A round-the-clock media concept popularized back in the 1980s told us that perception is reality and it’s safe to say all these years later that the message was well received. In a short attention span culture sound bites gained new muscularity, images sold goods and people tended to take it all a little too seriously.
A round-the-clock media concept popularized back in the 1980s told us that perception is reality and it’s safe to say all these years later that the message was well received. In a short attention span culture sound bites gained new muscularity, images sold goods and people tended to take it all a little too seriously.
We used to think it was a good thing to make those kinds of gut judgments based on hunches and wishes but these days, after the invasion of Iraq that seemed to make sense to some, after a former respected speaker of the house is implicated in a scandal back in his high school wrestling coach days, and after Captain America Tom Brady is branded a cheater, we know perception can often be deception.
All of this came to mind last week while talking to hikers up at Volcanoes National Park. You see them lace up their boots, hoist the pack on their back and head off down a trail. Along the way they like to hit a certain pace, not too slow so it feels like loitering, not so fast it feels unsustainable. Somewhere in between there’s a pace that nudges you a bit, gets the heart rate going, causes perspiration on the brow and before you know it, you feel like you’re in the middle of a workout.
Why can’t we think of hiking as a sport?
“It is sport, it absolutely is,” said Heinz Guenther, an avid hiker from Munich, Germany who had just completed a three-hour hike and was taking a break near the Kilauea Iki Overlook last week. “It is sport-plus, I would say. Sport, because you challenge yourself, you get great exercise, but you also get this scenery, this beauty that world offers to us, as a bonus.
“It is,” Guenther said, “my favorite sport.”
Admittedly, Guenther probably isn’t like you or me. He hikes all over the world. He flew to the island specifically to hike some of the trails he researched months ago. He had already taken a 20-mile hike on Haleakala, along with some other Maui explorations, he did Southpoint and the green sand beaches on the Big Island before heading up to the volcano and he had two more days here before flying to Kauai where, “the Kalalau trail is calling me,” he said.
If you could have been there to meet Guenther, you would have walked away impressed at the sunny confidence of this athlete. In a world where they broadcast people playing cards on a sports network, hiking, when done by a certain kind of person, is unquestionably sport.
“Not so much for me,” said Dedrick Kon, outside the Kilauea Visitor’s Center with wife Jocelyn and 17-month old daughter Olivia (in the fancy pack on Dedrick’s back). They had come to the Big Island from Los Angeles for five days of exploration “I’m a competitive cyclist, so going on a hike isn’t quite the same, especially at the rate we travel.”
Fair enough. Basketball isn’t sport, either if you are by yourself lazily taking shots, walking after the rebound.
“I see it a little differently,” said Jocelyn. “This is a way for me to get the heart pumping and feel active, like I’m doing something good for myself.”
That’s how runners and swimmers and kayakers and surfers talk about their sports.
Also outside the Visitor’s Center were Coeur ‘d Alene, Idaho residents Rusty and Janet Robnett who also came to the Big Island to walk the trails, see the volcano, feel the history.
“It’s not fighting someone, or whatever but I do think of it as sports,” said Rusty, “because I’m sort of making myself compete. I want it to be enjoyable, but I want that sweat-on-the-forehead, accelerated breathing thing that you get and when you have that, while looking out at gorgeous scenery? Man, that’s a real sport.”
They try to go “at least a couple times a week,” whether home or on the road.
“It’s a discipline you put on yourself,” Janet Robnett said, “and each time we go it seems like you learn something about yourself and how you fit in to the world.”
It is the baseline of sport. Find something physically challenging you like to do and go do it. Can’t think of a better place to start than hiking and if you approach it like a sport, it will be one for you.
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