Outdoor recreation often slips into what I call an achievement-based relationship with nature. I’ve been guilty of it myself. Whether it’s “bagging peaks”, racing to finish the AT, or stamping the land with machines and monuments, the focus shifts from ecology to ego.
Being obsessed with Peak Bagging is not Solarpunk.
Nature is not your personal obstacle to challenge yourself against, it is a shared place of discovery you trample when you only see it as a place to endlessly, exhaustingly conquer.
I think local culture also has a hand in it. I’m in the Pacific Northwest, and we’ve got a serious hiking culture up here that is both obsessive and gatekeep-y.
I have been on hikes with rockhounds, and that’s been great, but they don’t call themselves hikers.
I spent a month in Seattle and know what you are talking about. I’m in the Pacific Southwest, so we have a lot of hikers here as well. It’s not always easy to find that balanced group.