… or someone who hikes?
I wondered about this the other day after noticing Cutter’s blog had links to a couple sites dedicated to climbers and mountain bikers. The sites, called yourclimbing.com and yourmtb.com, are a business venture led by Steve Outing, a former newspaper guy who refashioned himself as a new-media guru back in the early ’90s. For the heck of it, I sent Steve an e-mail asking when he’s going to launch “yourhiking.com.”
I’m a bit dubious about hiking, but maybe you can convince me I
shouldn’t be. With MTB and climbing, people who are passionate about
the sport really identify themselves with being part of a tribe, so
they seem willing to join a community of people who share a common
obsession. If you’re a climber, runner or an MTBer, you probably
subscribe to the magazines and use the websites and forums. You
identify yourself as MTBer/climber/runner.
But what about hiking? Is that true? I think of hiking as something
most of us do when we go on vacations — an activity as opposed to a
passion. With your blog do you think that there are enough people as
passionate about it as you are to make a strong community?
A fair question. The profusion of backpacking forums suggest lots of hikers are getting together online. And lots of local hiking clubs are using the Web to plan outings. But is there a community of true believers?
I wonder. Hiking doesn’t generate fanaticism, compared to climbing, mountain biking and board sports like surfing, all of which require major commitments of time, money, energy and education. Heck, most of us combine our hikes with other stuff — photography, birdwatching, blogging — and the walk is almost a second thought.
Hiking doesn’t seem sexy compared to those extreme sports with their extreme hype. Not complicated enough, not difficult enough, not expensive enough. Meanwhile, Americans by the millions get fatter and fatter, wearing out ever more couch cushions. They don’t have to learn to climb mountains to turn things around — all they really need to do is go on some hikes.
Hiking did turn my life around, which is why I’m one of the true believers. We may not have a tribe but we have our trails, and our tales. That’ll do for now.
I think hiking can definitely be an obsession. You have to be pretty fanatic to attempt a long-trail through-hike.
But I think the difference is that there’s a lot more money to be made off people who are obsessive about climbing, cycling, and other more gear-intensive sports. Where there’s more money, there will be more hype.
Who was it that said, “Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and he’ll buy bait and tackle from you for the rest of his life”? IMHO, the same principle applies to bikes and climbing gear.
Steve is absolutely wrong about there not being a hiking community, it’s just not online. And unlike climbing and biking which can only be done in small groups by people with particular skills, hiking is truly a group activity. In my opinion, it is really the biggest outdoor community around. Here’s why they’re not online; it’s not gear intensive, it has an active offline community, and it’s really not that difficult to find information about hiking. There are literally hundreds of hiking clubs around the country. From the AMC to th AHS to the ATC to the Oridna Hiking Club to the Sierra Club, every little city in the country has a hiking club providing real community, not virtual community. Hikers also tend to be an older demographic I’ve found. Something you do once your bones and muscles can’t make it up those 12b routes anymore.
While not directly relevant to the US market, you may be interested in what I was *just* reading about this morning before visiting my RSS feeds and seeing your post – some statistics on the hiking scene in Japan.
Hiking here is big business with 10 million people “partaking in hiking” last year – this is more than golf (9.7 mil); Ski and Snowboard (7.6 mil); and, suprisingly, baseball (6 mil). Sadly, however, the number of visitors to Tokyo Disneyland last year blows these away with 25 million.
Another reason hiking is big “business” here is that the majority of people who regularly partake (and very strongly identify themselves as hikers) are middle-age or older (a lot more money than young snowboarders – although there are 8,640 members of high-school hiking teams throughout Japan).