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| Pasayten Wilderness in the North Cascades |
With the publication of Scottish Natural Heritage's Wild Land Map the question of what constitutes wild land or wilderness has come to the fore again. I understand that for the purpose of deciding which areas are worthy of conservation and protection lines on maps are needed but overall I think such designations are too limiting. Wilderness is more than just place. With this in mind here's another piece from the archives, written several years ago for TGO magazine, in which I look at the nature of wilderness.
Backpacking and wilderness go together. Backpacking is all
about venturing deep into wilderness and experiencing nature at its most
pristine and perfect. But what exactly is wilderness and how do you know when
you are there? The answers may seem obvious but legislators and
conservationists who have tried to define wilderness have found this
surprisingly hard. Generally the conclusion is that wilderness is land without
human habitations and little sign of human activity. In the USA there are
designated wilderness areas, deemed to fit the definition of the Wilderness
Act: “An area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by
man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”. As there is little
land “untrammelled by man” (and what a lovely word untrammelled is) in the UK we prefer to
talk about wild land rather than wilderness though the distinction is unclear.
According to the John Muir Trust wild land is “Uninhabited land containing
minimal evidence of human activity” while the National Trust for Scotland is
rather more expansive, saying "Wild Land in Scotland is
relatively remote and inaccessible, not noticeably affected by contemporary
human activity, and offers high-quality opportunities to escape from the pressures
of everyday living and to find physical and spiritual refreshment".
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| Designated wilderness sign in the North Cascades |
There is a problem with these definitions. They leave out
large areas of the UK
beloved by backpackers, including much of the Lake
District, Snowdonia, Peak District and Yorkshire Dales, not to
mention many coastal areas. Popular long distance paths like the Pennine Way, West Highland
Way, Offa’s Dyke and Cleveland Way
don’t run through much wild land by these criteria either. Yet surely they do.
The land in these national parks and along these trails doesn’t feel tame,
which it must be if not wild. But feelings don’t come into official
designations. Camp high on Cross Fell on the Pennine Way on a night of storm
and wind, with the clouds racing across the moon and heavy showers hammering on
the tent, as I have, and tell me this is not a wild place.
Many years ago I came up with my own explanation of
wilderness: “If there is enough land to walk into, enough room to set up a camp
and then walk on with that freedom that comes when you escape the constraints
of modern living, then it is wilderness, in spirit if not by definition”. For
backpackers I think this still holds. Trying to classify wilderness precisely
doesn’t work, as it shouldn’t. The wild cannot be contained, defined and corralled
into a neat box. If it could it wouldn’t be wild. As well as having a physical
reality wilderness is also an idea, a feeling, a set of concepts that come
together to shout “this is wild”. This idea is especially important in the UK and Western Europe where we do not have the
huge areas of pristine land found in the Americas. Yet we do have many
pockets of wildness that fit my description, places where you can feel you are
far from civilisation even if it lies only a few miles away.
Camped deep in a wood with the only sounds those of wild
life and the wind in the trees and you are in the wilds despite the nearby
roads and villages. Climb into the Lakeland
fells to camp by a high tarn and you are in a wild place though you could be
back down in the pub in a few hours. The distance doesn’t matter; it’s the
situation that says where you are. Strolling country lanes to camp on a crowded
roadside campsite only touches the edge of the wild. Walk just a few miles on
and camp in solitude beside a hill stream and you are part of it. In distance
and time you are almost in the same place. In feeling and experience you are in
a different world. I realised this when I camped in the Grand
Canyon on the Arizona Trail. I was crossing the Canyon on the
popular trails, which are spectacular but crowded and with strict regulations
about where you can camp. I had planned on camping at the Bright Angel
Campground at the bottom of the Canyon, a lovely but organised, safe, and tame
campground with picnic tables, neatly laid out tent sites, toilets and fees. However
the site was full so I followed a ranger’s suggestion and walked a few miles
away from the campground along the Clear Creek Trail to an area where I could
camp wild. Leaving the somewhat tempting lights of the campground and nearby
Phantom Ranch with its bar and restaurant I followed the narrow winding trail
below great cliffs as darkness fell. The instant the lights of Phantom Ranch
vanished I felt back in wild country. Camp was on a flat stony platform just
off the trail, where I simply threw down my foam pad and sleeping bag. The
walls of the canyon rose above me, a hard blackness darker than the soft black
of the sky, in which a myriad stars sparkled. There no lights, no sounds, no
sign of people. Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campground were just a few hours
away but no longer existed in my mind. For this night the Grand
Canyon felt it belonged to me. At dawn I woke to the sun slowly
lighting the colourful cliffs as the Canyon came back to life. I lay and
watched the light and the glory return and felt incredibly grateful to be there
rather than at Phantom Ranch. It was the finest camp site of the whole walk. Similar
feelings of excitement, wonder and wildness can be found all over Britain by
walking that little bit further away from bright lights and warm indoor
cosiness.
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| Wilderness? Camp near home after a heavy snowfall |
Once wilderness is seen as a feeling and a concept, an ideal
perhaps, then various factors can change how wild a place seems. The weather
and the time of year are significant here. A storm adds wildness to any place,
as I found on Cross Fell, while winter changes the nature of the land. Under
snow tame domesticated land can become like the Arctic.
Last February, after exceptionally heavy snow, I set out from my front door and
camped not far away on a rounded undistinguished hill, exploited for grouse
shooting with heather burning and shooting butts. I could almost see my house
from the summit. But all around spread a white wilderness, almost every sign of
humanity hidden by the snow. It looked wild, it felt wild, it was wild. There
are many such places that are transformed by storm or winter into wilder places
that echo with what they once were. And many more that feel wild under blue
skies and warm sun. Seeking them out is a large part of the joy of backpacking.
