The Mountains Are Calling

In 1873, in a letter to his sister Sarah Muir Galloway, the great Naturalist John Muir, while on a visit to Yosemite Valley in California, wrote, “The mountains are calling and I must go and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.” Born in 1838, he remains one of California's most important historical figures and has an entire forest named after him. He is still generally known today as one of the fathers of our National Parks. He once described himself as a "poet, tramp, geologist, botanist, ornithologist, naturalist, etc. etc."

Famed documentary film maker Ken Burns said of Muir, "He ascended to the pantheon of the highest individuals in our country: I am talking about the level of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jackie Robinson - people who have had a transformational effect on who we are."

Maybe the best way to gauge the continued gravity of both him and his inspirational quote is by its prevalence on T-shirts, wall hangings and photographs with the quote emblazoned across them. I find many such items here in my town.

Taken in its original context and knowing a little more about him, it is easy to see an ambitious, disciplined and wildly goal-oriented young man; committed not only to the outdoors (as we commonly see him) but also to his work. Yes, romantically, the mountains were calling to him as they do us, but the full quote truly speaks to his work in those high places. Turns out, Muir was not just talking about hiking for the sake of pure casual enjoyment, nor about those lazy summer camping holidays that so easily come to mind when one reads that quote, as it often does here in Colorado. What Muir was really talking about was the work he felt compelled to do in these incomparably beautiful places - he was determined to make a significant “scientific contribution” as a naturalist. John Muir was working in Yosemite and working very hard, no doubt. So, while the popular connotation attributed to his quote may not be completely accurate, there is still deep inspiration to find in it to this day.

It seems that his love for nature was only rivaled by his commitment to understanding and preserving it.

I too, have found a similar commitment to that goal. We are all connected to nature in very unique ways. We are a part of it and it is a part of us. Our connection to the earth runs deep within our consciousness. Yet is seems we tend to take nature for granted. The songs of birds, the changing colors of leaves in the fall, the quietness of a winter snowfall, the lapping of water against the shore or tumbling over a waterfall, the peacefulness of a clear, blue mountain lake reflecting the sky above. In Colorado, we mourn the loss of a mountainside as people buy it up and build a house or, worse, another box store.

I enjoy hiking in the great outdoors just steps from my front door. It is easy enough to do, as I live in a small town nestled at the base of the mountains which rise as high as 12,000 feet, always in view of "America's Mountain," Pikes Peak.

One of my new favorite hiking places is in the nearby Cheyenne Cañon Park, a city-owned paradise filled with waterfalls, bridges and trails galore with spectacular views of the ever-expanding metropolis of Colorado Springs and the plains beyond, with views all the way to Kansas. The trails rise as much as 2,000 feet from the trail head, which is already located at 9,500 feet. One day, I was out hiking with a friend of mine, and she made some very valid points about connecting with nature and being grounded to the earth. Gravity aside, we are all grounded to the earth in so many ways. She will often stop along the trail and hug a tree for good luck.

In 1908, John Burroughs, in his book Studies in Nature and Literature, wrote, "I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." That is similar to the reasons I go to nature. I feel that need to reconnect, if you will, to something that is deeper than myself and older than the world itself. And, one thing I have noticed: hiking, the simple act of walking through nature, has seen something of a renaissance in recent years. More people than ever are visiting public lands. Mountaintop selfies are becoming the new “fish pic” on dating sites. And medical professionals are prescribing outdoor recreation as a form of medicine for physiological illnesses such as depression, anxiety and compromised immunity. In the future, your health insurance policy might actually cover the cost of a trip to the great outdoors.

It is no coincidence that this hiking comeback is happening at a moment when social media platforms like Instagram are changing the way we travel. It is also worth noting that the generation behind the social media boom includes many people, like me, who grew up reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.

If you spend any time in the woods, you will witness this hiking renaissance. It will manifest in the form of busier trails, fuller parking lots and - ideally - friendly conversations with fellow hikers. That is one of the most underrated benefits of going hiking: the palpable community in the back country. It might be tempting to imagine the great outdoors as a place where rugged individualism thrives. But in fact, the wild spaces where many of us go hiking are the epitome of human cooperation.

Consider the trails themselves. Those boulder staircases and groomed pathways are maintained by legions of volunteers who march into the woods each year packing backhoes, pick mattocks and other heavy tools used to repair trails - especially the ones that are routinely jammed with summer hikers.

Hiking is an exercise in reckoning with your vulnerability.

But the most subtle community of hiking exists in the interactions between hikers themselves. It is the generosity of stopping and letting a group of hikers pass you - when you are cruising downhill and they are schlepping their way up the mountain. It is the conviviality of acknowledging another hiker when you pass each other, whether you feel like offering an affable “hello,” or the “nod of approval” that Robert Redford perfected in "Jeremiah Johnson." These little gestures might seem insignificant at a glance, but they are crucial to creating an outdoor atmosphere in which hikers of all walks and persuasions not only feel welcome and supported, but happy, too.

In American life, we tend to think of community as a lifeline for whenever bad things happen. And, to be sure, community is a backbone that most of us would want in the event of some cataclysmic event like a house fire, the death of a loved one, or Coronavirus. But there is a joy in being part of a community too. That joy is often overlooked - especially in cities where the ever-rising cost of living makes it so tough to build and sustain community - and this may be the most salient reason why people go hiking in the first place.

There is a hidden world out there in the backcountry, and it is full of people looking for that sense of belonging that can be so evasive in modern life itself. It is still out there. And you can find it just a few paces beyond any trailhead sign.