“The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders is a cheerful heart,” wrote John Burroughs. On the other hand, the American naturalist said “the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart.” So how do we bring cheerfulness into our walks? […]
Could walking with one’s adversaries lead to a more peaceful world? Evidently Ronald Reagan thought so. In his 1985 first summit with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, and after several hours of somewhat stiff, unproductive talking, our 40th president realized the meeting was going nowhere and suggested to his counterpart that the two of them take […]
“The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking,” said Mark Twain. “It is no matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same; the bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the flapping of the […]
“I like tramping alone, but a companion is well worth finding. He will add to the experience; perhaps double it.” The words came from Stephen Graham whom Morris Marples (Shank’s Pony: a study of walking) called “the greatest prophet of 20th century walking.” Still Graham had his critics. Famous walkers like Hazlitt, Rousseau and Thoreau […]
If you’ve never experienced the beauty of a rain forest, start with the Hall of Mosses Trail in Olympic National Park. For both beauty and adventure in Wyoming, you can’t do better than the journey to Inspiration Point via the Jenny Lake Boat Shuttle. And for my dollar, the Sylvan Lake Trail in the Black […]
“Walking is life in miniature,” wrote Suzy Cripps (The Joy of Walking 2020). “To pay attention to walking is to pay attention to life itself.” We English teachers would say walking is a metaphor for life. Understand one, and you’ll better understand the other. And maybe that understanding can translate into practice. If you get […]
“From now until the end of time no one else will ever see life with my eyes,” wrote the American journalist/essayist Christopher Morley. You do not have to be a Meriwether Lewis or William Clark to discover something new. Their eyes were not the first to see the American West. When we see things on […]
In Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit says that walking “allows you to find what you don’t know you are looking for, and you don’t know a place until it surprises you.” I would have said “you don’t know what you are looking for until it surprises you.” Like the twin fawns, still in […]
“To learn something new, take the path today that you took yesterday” wrote naturalist John Burroughs. In The Magic of Walking (Simon and Schuster 1980) Aaron Sussman and Ruth Goode agreed: “Even the same walk, the one we may take every day, is never the same from one day to another.” Of course they aren’t: […]