Fun is complicated
“THE DAY I take up jogging is the day I see someone smiling when they do it.” I can’t remember who said that, but this insight often pops into my mind, usually as I’m doing something ridiculous like stepping outside, dressed in minimal clothing, with the aim of running around for several miles in the swirling, frigid darkness of a winter storm. Why am I doing this, I wonder, when instead I could be slumping on the sofa making the most of my Netflix subscription in the centrally heated house that I work hard and pay good money to live in? Why choose suffering over comfort?
Running, whilst it has its moments, isn’t something that I unambiguously ‘enjoy’ in the same way I enjoy, say, eating a large amount of tiramisu. Something similar is true for hiking, hillwalking and backpacking. As you might expect, I get much more life-affirming joy from these than my daily obligatory run; but, even so, my relationship with them isn’t exactly a delectable Italian dessert either.
Backpacking and long-distance walking, in particular, is something I’ve never found to be simply a straightforward delight. At the moment, I am preoccupied with dreaming up adventurous plans for the year, sifting through a range of big, mountainous ideas. At this distance, these ideas seem wondrous and dreamlike; but experience has taught me that the daily reality will be different. The weight of the pack; the relative discomfort and the interrupted sleep; the grimy feeling of not showering for far too long; the loneliness that can accompany isolation. But, on the other hand, the joy of watching the sun set and rise in a wild, high place; the relief from the churn of social media and workaday pressure; the remarkable feeling of freedom you get from the simple act of walking every day; the elation of being reminded that the world is still, despite everything, full of wonder and wildness. The dialectic of suffering and reward in the outdoors can be a complicated, subjective business; but for me, at least, I rarely earn the latter without enduring at least a bit of the former.
In our February edition, we covered the most exciting treks and trails across the world. In this one, we’re staying on home shores, with an emphasis on walks that are likely to take you at least some way out of your comfort zone. On p30 of this issue, Hanna Lindon rounds up some of the UK’s most testing long-distance walks, whilst on p38, David Lintern tackles the Cape Wrath Trail and further unpacks what we mean when we talk about ‘tough’.
James Forrest’s winter journey along the Dales High Way (p50) is also liberally infused with suffering; although Mark Waring’s experience of hammock-hiking in Finland (p58) sounds positively enjoyable – dare I say it, even fun?