Hiking and Backpacking

Hiking and backpacking provide something no other outdoor sports enthusiasts can have: access to some of the prettiest country on earth.

Take the time we followed the Mt. Van Hoevanberg trail, which traverses the backside of the Olympic Bobsled run at Lake Placid. It was time for a break, and we spotted some rocky promontories about 20 feet off the trail. Perfect for a short rest.

Hiking aficionados call this a “scenic climax.” Perhaps most such climaxes are panoramic, like the high peaks tiara. But not always. They can be single-featured. There is a frozen waterfall in Montana whose crystalline structure contains hundreds of grasshoppers somehow caught in the glacial face. It can only be reached after eight miles of difficult hiking.

Nor are they always huge and dramatic. Indeed, often they are miniscule, like the grotto in the Grand Canyon that’s merely a series of travertine bowls filled with the bluest water and greenest watercress you’ll ever see. You can walk down from the rim, to see it. Or climb up from the river. There’s no other access.

Sometimes an entire walk produces one scenic climax. Other times, you revel in one such scene after another. What’s certain, though, is that no other form of travel provides such rewards as hiking and backpacking. You have to earn them by walking to otherwise inaccessible spots.

Hiking and backpacking treks can be walks on the wild side, or walks on the mild side. They can be an easy stroll down a level quarter mile nature trail in the local park, or a strenuous multi-day trip on a trail that runs the width of the United States.

Why do we walk? What possible reasons can there be to subject ourselves to the wear and tear of such travel?

Scenic climaxes are one of the reasons, for sure. But the truth is, we can see scenes almost as good using mechanical modes of travel. In Kentucky’s Red River Gorge there are more than a hundred known natural bridges and arches. Walking takes you to the better ones, no question. But Sky Bridge, and Castle Arch and Owl’s Window are all pretty impressive; and you can see them without ever leaving your car.

Health and fitness is another good reason. Nothing compares to the exercise provided by regular walking. You can do it on an exercise machine, which is the second most boring thing in the world, or you can do it in the wild world, and enjoy nature’s wonders as you gain the weight-loss and muscle-building benefits of hiking or backpacking.

Don’t discount that last. I guarantee, though you start any multi-day trek city soft and couch potato flabby you’ll return pounds lighter and muscle tone tighter. It’s the very nature of the beast.

Still and all, there are other ways of accomplishing that.

What trekking is, at base, is the surest way to put you directly in touch with the wild world. When you’re hiking, you don’t pass through the forest, you become part of it. When everything you depend on for an hour, or a day, or a month, is carried on your back, you develop confidence and a sense of self-worth achievable no other way I know of.

Walking is therapeutic to the psyche. You don’t have to travel far, or explore new worlds, to slough off the cares of the day-to-day world. I live on 12 acres, for instance, which has been allowed to grow wild. Yet, while I know every inch of it intimately, I can, when the irritants of everyday life get to be too much, grab my boots, and a water bottle, and a hiking staff, whistle up the dog, and spend an hour or three aimlessly wandering the ground. When I return I’m rejuvenated, and ready to face the world once more.

Hiking and backpacking as major sports really date only from the late 1960s. That’s when a revolution in equipment took the pain out of walking. A World War II rucksack might have been okay for Boy Scouts and he-man types. But a scientifically designed pack, with an integral waistband and tension straps, suddenly made it possible for women and small men to carry a third of their own weight in relative comfort. Soon that became unnecessary as well because, as more people joined the ranks of backpacking, better equipment came along to meet their needs. For “better” you can read “lighter,” and “stronger,” and “less bulky,” and “more efficient.”

Perhaps no other sport has been impacted by space-age materials and sophisticated equipment design as has hiking and backpacking; to the point where a major, weeks-long trek along any of the nation’s long trails has become, literally, a walk in the park.

One of the grand old men of the backpacking revolution was Colin Fletcher, whose books did more to spread the gospel than any three others combined. In thousands of words he tried to answer the question, why walk,? never realizing that he’d done it all by quoting W.H. Davies. And I’ll do the same:

Now shall I walk?
Or shall I ride?
"Ride," Pleasure said:
"Walk," Joy replied.

We walk, when all is said and done, for the sheer joyousness of it.