own experiment to include some yoga poses into my hiking.

Some pictures along with my commentary follow this list of benefits you might receive from blending yoga with your next hike:

Benefits of incorporating yoga poses on your hike:

• Makes doing yoga poses more playful
• Gives you a fresh perspective on your surroundings (Where is a good spot for the next pose?)
• Encourages use of intuition  (Be spontaneous and go with your gut in determining what pose to do.)
• Adds another dimension of challenge with each pose (Balancing on uneven or unsteady surfaces is tricky.)
• Adds other sensory dimension  (The spray from a waterfall, the songs of birds or the wind blowing all enhance sensory intakes. )
• Invites a creative attitude in hiking
• Breaks up the repetition of constant forward motion with a pause and a change in the balance point in your body.

I wanted to get into the best possible form I could for this pose, given the somewhat wobbly and narrow nature of the log underneath.  It's interesting to balance through a hiking boot on a less than steady surface, to say the least.  I enjoyed the challenge.

This is me with a smile from the trail......

This is where the next headstand pose (Sirsasana 2)  is done.  My husband/photographer is standing about 8 feet to the right of where my head will be in headstand.  So you can see it's not the safest place for a headstand and a little tricky to get to.

Now the vantage point has changed to the boulder pictured above.  Headstand (Sirsana 2) is done close to a precipice with strong wind. Purposefully, my hands are weighted and I'm a little less than vertical to avoid toppling over the backside.   The face of the mountain I am next to is breathtakingly huge.  This boulder required some brave maneuvering to get to and it proved worth it.  What a majestic place to take in the surroundings, and upside down to boot!

This spot was particularly uneven and slippery in spots.  I had to place my hands carefully and do the best I could.  The spray from the waterfall was going everywhere which made it refreshing. The volume of water traveling by was staggering and it carried its equivalent volume in sound. Boy, was it loud!

This was a fun one because for a moment I didn't know what pose I wanted to do here.  And then it came to me.  Having the boulder to my back provided shelter from the water and massive psychological support that I wasn't going to fall in.  I was happy that I chose this pose and could have stayed a long time.

Half lotus (Ardha Padmasana) is sort of awkward in hiking boots, yet the pose provides some grounding that made sitting there even more comfortable .  The spray from the waterfall enhanced the "aura" of the pose, it seems.  And, the energy from the waterfall and the mountain freshness (elevation was about 10,000 feet here) made for a meditative moment indeed.

The hike continues with the pleasantness from the yoga remaining.