Far From PedestrianA rambling path: walking the line between civilization and wilderness.
Far From PedestrianA rambling path: walking the line between civilization and wilderness.
The verb “to saunter” originally referred to idle beggars “who roved about the country… under the pretext of going à la sainte terre”—to the Holy Land. Proposing this fanciful etymology in Walking, Henry David Thoreau connects hiking to pilgrimage. Like a pilgrimage, hiking may lead to significant destinations, but its value develops in passage over distance. The trail, the material underfoot and essential tokens we carry enlarge the experience, no matter where the path might lead.
The great pilgrimage routes of the Middle Ages, to Mecca, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela traversed long distances over difficult terrain. Pilgrims willingly put themselves at the mercy of the trail, accepting its hardships as essential to their pious exertion. Nevertheless, places of comfort ...