Competitive backpacking

My head is still spinning. I'm not sure how to think about this. When did backpacking ever become competitive? This article has a title that seems to assume that it is normal for backpacking to be competitive and that doing it for other reasons would be a revolutionary idea. The article is behind the usual BPL paywall with not even a teaser first page from the article, so I am left to simply wonder what all this can mean. The proper link turned up later, and the article actually has viewpoints similar to my own.

• Backpacking is the great equalizer

So when did the world get turned inside out? I have been backpacking for what seems like my entire life and I have never thought of it as a competitive activity. In fact I go backpacking to get along, to get away from the crazy world we live in. Approaching backpacking as a competitive activity would be taking all the things we have in an urban environment and dragging them into the backcountry.

I am of course speaking for myself. No doubt there are people who enjoy things like attempting to do the John Muir Trail in record time, and more power to them. Maybe I am out of touch, but I hardly think this has become the norm. And I don't think it has. I think there is a certain subculture of backpackers who have made it competitive and live in what might be called an "echo chamber" and have begun to think this is the new norm.

I hope not. There has certainly been a trend in recent years to hike certain central trails. I think of the Sierra where the JMT and a few other trails get the bulk of the traffic. It is not just me making this observation. I have spoken with certain backcountry rangers who have made exactly the same statment. I shouldn't complain, because when I plan hikes that aren't simply section hikes along part of the JMT, I can enjoy amazing solitude.

I suppose it is a common aspect of human nature, but people doing some form of thru-hike seem to think they are a "better sort" of human being than those who aren't doing such a thing. I suppose this is the nature of competition. If you "win" you have proven yourself to be better than other humans, isn't that what winning is all about.

Am I a better person than others because I have hiked the JMT? Am I a better person because I have run a marathon, hiked the AT or PCT? Am I a better person because I have been to the summit of some peak? I hardly think so. In fact I tend to think that viewing yourself as a better person than others is defective thinking of a certain sort.

Perhaps we can blame reality TV (which I despise) as the root cause of all this. I have found it interesting to do searches like "backpacking non-competitive" and read the articles that pop up. It exposes attitudes and mindsets that I never knew existed. Some people are goal oriented, and some of them end up out in the wilderness for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the wilderness itself.

Another way to look at this is to ask, "what is wrong with losing?" If you have 100 people starting in a race, only one is going to win. Should the other 99 feel worthless because they aren't the winner? Really the only bad thing about competition is the stigma (if any) about not being the winner. The whole business of competition exposes some of the ugliest aspects of human nature. Backpacking for me is getting away from all of that.