Why do I hike? It’s a question all hikers should ask themselves along their backpack clad adventures. Are you doing it for fitness, for fellowship, for enlightenment, heck maybe just for instagram likes? For me, I venture outdoors to feel more human. Hence my motto: “hike more often and be more human.”
Yes, I know my surname is Human too and I’ve always guessed it was nudge by fate in this journey to be fully human. The thing is, most of us lack an understanding what it means to be wholly present to ourselves as a being: to be fully human. Even with thousands of contemplative miles under my hipbelt, I still find myself stumbling over the essential facts of living. If you can find those answers anywhere though, it’s most likely while hiking through an early morning meadow with the dew dripping off the wild grasses
Though the modern world has blessed us with longer lifespans, I have to wonder if those lives are any better. The stale indoor air, the monotonous assurance of everyday life and a disconnect in a connected world leads us farther away from our humanity. Like Muir said, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.” My soul needs to come home to the woods, mountains and ponds of under-civilized nature. As a casual observer of society, I think we all should go home to nature far more often than we do.
When your feet leave pavement, you are suddenly and totally responsible for yourself. If you don’t tend to your basic needs, you may not come back to the trailhead at all. Well, maybe a SAR team will help you out; stretcher rides are never fun though. It is this return to our basics, that I think attracts hikers. Yes, I know we are usually on mapped and slightly maintained trails and we have an assortment of high-tech gear to help us out, but it is about as close as most of us can get. There is something about finding your way with the wobbling needle of a compass and searching for that next water source that makes me feel at peace with the Self. Calling upon primal skills to deal with the essential, as our ancestors did for millennia before us, somehow fills the hole in our existence we have civilized away.
Besides hiking as a path to self actualization, it also becomes a trail to dealing with the rest of humanity. In the woods I’ve leaned against a log and chatted with strangers about trail conditions, great trips and plans for the future. In the midst of those authentic conversations, it’s hard to believe that we live in a seemingly divided binary world governed by interactions of memes and emojis. I also think upon the seventh Leave No Trace principle, Be Considerate of Other Visitors and the mindfulness that this requires. When you are mindful of how your actions affect the experience of others, you have reached a level of empathic forethought that binds us together in humanity. As an outdoor that heads out on the trails with my two kids, I’m encouraging them to be little hiking humans. In a time where our place can be hard to find, I hope that discovering nature and their relationship to it will provide them with some solace as they grow. Also, as none of us want to live in a world where self-centeredness takes prominence, I hope my children learn to live with mindfulness and leave only traces of goodness.
