Trig happens: making the outdoors mine again
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My name is Meg, a long-time Canberra local, rock climber, and general outdoors lover. At the beginning of this year, I decided to set myself the challenge of summiting all 66 publicly accessible trigonometric stations in the ACT before the end of 2026.
At the time, I’m not sure I fully appreciated what I was signing myself up for, but now, 10 months later, I am pretty proud of what I’ve achieved.
Whilst some of the Trig stations sit conveniently within Canberra’s suburbia, I have discovered that many involve long days in Namadgi or the Bimberi wilderness, questionable amounts of bush-bashing, navigation, river crossings, rock scrambling, and the sometimes occasional moment of standing in the middle of nowhere wondering whether I have made a terrible mistake doing this by myself.
There have been snakes, storms, navigation fails, injuries, and panicked phone calls to parents along the way, but I can truthfully say that I can look back on each hike now with a sense of accomplishment, and the knowledge that I have learnt something from each experience.
I started the Trig Happens project after experiencing domestic violence and the end of a relationship in January this year where hiking, climbing and camping were a huge part of my life. In the immediate aftermath of this, I struggled with the fact that so many of the things I loved doing had become tangled up with memories of that individual. I didn’t want to lose the outdoors as well, but I wasn’t really sure how to make it feel like mine again.
Strangely enough, my healing journey in this started with two giant maps of the ACT from Paddy Palin. These had been left behind after my abuser left, and one day I noticed all the little trig station symbols scattered across them, and wondered how many there were and, more importantly, how many I could actually get to.
Once I discovered that there were 66 on the official ACT government website, this immediately gamified my recovery journey. 66 was not only doable, but this was achievable to do in one year. So in January, I started.
For anyone unfamiliar with trig stations, these are survey markers, generally positioned on prominent high points (hills, mountains etc.). Some of Canberra’s are places most locals would recognise like Mt. Ainslie, Red Hill and Mount Taylor (and look not dissimilar to the frame of new Parliament House!).
As I started progressing through this challenge and the trigs became more remote, I’ve had to learn skills I haven’t been particularly confident in doing on my own before. Planning routes. Navigating off-track. Making decisions when the original plan wasn’t working. Trusting myself when there wasn’t another person there to tell me what to do.
That’s honestly been the aspect I have been most grateful for, in this challenge: learning that being scared of something and being incapable of doing it are two very different things.
I started sharing the challenge on Instagram as @trig.happens, initially as a way of documenting my progress and holding myself accountable. Sometimes I have really needed this, to help me get out of bed, and have that extra incentive to try something that actually scares me a little bit.
There are now more than 3,500 people following the project, watching each little marker I have on the interactive map I built on trighappens.com turn from white to green.
So far, Trig Happens has raised more than $1,500 for domestic and family violence support services, and these local Canberra businesses including Paddy Pallin, The Running Company, BlocHaus Canberra and Capital Brewing have thrown their support behind the project. I have been absolutely blown away by how these local Canberra business have shown their support for myself and this project, and helped shine a light on an issue that is so important.
Domestic violence can make your world very small, and Trig Happens was my way to try and break out of this. Looking back even to the first trig, this challenge has taken me into parts of the ACT I didn’t know existed, introduced me to an incredible community of people, and forced me to keep doing things that are slightly outside my comfort zone until they aren’t quite so uncomfortable anymore.
There are now just eight trigs left. The final stretch will involve some of the most remote parts of the ACT, including overnight and multi-day hikes, before I eventually finish on Bimberi Peak, the highest point in the ACT.
I don’t expect to complete that last trig as a completely different person from the one who stood on Trig Number 1 (Rob Roy) in January, but I do think I’ll arrive knowing her a lot better.
Photo credit: Dave Fanner.
