The people who introduced me to backpacking in 1980 were avid bushwhackers. They had spent their high school years going to the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, particularly the Dolly Sods. On a pleasant and mild October weekend in Alexandria, Virginia, they enlisted my buddy Jim and me to join them for a trip to the Sods, which they described as weird, remote, and worth visiting.
Lingering summer in the Tidewater gave way to early winter on the heights. The Sods lived up to their description. Artificially treeless over much of its area because of logging, fires, and topsoil loss, much of the plateau is grassland and peat bog. Stunted spruce are flagged by the prevailing wind into a distinctive shape. On that trip, gray skies released occasional showers of snow pellets. Our guides were well dressed and properly equipped. I was cold, poorly fed, and fascinated.
Our guides led us away from the dirt road on a compass heading. Jim and I had no idea where they thought they were headed. It didn't really matter. We wandered through the complete variety of terrain and vegetation, following the two leaders who argued about their compass headings and which way we should go next. I don't know if they ever really knew where we were, but we completed a meandering loop over several hours and returned to the road about a mile from the cars.
The idea that map and compass matter more than a dotted line on a map and a blaze on every other tree stuck with me. Map and compass make you independent. The trail often does follow the most sensible line through a given set of topographical features, but the ability to interpret a map and read a compass gives a hiker a more complete understanding of the area, and the ability to improvise. As time went on, most of my hiking took place on marked routes, but I would look to the sides for interesting possibilities.
Bushwhacking is a great way to disappear. This can be true in a very final sense, but also in answer to a temporary need, whether it's a simple need for a minute or two of privacy behind a tree, or a broader need to stay apart from your fellow humans. It's not available to people in more densely populated areas where open space is rationed. Dense population also increases the chances of running into someone whether you are on the trail or off. I have enjoyed hiking with a close friend, when such companionship was available. Other than that I'd rather go unnoticed.
Our guides on that 1980 trip liked the Sods because it was too far for most people to bother driving all the way to it from the population centers around DC. It got discovered during the 1980s, though. As the population inexorably climbed, the small percentage who would make the trip swelled to an appreciable number. And the ATV craze struck the locals out there, desecrating the nearby Roaring Plains. I moved to a place that was relatively undeveloped, but now I have to skirt the dwellings of various neighbors as I climb the slope behind my house. The peace of a natural environment has given way to massive logging and its attendant threat of development to follow, and to the intrusive habits of "normal" people who like to drive around in circles on ATVs, shredding the land and the quiet of a pleasant evening. There isn't social distance enough. It could be worse, I guess. There could be tar sands or natural gas deposits underground, attracting even noisier and more destructive human activity.
People with time on their hands and a need to stretch their legs are rediscovering what's left of natural environments wherever they live. Will it lead to a greater appreciation of them as we move on from this, or will it be dropped and forgotten like a plastic bag, once the trinkets within have been extracted?
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