by Roger Diamond
Why do you head for the hills? Where do you go? Who do you take along with you? What determines the answers to these and other questions? And perhaps most importantly, what situations leave you feeling most deeply satisfied?
I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains and other wild, natural places – deserts, forests, the coast. There are many factors determining how we go about these things – why we leave the comfort of home, and what we intend to gain from being out there. I believe there are a few absolutes, the reasons and means that are totally wrong or totally right, but by far, the things we do and the way we behave when out in the wilds are highly subjective. What is acceptable and desirable is largely a cultural construct. It is the result of our upbringing and exposure to places, people, and various forms of media. However, I think that, in spite of this subjective nature, there are still better ways of experiencing the great outdoors, and that these are often less popular, due to some powerful forces that condition us culturally.
Humans have, for the largest part of their existence as a species, spent their lives in relatively wild or natural settings. We are wired at the deepest possible level to navigate the natural environment, to observe other animals, plants and fungi, wind and waves, and make decisions based on this information. This is what we do to survive, and it gives us a solid sense of satisfaction. Shove a human being into a building, and they immediately gravitate to a window with a view, and most will pay millions to live in a place with a view of the natural world. The psychological need to be in wild places arises as you remove them from nature and put them in urban settings. It’s a rather strong coincidence that alpinism arose as cities in Europe accommodated populations approaching one million, and the centre of that desire was London, the world’s largest city at that time.
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