Warning: woman hiking alone

Getting out into nature has always been an important part of my mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It's where I go to disconnect from my day-to-day life and re-connect with those parts of me that I hold dear. Hiking and backpacking are spiritual pursuits for me, my version of a "walk-about" or a vision quest. I learn a lot about myself while I'm pushing my body, paying attention to my senses and how they process information about the world around me. I've made important decisions about my life. I've contemplated my own humanity. I've come face-to-face with my mortality.

Because hiking is such an intensely meditative activity, I tend to do most of it alone. Conversation is distracting. The physical comfort and needs of others pull me out of myself. When I hike (or camp) locally, solo walks are fine. Folks are used to encountering someone alone. They smile, nod, move on. Hiking alone in more remote wildernesses, however, elicits strange responses from others on the trail.

I first noticed it while hiking in North Dakota's Badlands. I was exploring some of the shorter, more popular trails, and I came upon a family taking turns photographing one another. I asked if they wanted me to take a photo so they could all be in the picture together. They happily handed me the camera, and when I'd snapped the shot, the woman looked behind me asked me where my friends were.

"Oh," I told her, "I'm traveling alone."

"Oh. Couldn't anyone come with you?" she asked, clucking with solicitous concern.

"Oh, it's not that," I responded. "I didn't invite anyone to come with me."

Her smile froze in an odd expression. The rest of the family's eyes widened a little, their faces reflecting a sort of...what? Suspicion? Revulsion? And they all hurried off, glancing behind them as though they thought I might follow them. And eat them.

At Wind Cave, I joined a group tour consisting of two small families and one or two couples. One of the moms asked me if I couldn't get any of my friends to come on the tour with me. I explained that I was traveling alone. This time, instead of moving away from me as though I might infect them with my aloneness, the family "adopted" me for the duration of the tour, including me in their conversations, pointing out interesting rock formations, watching over me as though I were a lost lamb. It was sweet, but when they invited me to their campsite for dinner, I politely declined. I waved and turned my back on their murmurs of concern for my safety and well-being.

Time after time, as I hiked the Badlands and Black Hills, visited the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore, or just sat at a diner and ate between camps, I was either mothered or shunned. And I found it occurring on other wilderness trips. It also happened in cities. In restaurants, I would often suffer the attentions of "helpful" wait-staff who would seat me with other people or would bring other people to my table to sit with me so I "wouldn't have to eat alone."

Why? I wondered.

I noticed over time that it was not the same with solitary men I met on the trail. No one asked them why they were alone. No one worried or fretted over them. No one avoided them as though they were somehow dangerous. They were left to themselves or greeted politely with a little chit-chat about the condition of the trail or sights to see, then released back into their peaceful solitude.

Interesting.

Was a woman traveling alone somehow suspect? Did people consider me mad? Deranged? Antisocial? Did my perceived boldness imply that I was possibly dangerous?

On the other hand, was my solitude mistaken for loneliness? Was I seen friendless? Foresaken? Was I in need of social distraction? Was I someone to be pitied?

And if so, why? How could it be, in this day and age, that a woman couldn't enjoy her own company without people's taking special note of it? I know that women are generally social creatures -- connection is important to us -- but don't we all need to be by ourselves sometimes? And so what if some of us choose to hike, camp, kayak, or eat at a restaurant without companionship? Do people still believe we ought to travel in groups? Or -- worse still -- in the protective company of men?

I've never gotten answers. But I know I'm not *alone* in my experience.

While in the Badlands, I met another solitary woman, hiking up the way I'd just come. We made eye contact and stopped to chat a little. I asked if she was traveling alone. She flinched.

"Are you getting strange reactions from people when you tell them you're alone?" I asked.

She sighed and smiled wearily. "Yeah. It's like I'm diseased or crazy or something."

"It's almost worse when they try to adopt me into their families," I groaned.

"I know what you mean," the woman nodded, chuckling. "There's a reason I chose to be out here alone."

I nodded silent agreement, and we stood lost for a moment in our thoughts. Then we traded quiet words of farewell and parted ways.

Contentedly alone again.