Hiking

As views of nature in America have changed during the twentieth century, so too has the recreational practice of hiking. Throughout the twentieth century hiking was linked to a love of the outdoors, and was a means by which to express a connection to the land. But as the meaning of the American landscape for Americans changed with time, so too did the popular meaning of hiking.

The idea of hiking for amusement would not gain widespread attention until the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09). With the ear of the nation, Roosevelt became the greatest proponent of outdoor appreciation. Where earlier politicians had urged Americans to exploit natural resources, farm, and conquer wilderness, Roosevelt often called for preservation of nature. Deeply influenced by the British Imperial fashion of making one's manhood by entering and besting nature, Roosevelt traveled to many wild places. In the Dakotas, Michigan, and other parts of America, Roosevelt "roughed it" camping and hunting. He helped to popularize a masculinity based not on comfort and cultivation, but upon strength and the ability to tolerate hardship. By entering nature, one could prove one's "rugged individualism."

Roosevelt's regard for nature and individualism coincided with and helped forge America's emerging sense of itself as a new kind of nation. United States democratic ideals clashed with popular concepts of the limp-wristed privilege and elitism of European aristocracy. Fearing European "flabbiness" and "slothful ease," Roosevelt and others promoted contact with nature so as to cultivate in Americans a "vigorous manliness" and a "life of strenuous endeavor."

America also came to view itself as a growing industrial giant, reaping seemingly limitless resources from a great expanse. To hike was to enter nature to appreciate the stuff of which America was made. America was coming to see itself as a nation favored by God, and its land was part of God's gift to the nation. Roosevelt, and "naturalists" such as John Muir and Aldo Leopold, were also concerned to preserve the stunning beauty of America. Europe had annihilated much of its wilderness, and Americans had already plundered millions of acres. The still popular writings of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, the paintings of Thomas Moran, and later the photography of Ansel Adams, revealed new ways of seeing the natural world. A powerful American "wilderness cult" became the vanguard of a movement to protect millions of acres of wilderness. This movement somewhat slowed resource extraction and greatly accelerated forest recreation. Out of all of these ideas "hiking" came into being.

Ironically, it was the popularity of the automobile which gave hiking its greatest boost. As the twentieth century aged, the proliferation of cars brought millions of Americans to their forests and parks. In the 1950s, widespread car ownership, new parks, and new ideas about recreation in nature resulted in an explosion in visits to wilderness preserves. At this time, "hiking" was typically a short jaunt from the car, followed by a picnic. Though adventurous, hiking was closely affiliated with the prevailing notion that leisure was to be relaxing and peaceful.

People often see wilderness as the antithesis of civilization. As such, hiking in the wilderness offers salvation from a variety of social ills. For example, urbanites throughout the twentieth century sometimes went hiking to have contact with a natural world which they seldom saw. Overdeveloped suburbs and "concrete jungles" of urban blight left some people alienated from the natural world. Hiking could "renew the spirit." In the 1970s, the fitness movement and the environmental movement changed the practice of hiking. Better and lighter equipment—the external frame backpack, the down sweater, and the lighter hiking boots—helped to increase enjoyment of overnight adventures.

In the 1970s and 1980s, hiking grew exponentially. As the nation sought to move beyond the pain of the Vietnam War and as environmentalism grew in popularity, communing with nature was a way of living simply and finding harmony with the Earth. By being in the woods, many hikers were enacting their environmental beliefs and "getting back to nature." Groups such as the Sierra Club not only lobbied government to preserve wilderness, but recruited hikers as part of their preservation strategy. Hikers were easily converted to conservation, and hikers helped to change the way wilderness was used. In the later quarter of the twentieth century, hiking was extended to all parts of the continent, as places once looked upon as "waste-lands" were seen and experienced as sites of stark, arid beauty. In a sense, these areas were symbolically reclaimed for nature through the act of hiking. Land once considered "useless" for anything but resource extraction could be transformed by hiking—hiking literally made use of the land.

—Dylan Clark

Further Reading:

Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. Deep Ecology. Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith Books, 1985.

Gruen, Lori and, Dale Jamieson, editors. Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy. New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1982.

Thoreau, Henry David. The Portable Thoreau, edited by Carl Bode. New York, Viking, 1964.