Great read. I really enjoy transition season hiking and the opportunities for solitude in usually crowded places it can sometimes provide. Not to mention the beauty and magic of seeing a landscape change from one season to another. It’s always amazing how different a few hundred feet of elevation can make, or the aspect an area faces, and other factors that can create microclimates and have wildflowers blooming next to a drift of snow.
I really appreciated your summary of Leopold’s grades of recreation. I definitely find myself seeking solitude and scenery/fresh air, so I feel somewhat stuck in the middle. I feel like I got over the “trophy hunting” phase fairly quickly for some reason (although seeking alpine lakes with big trout probably puts me back in this category from time to time), but I’ve been wallowing in the middle grades for the better part of a decade.
I’m interested somewhat in nature study, but I don’t often put a lot of effort into it. Often I’d rather just observe it in a state of awe-struck ignorance than learn too much about the mechanics of how what I’m seeing exists.
The last grade (husbandry) is an interesting one. I sometimes do volunteer trail work (often just myself and a Silky saw, clearing downfall from official USFS trails so that their trail crews can focus on the bigger trees) and this year I started helping the USFS with wilderness campsite monitoring. Although it’s a bit less “hands-on” gathering information and documenting the impacts from campsites in wilderness over time does help make management decisions that might ultimately preserve the wild character of the landscape and its flora and fauna.
Thanks for writing this up and for the inspiration to reflect on those compelling themes.
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