Ingress, for those who don’t know, is kind of like hipster Pokemon Go. (“I was into AR gaming before it was cool.”) It’s a game of capturing territory for your faction, where you actually have to go visit places (“portals”) in person to accomplish things. It’s a team game, with 2 factions worldwide, and through the game I’ve met hundreds of people all over the world as we work together to achieve in-game goals.
For various reasons, there is a strategic advantage to capturing portals that are difficult to reach, which often means at the end of a long or difficult hike. 

The first time I took a hike for Ingress was the first time I had hiked anywhere in years. My friend, who goes by cbyter in the game, asked if I wanted to accompany him on a “little hike” to capture a portal just before dusk one afternoon.  It wasn’t a particularly long or difficult hike by most standards, but it was far more than I would have done otherwise. It was about a half a mile with an elevation gain of about 250 feet on the return, down to a sign on a trail that lines the Potomac River. It was a lovely stroll down to the portal, but I struggled a bit on the return up hill. Owning that portal allowed our faction to control territory for the next week, until the opposition could go reclaim the portal the next weekend.

That hike was addictive. About 2 weeks later I was asking someone else to accompany me on to that portal. I recruited a friend to play the game just so she could hike with me. And over the next several months as I grew more and more comfortable with the hike, I started going on my own.

It was easy to motivate myself to hike out to a portal if I knew it would help my team beat the opposition on the weekly leaderboard or to help us score points in special events.

It became one of my favorite places to go, even when I didn’t “need” to go for Ingress. I started seeking out more portals that I could use an excuse to take a little stroll in the woods. I discovered parks I had no idea existed a short drive from my home. So Ingress is how I started doing the things.