Why hiking is like going to a spa
Beat me with the sauna whisk, trees!
I’m back from the woods, from a trip that felt simultaneously quite long—at the end of each day it seemed the events of the morning had happened ages and ages ago—but also all too short. I’m working on my trail journal recap, but I’m not ready to send the first part out quite yet. I’m suddenly overcome with the fear that it’s boring. And yet I love writing them!
The thought that obsessed me last week was how much hiking is like going to a spa. Bear with me! You’ve got your steam room (heat and humidity), cold plunge (streams, rivers, and lakes), light therapy (the sun), acupressure (the rocks littering the trail), acupuncture (bug stings and bites), and even built-in sauna whisks or bath brooms (the shrubs that encroach upon the trail). It’s immensely therapeutic—for body, mind, and spirit.
Reading list
The Mountain Valley Pipeline, a controversial natural gas pipeline that crosses the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, is not yet operational, but has already sprung a leak, possibly because the materials to build the pipeline sat exposed to the elements for years as the construction and permitting process dragged on, and have now become degraded. Specifically, “a segment of pipe in Bent Mountain, Virginia burst and began spilling sediment-laden test water into surrounding wetlands.” The pipeline owners are apparently trying to spin this as a good thing—that testing is going according to plan. [Donald Shaw for Sludge]
I have not stayed as up-to-date on the Mountain Valley Pipeline debacle as I probably should, because I just get so mad and upset whenever I start reading about it, but here’s a good refresher on why hikers should care, from 2022, including the super secretive $19.5 million deal between the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the pipeline company. [Callia for The Trek]
E sent me this book review and I immediately put a hold in at the library. Misadventure? Grand Canyon? Sign me up. [Blair Braverman for the New York Times]
The other thing I’m looking forward to reading this summer is Today on Trail, the newsletter that Rusty Foster (of the hit newsletter Today in Tabs) plans on writing while hiking the Appalachian Trail with his son). I am on the edge of my seat to see how he does it, because I know I am dead tired at the end of every day on trail and can barely manage to scribble out some handwritten notes in my journal before conking out with exhaustion, let alone edit and get them ready for public consumption.1 That’s why all my trail journals trickle in after the fact! But he’s promising to write for an hour each day and to post at least twice a week. Look, that sounds so easy but in my opinion will be so hard. Their SOBO (Southbound) hike starts July 2. I cannot wait.
I think I could do this, if I had to or if it were my job, like it’s going to be his job, but because my hikes are also my vacation time, I choose to spend my time fully immersed in the trail experience, to scribble notes for my own eyes only, and then to reflect on it later, when I’m back in the “real world.”