Outdoor recreation often slips into what I call an achievement-based relationship with nature. I’ve been guilty of it myself. Whether it’s “bagging peaks”, racing to finish the AT, or stamping the land with machines and monuments, the focus shifts from ecology to ego.
Being obsessed with Peak Bagging is not Solarpunk.
Nature is not your personal obstacle to challenge yourself against, it is a shared place of discovery you trample when you only see it as a place to endlessly, exhaustingly conquer.
That happens to every hobby in the U.S. Passionate people share the things they love and eventually a whole subgroup turns it into a competition and eventually a business. It’s terrible.
Yeahhhh. I have always hated hiking with a group, because I want to stop and look at the neat flora and fauna, then everybody gets pissy at me for holding up the group.
Fuck me for wanting to know more about the shit that lives here, I guess.
As soon as you get into that hiking rhythm and are thoroughly into a cardio workout, you aren’t noticing shit around you. Most of the time when you are hiking you are less present in the natural world than you would be if you were sitting inside calmly looking out the window watching a stretch of woods.
Hiking is fun, it is good for people, I am not bashing getting out and walking in nature but honestly for me walks in the woods are so much more fulfilling than most hikes these days for me. I can walk at a slower pace and focus on remaining present and aware of the forest around me. Often times I will just sit and do nothing for 20 minutes and just enjoy the feeling of the forest happening around me. Hiking to the top of a beautiful mountain after I got up super early to drive for a couple of hours and then rushed to the top pushing myself to the peak of my physical capability just doesn’t do it for me.
I don’t know, I think it is because of how many digital places I have explored and how many photographs and videos I have seen of stunning places on earth… going there myself is of course different but I find myself dogged by the question “Why?”. Why do I need to climb to the top of Everest to see it MYSELF?". It is kind of an ego thing but it is also about the fact that even if I did climb to the top of Everest I do think I would still, in the majesty of that moment atop the tallest mountain in the world wonder “…but why did I need to come here myself when so many others already have? With video cameras, cameras, notebooks… leaving trash and human impact everywhere on one of the most unique spots on earth with all the gear one could imagine. Am I exploring or trampling?”.
In many hikers I have known there is a severe hierarchy of landscapes that are worth spending time in and that are not worth spending time in. Hikers will drive hours and hours past vast landscapes they completely ignore to reach one particular place. In a way that is cool and expresses passion but in another way it is a statement about how blind these people are to the landscapes between them and the “ideal nature” that they desire in a superficial way. It represents a deeply unhealthy subconscious perspective on natural spaces as exotic and beyond our everyday. No, do the opposite, go for a boring walk in your community, go for a local walk up that hill that is kind of lame and take it slow, train yourself to see the beauty of the nature beckoning you into the moment already around you… Our desire to NEED the most beautiful mountain or natural vista is destructive towards nature itself even if it feels like we are in love with nature when we feel it.
Within me is not a hierarchy of landscapes, sure I love an incredible vista but a normal mediocre walk in the woods surrounded by normal woodland life in an unremarkable nature preserve near where I live is what I will think about on my death bed for sure… I don’t think I will regret I didn’t climb that last mountain on my list because that shit doesn’t matter.
It really depends on the hiking group and I think it’s important for people to be up front about their goal. I’ve had some groups that just want to go constantly and I think that’s ok, just not my favorite.
My favorite groups are the ones who want to listen to me geek out on this really cool looking spider or talk about how that native plant over there can be used to stop the itch of mosquito bites. Or my buddies who I used to go bouldering with. That group loved talking about rock formations and how a giant rock got into its specific place.
I’ve had way more experiences with the latter group.
I think local culture also has a hand in it. I’m in the Pacific Northwest, and we’ve got a serious hiking culture up here that is both obsessive and gatekeep-y.
I have been on hikes with rockhounds, and that’s been great, but they don’t call themselves hikers.
ive seen Chinese tourists deface trees so it’s not just America
Chinese tourists are in a league of their own.
