This week in my human geography class TLB was our guest speaker. Our discussion that day was about perceptions of wilderness and the reading for class was actually the same reading we had for our class, the Geography of the James. There were three ideologies regarding wilderness that were discussed in the reading. The frontiersmen are adventure-seekers and view the wilderness as something to be explored. The romantics see nature as sublime and should be left untouched. The “homebodies” believe wilderness is all around us and that it is present in every backyard, so there is no point in trying to seek it out. Since I was hearing about this topic in two of my classes, it got me thinking about which ideology I have about wilderness.
In TLB’s presentation, he showed some pictures from the fall break trip. Those pictures brought me back to the state of mind I was in while hiking Mount Mitchell. I had never hiked such a mountain and it was thrilling. I felt like I was connected to other hikers that had come that way before, and I felt connected to the other Earth Lodgers as we climbed the mountain together. But mentally I felt like I was the only person to hike that mountain and that I was exploring uncharted territory. By the time we got to the top, I had become used to the same, monotonous forward motion and the environment I was in. At the peak, looking around, I realized we were in a cloud. On one side, I could see some of the mountain down below, with the never-ending fall colors, but on the other side I could see nothing but fog. I realized that I had just hiked a mountain, and not just any mountain, but the tallest peak on the east coast. At that moment I felt a sense of awe, and it was an unreal experience.
I think that I have a combination of all three ideologies. I had a frontiersman mindset while I was hiking the mountain because I was caught up in the fact that I was on an adventure through the woods and that we had a destination we were trying to get to. I felt like a romantic as soon as we got to the top because the experience suddenly felt so surreal. However, I’m also in the “homebody” category. Although that experience was amazing, I still believe that there is “wilderness” in every tree and in every blade of grass, because humans cannot create that and cannot tell a tree how to grow.
