Not long ago, I had an unremarkable and perfect week. There are weeks that stand in high relief—my son’s wedding week in May or the week I spent camping with my daughter in July—and then there are weeks that classify as normal or typical but come with the expression of exactly how I want to be living.
The week included the following:
• a solo hike where I discovered rock art and a potsherd just a couple miles from my house
• a walkabout to forage oak galls to make ink and cottonwood to make a friction fire kit
• drinks and finger food with my friend Jeff, who used Google Earth on his phone to show me places to ride my mountain bike I hadn’t yet imagined
• a hike with my friend Kelly, followed by tacos and a couple hours of us trying to figure out how we’re going to save the world
• a hike with my friend Brad, who took me to a spot where he heard a mountain lion kill a baby deer, and we forensically tried to deconstruct the scene
The week included plenty of work and home chores. It was, as I wrote at the start, unremarkable, except that it contained a wonderful mix of time in nature and time with friends and time in nature with friends.
Adventure, and thus Adventure Journal, takes place within the larger contexts of society, climate, public lands use, the economy, and more. Close observers of AJ might note that over the last year or two there’s been more of an emphasis on connecting with nature, on slowing down, on walking instead of running.
Performance adventure and the pursuit of the improbable will always be key elements of Adventure Journal because they are key elements of adventure. But as I talk to friends who’ve spent years flying across the landscape on their mountain bikes and with their fleet feet, as I read the tea leaves in our society and culture, and as I turn my gaze inward, it’s clear the world and what we need from it are shifting. My friend Emily, an editor at Mountaineers Books, asked me if my intro in AJ38, in which I argued that walking is the purest expression of human adventure, alienated our cycling or paddling readers. To the contrary, some of my hardest-core friends reached out to tell me how much it inspired them to slow down and have more walking adventures. People who’ve never commented on my intros told me how it resonated with them. The world is ready to return, as least in part, to the old ways.
One of the primary reasons I launched AJ was so we—the writers, artists, photographers, and readers—could explore and investigate why we pursue adventure. What, exactly, are we seeking? And will we know it when we find it? People have been urging fellow humans to reconnect with nature at least since Thoreau, but the starkness of our dislocation is more acute than it’s ever been. The consequences, too. We see the damage in climate change and the impact of data centers and the mountains of discarded fast fashion. We feel the spiritual deficit and the hunger for something more sustaining; we know there’s a worldwide mental health crisis.
The good news is that people are pushing back. People are taking action. They’re opposing the construction of data centers and winning. They’re fighting surveillance capitalism. France just banned influencers from promoting fast fashion. Australia blocked social media from anyone under 16. Anti-human forces are great, but the power of the people is greater, and we’re flexing it.
That still doesn’t answer the why, though. I’ve come to the conclusion that we humans ultimately are seeking two things: connection to nature and connection to community. This is not new, nor is it groundbreaking, but the inability of the material world to sustain us or fix us or make us happy is evidence we can’t escape or ignore our fundamental needs. Those needs are basic: We need to feel at home in the natural world and we need the company of community. When we have that—and I suspect only when we have that—we will rest easy.
There’s room for both in the world of adventure, for slow and fast, and for fast to come with human community. But slow isn’t sexy (witness Emily’s concerns about an ode to walking), and I think we need more examples of how focused exploration in nature can be just as gratifying as an extraordinary physical effort. Maybe my “perfect” week can be a reminder, or nudge, in that direction: Nature. Community. Nature and community.
Stephen Casimiro
Founder + Editor
Photo c’est moi by Brad Johnson
