On the trail

Of all recreational activities, one of the coolest and most rewarding has to be also the simplest -- walking. Just putting one foot before the other. Watching the scenery go by.

Walking, in its purest form, requires no equipment other than a pair of shoes. You can walk through your residential neighborhood, observing your neighbors as they live their lives, enjoying the fresh air, admiring the trees and landscaping. At a slightly higher level, you can get out of town and hike the trails: lowland trails along rivers and lakes, or mountain trails through forests and alpine scenery. With a bit more planning, and a little more equipment, you can backpack -- bearing your world on your back and sleeping in the wilderness for a night -- or for a week or for ten nights.

Mountain trekking (and climbing) such as I did last fall in Nepal combines the simplicity of a day's walk on a trail with the advantages of a longer escape from civilization. Freedom from a backpack's encumbrance comes at some cost to your self-respect, however, as you shift a burden that is rightfully yours onto the backs of native porters.

Reliance on porters -- or pack animals, for that matter --is convenient, but requires complicated logistics. It also arouses feelings of guilt from asking poor people to do the dirty work of hiking while you enjoy its pleasures. Your sensation of guilt varies inversely with your degree of exhaustion. It's also somewhat irrational -- you are, after all, providing employment to men who are grateful for it, and whose jobs are considered desirable, even prestigious, within their own society. But the feeling, to some degree, remains. And beyond this "sahib-guilt," there's the added suspicion that you're not quite pulling your own weight, that you've taken one step away from the pure simplicity of the act of walking and one step closer to powering a trail bike up the path.

Next summer, I'm planning to do an eight-day trans-England walk, from sea to sea, following Hadrian's Wall from hamlet to hamlet across the "waist" of Great Britain. This hike, again, isn't quite the pure, self-sufficient walking experience that I've been trying to extol -- I'll be carrying only a day pack each day, while a concessionaire's truck carries my baggage from one hostelry to the next. I'll sleep in beds and eat at inns.

As rewarding as the trek in Nepal certainly was, and as I anticipate the hike along the Roman wall will be, something in my soul urges me to simplify further, to get away from supply trucks, porters, mule trains, and other forms of "assistance" that only complicate the walking experience. Therefore, I'm also hoping to spend some time this summer -- even if only a long weekend or two -- returning to the kind of hiking that I did in the years just after my days as an undergraduate. Backpacking. There's a peculiar satisfaction to be derived from camping in the mountains, out of sight and earshot of other campers, knowing that your own legs provide your only means of transportation, and the pack on your back provides your only source of food and shelter.

Whether alone or with a friend or two, for a few days I want to feel myself once more a part of nature, seeing the world about me as it was seen by pioneer explorers over a century ago.

So, I look forward to a little backpacking -- walking the mountain trails of the Sierras and the Cascades.