In Colorado, where I live, peak bagging (where one ticks off a list of mountains by summiting their peaks) is a popular activity. One of the most common lists includes the state’s fifty-four 14ers, mountains with summits over 14,000 feet in elevation.
Applying this competitive, extreme-sport mentality to the outdoors is, I think, a very American tendency (regardless of the fact that peak bagging was first popularized in Scotland over one hundred years ago). But several of the articles in this summer issue, along with a couple of books I happen to be reading, have me wondering: why is it so hard for so many of us to justify time spent outside unless we have concrete proof of an accomplishment?
Topher Downham’s column on page 24 is all about the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” The concept is similar to Sweden and Norway’s friluftsliv, described, in Linda Åkeson McGurk’s book There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather thusly:
The term... describes a culture and a way of life that heavily revolves around exploring and enjoying nature... In Sweden, friluftsliv is generally defined as “physical activity outdoors to get a change of scenery and experience nature, with no pressure to achieve or compete.”
Experiencing nature without bagging a summit, a bull elk, or a record mileage? What would you have to show for the time you spent outside? There is so much to do, why waste time doing nothing?
Stephen Trimble, in his essay A Land of One’s Own, wonders why there are far fewer female nature writers than male. One of his female writing students gives him her explanation: she feels she “lack[s] the freedom to ‘play hooky in nature’; it is an act of leisure men indulge in while women stay at home, keeping domestic life in order. Men often can justify poking around in the woods as a part of their profession, or as part of an acceptably manly activity like hunting or fishing. Women, for generations circumscribed by conventional values, must purposefully create opportunities for solitude, for exploration of nature or ideas, for writing.”
Trimble’s essay focus on women, but his thesis applies to all of us—it could be argued that the American way of life is one long peak-bagging list, with such a collection of titles to earn, ladders to climb, awards to win, products to buy, selfies to take, and statuses to update, that we just can’t seem to justify spending time, outside or inside, “doing nothing.”
Children, it seems, are born with an innate understanding of the pleasures of being outside, and I’m making it a point to nurture and encourage my daughters’ love of friluftsliv as the years go by. It’s not always easy, especially when our hikes are interrupted every hundred yards by a lengthy examination of an unusual bug or a colorful rock, but each stop reminds me that my to-do lists don’t belong out on the trail with us.