Before I met my best friend, she had never been camping and was adamant that she was not an “outdoorsy” person. I was. And I am. Mostly because I had the privilege of growing up on an abundance of forested acres, parents who had the ability and time to take me camping as a child and access to some really great classes, resources, and people in college. We met at an environmental education job and ended up living together in the staff housing. She immediately decided we were going to be best friends and I decided that I was going to drag her on all of my outdoor excursions.
Fast forward two years later. This friend purchased one sleeping bag, one sleeping pad, a backpack and some cookware and we were out on a one-month road trip largely through National Parks and other outdoor lands where most nights were spent in a tent. I dragged her miles down trails, up hills, around glaciers, and through grizzly bear country. She had been camping all of two nights before that trip. Luckily, she immediately took to it and has joined the ranks of people who can say and truly mean that they miss sleeping on the ground outside.
Introducing someone to the outdoors, like introducing someone to anything you love, is both a rewarding and somewhat self-serving endeavor. Scientists and writers alike have waxed lyrical about the benefits of being outdoors, but pulling people into any outdoor activity also guarantees you more options when it comes time to look for an adventure buddy. In my mind that can only be a good thing. When doing outdoorsy things with newbies, you also selfishly get to indoctrinate them to your quirks and preferences. I consider it a win-win situation.
Fast forward three more years to today. We haven’t lived in the same space for about a year and a half now, but she still occasionally tells me a story where she realizes that she is now the outdoorsy friend. After her initial orientation, she, like many, fell in love with the outdoors, hiking, and camping. However, the thing about being labeled as someone who is outdoorsy is that it is all relative. If you are talking to someone who has spent their entire life in the city and has no experience in the woods, then someone who occasionally takes short hikes in the woods and spends time outside would be considered outdoorsy. When you enter the world of outdoorsy people you soon realize there is a spectrum and in some circles, unfortunately a hierarchy.
Recently I renewed a wilderness medicine certification. I consider myself fairly well-versed in the outdoors. I have hiked in all sorts of terrains all over the country, spent months living in a tent, and have participated in many other outdoor-based sports and activities. However, in that room I was all of a sudden a novice again. The rest of the class consisted of avid kayakers and rock climbers, both of which I have not done for a while now and I only ever participated in recreationally at a beginner level anyway. Luckily, I have a lot of exposure to the outdoor world so I could still understand what they were talking about, but it made me wonder, if I was feeling a little left out, then what would someone who had never heard of the grading system to measure difficulty of a climbing route or what they meant when they kept talking about trad climbing think? How welcome does anyone feel in the room when it sounds like everyone else is speaking another language?
Outdoors sports and gear have their own terminology just like any other sport, hobby, or even job. Coming into a new setting where everyone around you seems to know what is happening can be intimidating and overwhelming, but unlike most new jobs, not everyone is guaranteed some kind of orientation. If you want to learn to backpack, canoe, or rock climb, you need to seek out a place with the resources, find the equipment, and find that community or person to take you whether through an online group, a gear store, or through a friend of a friend. You have to put in the time and effort to get started.
However, we as the outdoors enthusiasts have to remember that we are the other end of that contract. We need to take a step back to mentor someone who is new to the outside, explain the terms and the gear, and not make fun of them when they honestly have no idea what the rest of the group has been talking about for the last fifteen minutes. Welcoming someone into this world of risk and reward can also involve some effort. You become the teacher and sometimes that means hanging back and going a little easier than you all usually would with an experienced group. However, it also means you have one more outdoorsy friend to ask when you want to go on that last minute adventure, and hey, isn’t a little more adventure what most every outdoorsy person wants?
Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are still open from dawn to dusk as is Liberty, the Bald Eagle. The Nature Center is partially open, including restrooms, the Blue Heron Gift Shop, and some exhibits. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345.
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