Squamish hiker continues to climb upward for mental health

Mike Roberts set out to hike the Stawamus Chief every day for a year for mental health awareness and now he’s increased the goal to 1,111 days.

He’s already crossed the 600 consecutive day mark and said he was nearing 650. He used to try to track his altitude gain by the number of Mt. Everests he’d completed, but now he’s switched to a loftier goal.

“Just after Christmas, I'm going to reach the height in metres climbed of the International Space Station,” he said with a laugh. “I always wanted to be an astronaut, I just never had the grades. So this is the most blue-collar thing you could do is to take the stairs up to space.”

Roberts started this journey in Squamish to raise awareness about mental health, in part, because of his own struggles with mental health. Recently, he partnered with Coast Mental Health Foundation which uses donations to help people living with mental illness.

“We all want life to be pretty straightforward and simple, but mental health issues present challenges that you're not going to be prepared for no matter how hard you try,” said Roberts. “You just have to be able to adapt, so why I started this hike is to get comfortable with the most dramatic version of adapting.”

Roberts said that those living with mental health issues may feel that some days are just impossible. But he reiterated that there are ways to become malleable.

“That's the message that I've learned and I'm trying to spread to people is you can retrain your brain to achieve the impossible,” he said.

When asked if there was any significance with the number 1,111, he said it was about surrounding yourself with good people.

“I didn’t want to be a one surrounded by a bunch of zeros,” he said. “I wanted to be a one surrounded by the number one.”

Although Roberts is now very familiar with the hiking trail, the things he learns along the way can still be difficult.

“There's no day that the lessons I get to learn come easy,” he said. “But I feel a real connection to this place.”

But, the joy, he said, comes from sharing positive messages for others.

“There is something great within us all,” he said. “I'm genuinely doing this for the person that needs to hear that. And that was me at some point.”

To follow his journey, visit his Instagram @MikeFroMontreal. To donate to his section of the Coast Mental Health Foundation, visit CoastMentalHealth.com/climb-for-mental-health.