Never say 'go take a hike'Dec 22, 2010
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| In the summer of 1908, Albert W. Palmer, a vigorous young Congregationalist minister from Oakland, California, joined an extended large group “outing” in the southern Sierras. Among the perhaps 200 other participants in this epic month-long excursion was John Muir. To the reverend’s delight, the legendary mountain man unrolled his blanket just below Palmer’s own bed on their first night out, and the two began a warm friendship that was to last until the end of Muir’s life six years later. Palmer gleaned many insights and stories from his summers in the mountains, including the following narrative from that 1908 trip: "One day as I was resting in the shade Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone he meets. I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so? His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied, ‘I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’ Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter’ [he continued]? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers, or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.” (see source below) The essence of this quote attributed to the arch-Druid, John Muir, was told to Jane and me on Monday by our friend Ranger Mary Kay Manning. Mary Kay was 'escorting' us on a three-mile saunter (before she told us this, we had been on a three-mile hike) through a variety of habitats in one of the units of the Big Thicket National Preserve (Jasper & Hardin Counties, TX). At almost the beginning of the trail, we stopped, amazed at the sight of hundreds of Pitcher Plants and dispersed among them the small red rosettes about the size of a nickle (Jane says a quarter, so you probably should listen to her) that are a second species of carnivorous plants, Sundew Plants. We had seen Jack-in-the-Pulpits in Ohio forests but never a quarter acre of plants that eat bugs! Kneeling down, Mary Kay selected a dead Pitcher Plant dissecting it with her thumbnail so we could see the exoskeletons of a variety of insects, the digestible parts of which the plant had already consumed. Let me say parenthetically that I tried my best, long after the day had ended, to research the origin of the word 'saunter,' but from the best of my online efforts, I can find no dictionary reference to Muir's source for the word. No one but Muir seems to know of this source for the early root of 'saunter.' For that matter, I can find no source other than Palmer's for Muir's having ever said any such thing. Whether or not the great champion of the forest and natural wonders ever recommended sauntering to hiking, he certainly should have done so. Besides, the word 'saunter' is so much more interesting with 'Muir's' suggestion for its source than the indeterminate references of the dictionary editors. Along the trail, we stopped as though in a cathedral, in silence, amidst the majestic columns of a cypress slough where the unmolested cypress trees had sprouted knees that resembled a congregation of hobbits who had come outside just before a convivial gathering for 'elevensies,' the meal all hobbits enjoy between breakfast and a late lunch. I mention a bit before lunch because I was getting hungry, but we were not to pause for a bite of anything until we finished and continued our time together with a late lunch at 'Elijah's Cafe' in Woodville, TX. I'll have to admit, that with my arthritic left hip reminding me of my relationship with my grandfather Hervey every step of the way, and with Mary Kay's lithe athletic conditioning, I experienced our three miles as something of a sweat-absorbed accomplishment rather than a modest saunter. We did stop often enough that the pauses allowed our jaunt to be experienced as saunter and not just a hike. I've decided in retrospect, never again to take a hike. Instead, I'll saunter. That is to say, any walk I decide to take, in fact, just putting one foot in front of another day in and day out, I'll saunter. Life is so much more enjoyable and fulfilling when I encounter is as though 'A la sainte terre,' because Muir is correct. These pine forests, these live oak wetlands, these deserts, this cityscape, this village, this Mall is our Holy Land. Here we are for this brief time. Here we can make the most of the time we spend here. Wherever we are is resplendent with the possibility of meaningful encounter. Every trip to the Post Office, to the grocery, through the countryside, across the city,in the woods can be a pilgrimage with occasions along the way to visit the holy. All too many people hike across their lives unmindful, unthinking, arriving at wherever they set out to arrive, to be sure, but seldom recognizing where they are when they get there. Sauntering is much to be preferred. quote source: Albert W. Palmer, The Mountain Trail and It’s Message, 1997 edition, pp 41-42 |
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