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Why we hike, Version 413,463,271.3
The Hiking group at flickr.com weighed the question, which I haven’t revisited in a while so I figured what the heck, why not post a link.
I used to have all the standard reasons — solitude, exercise, communing with nature, etc. — though lately it’s mainly an excuse to blog and drum up ideas for the hiking-column gig at the paper. That gets me out on the trail, but something interesting always happens when I get there.
It’s almost like nature can detect when I need to find something previously undiscovered, and it provides. I go places I’ve been before like Grant Ranch or Mount Madonna and find they have amazing little nooks and crannies I missed on previous hikes, or attractions I find only mainly because I’m taking a trail for the first time.
At first, the trails taught me how all the stuff in the science books and Discovery Channel shows really worked. Seeing something so totally unlikely that it shouldn’t even exist — a banana slug, say, or a wacked-out mushroom — is like witnessing evolution in slow motion. Makes the theoretical seem real.
Lately the trail teaches me how much the woods are like life itself: there’s always something cool happening around the next bend. The trick is to be able to appreciate it.
Tags: Hiking
February 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I hike for all the reasons you listed and though I am not in great physical condition and somedays I feel like a train wreck, I still end up feeling better physically and emotionally for having gone out and struggled on the trail to make it up some steep hill or cover the distance. And maybe I’m nuts or wierd or something but I find it fun. And besides seeing wildlife and interesting things along the trail, I have also met some of the neatest people out there too!
February 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I have to agree with Cynthia, I have met some really neat people in my years of hiking.
February 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I regularly immerse myself in the shrouds of Mother Nature to keep me from going insane, mainly!
February 24th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I have a post in that thread already (Randy52).