What is my mission?
Everything is moving faster these days. What about slowing everything down? How slow can you go?
After hiking the Colorado Trail starting a thru hike in 2008 and finishing in 2024, I noticed a lot of differences in the culture of the trail. When the time spent on the trail used to be time well spent outdoors, now it feels so much more like a race. We are taking the stress of the everyday world out onto the trail by making it connected and faster.
Most of this is due to smartphones:
- Using GPS which can speed things up
- People unable to be bored so hiking longer and faster than before
- FKTs and strava making hiking a competition
When we slow down we can change how healthy we are and change how we interact with the world.